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Mai in Leave Taking — character analysis

Leave Taking · Winsome Pinnock · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — Modern texts option; not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. The obeah woman who heals the family she was paid to advise

Mai is an obeah woman, a practitioner of a Caribbean tradition of healing, divination and advice, who came to England from Jamaica like Enid and Brod. Five of the play's eight scenes take place in her bedsit. Enid consults her three times: about Del and her sister in Scene One, about her grief and her lost daughter in Scene Six, and in Scene Eight, when she finds Del there instead. Mai sees through people quickly: she catches Del stealing a charm, advises Enid to send her sister the money whatever the truth, and lets Del, who mocked her, come to live with her. She has a son, born in England, who is estranged from her and never felt at home here. She has a serious heart condition that she avoids facing. In the last scene she tests Del, gives her the notebook of everything she knows and leaves her to see the next client, so the tradition passes to the next generation.

Build your reading of Mai in Leave Taking, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this study carries all three.

How Mai develops

The reader of people

Mai's power in the play is less magic than attention. In Scene One she listens to Enid's worries about Del and about her sister in Jamaica, and her advice is practical: send the money. She notices everything, including the charm disappearing into Del's pocket.

Key moment. Mai offering to be someone Del can talk to, and Del turning her down (Scene One). Mai makes the first move towards Del while Del is still mocking her. The refused offer becomes the shape of the whole play: Del will come back to it.

When Enid's mother dies at the end of Scene Three, Mai's advice about the money takes on a terrible weight. The audience learns to trust Mai's reading of people even when the characters do not.

A refuge for the family

Mai's bedsit becomes the place where the family can say what it cannot say at home. Del lives there, pregnant, from Scene Five; Enid brings her grief there in Scene Six; Brod sleeps off his drinking there in Scene Seven.

Key moment. Mai suggesting a doctor to the grieving Enid, and Enid refusing because no doctor could understand what a Black woman like her is suffering (Scene Six). Enid trusts Mai with what she will not trust to English institutions. The bedsit is a space where her Jamaican self is understood.

Mai talks of her own son, born in England, who never felt at home there and who is estranged from her. She is a mother who has lost her child to the same dislocation that threatens Enid's family, which gives weight to her care for Del.

Passing it on

In Scene Seven Mai recognises that Del has the gift. In Scene Eight she tests her, and Del, reading Mai, senses that her heart is failing and tells her to see a doctor. Mai will not discuss it.

Key moment. Mai giving Del her notebook of everything she knows and leaving her alone to see the next client (Scene Eight). Mai hands on her knowledge as her own life runs out. The obeah tradition, which Del scorned in Scene One, now has an heir, and the first client to arrive is the person Del most needs to understand.

How Pinnock builds Mai on stage

Mai speaks with the authority of someone who sees through people, and she often answers with an action, like an open hand.

Her bedsit is the play's main setting, so she is present in five of the eight scenes, the still point of the family's storms.

Structurally she exits the action in Scene Eight, leaving Del to take her place, so her departure makes Del's arrival.

Mai in context

Obeah is a Caribbean tradition of healing and advice, and Mai keeps it alive in a London bedsit.

Her estranged son, born in England and never at home there, shows the dislocation of the second generation.

Relationships

  • Enid — Her client and fellow migrant, who trusts her more than doctors or pastors.
  • Del — The scornful girl she takes in, trains and makes her successor.
  • Her son — Estranged, born in England, never at home there: the loss that shadows her care for Del.
  • Brod — A fellow Jamaican who ends up sleeping in her bedsit after Enid throws him out.

What Mai stands for

  • The charm: what Mai sees Del wanting before Del knows it.
  • The notebook: knowledge passed on outside books and schools.
  • Her failing heart: an older generation running out of time to hand on what it knows.

Why Pinnock made Mai

  • To present obeah as a source of healing and wisdom rather than superstition.
  • To show the community, not only the family, guiding the younger generation.
  • To give the play a still centre where secrets can be spoken.

Readings you could defend

More than one reading of Mai can win the debate. These are the credible alternatives — argue one, and know the others.

  • A healer whose real gift is listening, not magic.
  • A substitute mother for Del, and a mirror for Enid, who has also nearly lost a child.
  • The keeper of a tradition that survives only if the young choose it.

Essay arguments

  • Pinnock makes Mai's bedsit the play's true home: the place where every member of the family eventually says what they could not say elsewhere.
  • Mai's healing works through attention and honesty, so the play treats obeah as wisdom rather than superstition.
  • Mai's estranged son explains her care for Del: she gives another mother's daughter what she could not give her own child.

Mai in theme essays

  • Identity: obeah as a living connection to the Caribbean.
  • Generations: the notebook handed to Del.
  • Education: a kind of learning the school never offered Del.

Questions that get asked

  • How does Pinnock use the character of Mai in Leave Taking?
  • How does Pinnock present Mai's influence on Del?

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of Mai in Leave Taking to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  2. Defend it — Hold your reading of Mai in Leave Taking against the writer in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
  3. Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.

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