Postcolonial writers have consistently challenged the authority and superiority of the so-called `Grand Narratives' of the canon. This has resulted in a spurt of writings that focus on re-visioning and re-living the themes once paramount among the writers of the canon. This paper highlights one such approach adopted by Gloria Naylor, a very pronounced name in the contemporary African-American Literature, in her novel Mama Day. By revising the story of Shakespeare'sThe Tempest and replacing the male-centered approach of Shakespeare, Naylor has given a different orientation to the whole story. Rather than celebrating the male and white superiority with Prospero at the center, she aligns herself with the marginalized, the underprivileged, and the underdogs. Naylor's Mama Day, who is female, black, and culturally marginalized, is at the center and reinterprets the mainstream American ways. The mainland American folks, represented by George, are unable to see the cultural and spiritual aspects of the island. Miranda tries to define the cultural practices, which George consistently refuses to accept, as he is a cultural orphan. He is deaf to the cultural calls of his own blood. He comes to understand them only at the end when he has already lost Cocoa, his wife. Thus, Naylor'sMama Day questions Shakespeare's The Tempest on several counts by proving that the island inhabited by blacks has a culture and a way of life of its own, which is quite contrary to the interpretation of island by Prospero.

Postcolonialism brought a new consciousness among the writers of the colonized nations. With their new found questioning spirit, they started to question the validity of existing interpretations of texts, especially those by the writers of European canon. Gloria Naylor, a writer of the African-American descent, has been one of the frontrunners among these writers. Her novel, Mama Day, has been hailed as one of the most powerful manifestations of the spirit of resistance and rebellion against the European modes of interpretation of the `orient,' the inferior other.

Colonizers manifested their supremacy in two ways: first, as `domination by force,' and second, as intellectual and moral leadership. The latter was a cultural dominance. They represented Africans and Orientals as exotic and inferior others, and dinned the superiority of European culture into their psyche by projecting their dehumanized state in European literature. Literature was made central to the cultural enterprise of empire as the monarchy was to its political formation. To quote Elleke Boehmer, "Colonial Literature in its exploratory and expansionist phase proclaimed cultural superiority and righteousness" (Boehmer, 2005). Thus, natives started accepting the myth of their intellectual, social, cultural, religious, and even physical inferiority. Shakespeare's The Tempest clearly shows the intentions of the Europeans and anticipates the colonial paradigm. Prospero is the symbol of all European colonizers and Caliban is that of the colonized.

The consciousness of the national culture and literature, after the departure of imperial power, led the native writers of third world to write back to the center in order to restore and redefine their stereotyped image projected in the European literature. They literally became the Calibans: "You taught me language: and my profit on't I know how to curse: the red plague rid you for learning me your language" (The Tempest, I, ii, 263).

American Literature Journal, Grand Narratives, Colonial Literature, Physical Inferiority, Imperial Power, Cultural Identity, Cultural Autonomy, Cultural Identity, Cosmic Structure, Emotional Connections, Savage Vengeance, Magical Power, Social Norms, Fundamental Betrayals.