Understanding Mama Day through “M’Dear”

ABSTRACT Gloria Naylor composed a three-act teleplay in 1985 that remains unpublished. This teleplay, titled “M’Dear,” which is included in Naylor’s archive, provides critical insight into her political ideology regarding Black folk practices. The archive includes a treatment for the teleplay, several drafts of the work, notes and comments, as well as contracts written for a television performance. Her notes signal a political agenda to counter reductive interpretations of Black folk practitioners. In Mama Day, Naylor expands the world created in “M’Dear” through the character of Miranda Day. Mama Day is arguably Naylor’s most popular text and has spawned a dynamic critical discussion concerning Black folk practices and the conjure tradition. Missing from the critical discussion of conjure in Mama Day is the literary connection between “M’Dear” and Mama Day. This article argues that to fully understand the political implications of conjure within Mama Day, readers should read the character of M’Dear as an initial iteration of Mama Day.