Bonding People Through Storytelling: Community, Humor and the Porch in Gloria Naylor’s "Mama Day"

The present article will examine the African American porch as the nexus of the community and the stage upon which the Black oral tradition becomes art and people, active participants in the recreation of communal ties. We will cast an in-depth look at the porch actors and their performance as depicted in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day. The analysis of the porch as an intermediary site opens with a discussion of the origins of this piece of Americana and its crucial cultural function, especially for the African American communities located in the southeastern part of the United States. Several other distinctive attributes of the porch will be identified, all linked to and representative of the community. Ultimately, this article highlights the paramount role of storytelling as a unifying force for a community, through the prism of Naylor’s novel, deemed as a faithful rendition of the Black Southern cultural expression.