Fight for Freedom in Toni Morrison's The Song of Solomon
"The scream that boomed down the cave tunnel and woke the bats came just when Macon thought that he had taken his last living breath. The bleeding man turned toward the direction of the scream and looked at the colored girl long enough for Macon to pull out his knife and bring it down the old man's back. He crashed forward, then turned his head to look at them. His mouth moved and he mumbles something that sounds like 'What for?' Macon stabbed him again and again until he stopped moving his mouth, stop trying to talk and stopped jumping and twitching on the ground" (pg. 171). This is an excerpt for the novel The Song of Solomon (1987), by Toni Morrison. Macon one of the main characters, only a child at the time, kills a man whom he thinks is threatening him and his sister's, Pilate, life. After killing the man the two children travel to the man's camp where they discover three bags of gold. Macon also sees, " the dusty boots of his farther" (pg 170). Becoming alarmed, Pilate says, "It is Papa!". To her cry a voice whispers 'sing, sing'. Macon greedily packs up the gold while Pilate searchers frantically for their farther. After a terrible fight the two separate. Ironically years later they end up living in the same small Michigan town. Macon and Pilate hate and their family secret all the while still grows in differnt directions. Macon moves on with his life and marries Ruth. The couple have three children, Lean, First Corinthians, and Macon who receives the nickname of Milkman.
Milkman being interested in Pilate granddaughter, spends a great deal of his childhood at Pilate's house--despite his fathers disapproval. After living at home for the past thirty years Milkman becomes swamped with his family secret. His farther claims that Pilate stole the gold from the man his killed camp sight. And Pilate claims the bag of her 'inheritance' only to be bones. Becoming frustrated, Milkman sets out to find the truth of his family fude. Toni Morrison's mystery novel keeps the readers curiosity,as she write her storyline about the lifestyle of a black society in the 1980's. Within this black society, the people are pursuing their freedom. Toni theme of her novel is freedom, and each character can only obtain their freedom by one of two paths.
In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the character of Milkman gradually learns to respect and to listen to women. This essay will examine Milkman's transformation from boy to man.
Macon, perhaps instigated by never having a mother and seeing his own father killed, has always appeared to be a cold and unforgiving parent even to his other children besides Milkman, but since Macon heard that his son¹s nickname was ³Milkman² he has seen him as a symbol of his disgust for his wife and lost a lot of respect for his son and became even colder towards him. The only time Macon did spend time with Milkman, he spent it boasting about his own great upbringing, warning him to stay away from Pilate and telling him about the embarrassing actions of Ruth. This is the manner in which Morrison establishes the relationship between Macon and Milkman in the first part of the book.
Breaking Metaphoric Shackles in Beloved In Toni Morrison's novels, she uses her main characters to represent herself as an African American artist, and her stories as African American art, and Beloved is no exception. She does this through her underlying symbolic references to the destructiveness of slavery and the connections between the characters themselves. Syntax is also what makes this novel work, using both the powers and limits of language to represent her African American culture with simple words and name choices. One of her main characters, Baby Suggs, uses her English with some abandon, but only after getting her message across, however simple it may seem. She might choose simplicity over complexity in speech, but her words carry the needed intensity to express herself in the little time she has left on earth (Dahill-Baue, 472-73).
The topic of slavery in the United States has always been controversial, as many people living in the South were supportive of it and many people living in the North were against it. Even though it was abolished by the Civil War before the start of the 20th century, there are still different views on the subject today. Written in 1853, the book Twelve Years a Slave is a first person account of what it was like for Solomon Northup to be taken captive from his free life in the North and sold to a plantation as a slave in the South, and his struggle to regain his freedom. Through writing about themes of namelessness, inhumanity, suffering, distrust, defiance, and the desire for freedom, Northup was able to expose the experiences and realities of slavery.
Morrison’s descriptions of Cholly Breedlove’s past creates justification for his evil persona. Throughout the story, Cholly represents a broken man, who involves himself in many inappropriate events. His abuse towards his wife and children, as well as the incidents of rape, gives the reader the idea than an underlying cause is beneath the surface. Such events are revealed in Cholly’s life, including the abandonment from his mother, the death of his great aunt, humiliation by two white men, and the lack of growing up with a father figure. Soon after his birth, Cholly’s mother deserted him on a trash heap and his Aunt Jimmy rescues him. Growing up and not knowing his biological mother le...
