Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

Mamma Gokey, Miss Wilcox

Mamma isn't alive in the novel, but she's present nonetheless. Mattie turns to her memories of her mother during especially difficult times in the book—when she is trying to figure out if Royal loves her is a prime example. But Mamma's ghost doesn't have all the answers for Mattie, and instead our intrepid heroine must turn to a living mentor, Miss Wilcox.

If Mamma guides Mattie's duties at home, Miss Wilcox guides Mattie's dreams of something more for her life than Eagle Bay. In fact, these two mentors kind of represent the two sides of Mattie: her desire to fulfill the domestic role of womanhood and family, and her desire to become a writer and seek her fortune away from everything she's previously known.