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Perennial, 2002.
...by preventing access to potential places of employment and to positive network influences. Therefore, to solve the growing problem of jobless poverty the government should look towards developing mixed-use developments without strict zoning laws and increasing the public transportation infrastructures in cities.
... 1998: 45-47. Gray, Kenneth. "The baccalaureate game: Is it right for all teens?" Phi Delta Kappa Apr. 1996: 528+. McEachern, William A. "The Max for the Minimum." The teaching economist. Issue 15. Spring 1998. Nelson, F. Howard. "How and How Much the U.S. Spends On K-12 Education: An International Comparison." Mar. 1996: n. pag. Online. Internet. 9 Mar.1998. Available http://www.aft.org/research/reports/interntl/sba.htm. Ravitch, Diane. "50 states, 50 standards?: The continuing need for national voluntary standards in education." The Brookings Review Summer 1996: 6+. Rehder, Robert R. "Education and Training: Have the Japanese Beaten Us Again?" Personnel Journal Jan. 1983: 42. Russel, Cheryl. "What's wrong with schools?" American Demographics Sep. 1996: 4+. Sinitsyn, Maxim I. "The Results of a Test." msinits@siue.edu (30 Mar. 1998). Smith, Greg. "How to beat the SAT/ACT blues" Career World Nov. 1995: 13+. Sternberg, Robert J. "Extra Credit for Doing Poorly." New York Times 25 Aug. 1997, late ed.: sec.A: 23. "Strengths and weaknesses of American education." Phi Delta Kappa Apr. 19
Americans strive toward having the best education system in the world. There are even lists published each year naming the best and worst schools in the country. The flaws in the education system become unveiled upon a close inspection of the nation’s worst schools. The natural competitiveness of Americans pushes the culture into attempting to fix any flaws through the agenda of education reform. Education reform is currently a hot-button issue, with an exponential number of proposed solutions. One particular solution to America’s education crisis is the proposal of equally funded schools.
Mock, Michelle. “Spitting out the Seed: Ownership if Mother, Child, Breasts, Milk, and Voice in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” College Literature, Vol. 23, No.3 (Oct, 1996): 117-126. JSTOR. Web. 27. Oct. 2015.
Toni Morrison’s Beloved depicts the complicated mother-daughter relationship between Sethe and her daughter Denver, as Sethe constantly lives in the past and Denver is ignored. Unfortunately, Denver must grow up on her own without the help from her mother who is consumed with her past and the new addition to their household, Beloved. Found on the side of the road, Beloved had won over Sethe’s attention and affection. “Sethe was flattered by Beloved’s open, quiet devotion.” But Sethe had different expectations for her daughter because “the same adoration from her daughter would have annoyed her; made her chill at the thought of having raised a ridiculously dependent child.” (Morrison, 68) Immediately it is seen that Sethe has higher expectations and aspirations for her daughter, but she does not go about conveying these aspirations and expectations in the right way. Already l...
Substance abuse is defined as the dependence on an addictive substance (University of Rochester Medical Center, 2014). The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that 8.7 percent of Americans older than 12 years of age are addicted to some type of addictive substance (Caron, 2009). Substance abuse doesn’t pertain to a certain person or group; it can range from any age, race, gender, or social class. Several people believe that substance abuse is easy to overcome, when in fact for many substance abusers it is a disease that is hard to cure which could lead into a greater issue, such as addiction. There are steps that someone abusing a substance will go through before becoming addic...
Despite the push for education reform some thirty years ago, the American public education system has still not made adequate progress. The issue of education reform is a very complex issue with many di...
In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, readers are treated to the inner-workings of race, gender, and culture as the story is strung together by Morrison’s crafty usage of imagery and language. When the reader is first introduced to the characters that inhabit the bottom, intricate relationships that form an edgy dynamic makes the reader aware of the complexities that lie under the surface. Morrison soon focuses on the nature of motherhood and the ways in which the circumstances in a mother’s life impacts their abilities to conform to the archetype of a good mother. Morrison paints motherhood to be multi-faceted and, at times, heavily convoluted. Through her portrayals of Eva and Helene women and their inclinations to be mothers are shown in ways that
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: the Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: HarperCollins, 2005