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Literature and identity
Essay themes for flight by sherman alexie
Essay themes for flight by sherman alexie
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In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, names and identity play a very big role for the characters, for nearly every character’s name is related to who they are. For most of the novel the audience follows Macon “Milkman” Dead III through his coming of age and his quest to find out his true identity. Throughout the novel he pieces together his family history and ultimately ends up accepting who he is and appreciating his heritage. Through him, the audience sees what life is like for African-Americans during the time between World War II and the Civil Rights Movement. Although he is a protagonist of the novel, he is not the only one. His aunt, Pilate Dead, can also be considered a protagonist. In the story, she got her name when her father picked …show more content…
Throughout the novel, the idea of flight is a major thematic subject; the book opens with the flight of Robert Smith and closes with the flight of Milkman, and Milkman’s heritage is centered on his great-grandfather Solomon’s flight. Morrison demonstrates there are multiple ways to “fly” throughout the book. There is the harmful flight of Robert Smith, who said he would “take off from Mercy and flay away on [his] own wings” (3), and Solomon, who, according to the myths of those in Shalimar, “flew…like a bird...and went right on back to wherever it was he came from” (323). This type of flight is shown to be a negative form of flight, for Robert Smith flies (commits suicide) in order to escape his troubles, and Solomon flies in order to escape slavery, and leaves behind his wife, who becomes overcome with grief and goes insane, and twenty-one kids. Milkman also goes through this type of flight when he goes to Pennsylvania and Virginia to find the gold and eventually his history; because of this Hagar dies: “He had left her. While he dreamt of flying, Hagar was dying” (332). In stark contrast, Pilate is, according to Milkman, “without ever leaving the ground, she could fly” (336). This is demonstrated multiple times through Pilate’s actions. Thus, because she can fly in such a manner, Pilate is able to be a benevolent person to all. She is be free partially because, like Milkman did at the end of the book, she accepted who she was despite the fact that she was alienated for having no navel and faced racism like other blacks at the time. In the first part of the book, Pilate can be seen in stark contrast to Milkman, because he seems spiritually dead while she is not; he uses Hagar until he does not want her anymore, but later on in the book Milkman helps others
In the first part of the novel, Milkman is his father's son, a child taught to ignore the wisdom of women. Even when he is 31, he still needs "both his father and his aunt to get him off" the scrapes he gets into. Milkman considers himself Macon, Jr., calling himself by that name, and believing that he cannot act independently (120). The first lesson his father teaches him is that ownership is everything, and that women's knowledge (specifically, Pilate's knowledge) is not useful "in this world" (55). He is blind to the Pilate's wisdom. When Pilate tell Reba's lover that women's love is to be respected, he learns nothing (94).
The book called Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, deals with many real life issues, most of which are illustrated by the relationships between different family members.
The idea of complete independence and indifference to the surrounding world, symbolized by flying, stands as a prominent concept throughout Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon. However, the main character Milkman feels that this freedom lies beyond his reach; he cannot escape the demands of his family and feel fulfilled at the same time. As Milkman's best friend Guitar says through the novel, "Everybody wants a black man's life," a statement Milkman easily relates to while seeking escape from his sheltered life at home. Although none of the characters in the story successfully take control of Milkman's life and future, many make aggressive attempts to do so including his best friend Guitar who, ironically, sympathizes with Milkman's situation, his frustrated cousin Hagar, and most markedly his father, Macon Dead.
Black males, in Morrison, fly only metaphorically, and then only with the assistance and the inspiration of black women. According to Baker, in his aptly titled "When Lindbergh Sleeps with Bessie Smith," "flight is a function of black woman's conjure and not black male industrial initiative" (105). . Song of Solomon opens with the image of attempted flight, as Robert Smith, ironically an agent of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance company, promises to "take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings" (3). Pilate (Pilot).... ... middle of paper ...
In Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, men discover themselves through flight. While the motif of flight is liberating for men, it has negative consequences for women. Commonly, the women of Song of Solomon are abandoned by men, both physically and emotionally. Many times they suffer as a result as an abandonment, but there are exceptions in which women can pick themselves up or are undisturbed. Morrison explores in Song of Solomon the abandonment of women by men.
When an emotion is believed to embody all that brings bliss, serenity, effervescence, and even benevolence, although one may believe its encompassing nature to allow for generalizations and existence virtually everywhere, surprisingly, directly outside the area love covers lies the very antithesis of love: hate, which in all its forms, has the potential to bring pain and destruction. Is it not for this very reason, this confusion, that suicide bombings and other acts of violence and devastation are committed in the name of love? In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the reader experiences this tenuity that is the line separating love and hate in many different forms and on many different levelsto the extent that the line between the two begins to blur and become indistinguishable. Seen through Ruth's incestuous love, Milkman and Hagar's relationship, and Guitar's love for African-Americans, if love causes destruction, that emotion is not true love; in essence, such destructive qualities of "love" only transpire when the illusion of love is discovered and reality characterizes the emotion to be a parasite of love, such as obsession or infatuation, something that resembles love but merely inflicts pain on the lover.
Morrison shows readers a side of American History rarely seen. She shows the deepness of prejudice and how many different ways it has effected people. While she does this she also tells a story of soul searching, Milkman tries to find himself among many people who are confused and ate up by hate and prejudice. In the end, he is able to find who he is and where he stands on all of the issues that are going on around him. When he gets this understanding Milkman retrieves, and achieves his childhood dream of flying.
When one is confronted with a problem, we find a solution easily, but when a society is confronted with a problem, the solution tends to prolong itself. One major issue that is often discussed in today’s society that has been here for as long as we’ve known it, is racism. Racism is also a very repetitive theme in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Almost every character has experienced racism whether it be towards them or they are the ones giving the racism in this novel. Racism is a very controversial topic as many have different perspectives of it. In Toni’s novel, three characters that have very distinct perspectives on racism are Macon Dead, Guitar, and Dr. Foster. These characters play vital roles throughout the novel.
Freedom is heavily sought after and symbolized by flight with prominent themes of materialism, classism, and racism throughout Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon. The characters Milkman and Macon Dead represent these themes as Macon raises Milkman based on his own belief that ownership of people and wealth will give an individual freedom. Milkman grows up taking this idea as a way to personally obtain freedom while also coming to difficult terms with the racism and privilege that comes with these ideas and how they affect family and African Americans, and a way to use it as a search for an individual 's true self. Through the novel, Morrison shows that both set themselves in a state of mental imprisonment to these materials
ames are one of the first identifiers a person is given, and yet as infants they are given no choice in this identifier that will be with them for the rest of their lives. In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon the use of the biblical names Hagar and Pilate serve as a means to show the importance of defining the path of one’s life for one's self, as supposed to letting one's name define it for them. Through juxtaposition and parallels, Morrison teaches a universal lesson of the importance of self definition.
In the African American community, names held a certain importance, and both people and places were given more descriptive nicknames that created a more accurate identity for them that their original names lacked. However, Pilate was already born with a name that encompassed her identity: Pilate, a homonym for “pilot” because she is a guiding figure, especially for Milkman. Keeping her name close to her in her earring, she is always in touch with her identity and lets it define her. Milkman, recognizing this and the impermanence of identity, comments how “names...had meaning. No wonder Pilate put hers in her ear. When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do” (329). Despite this, Pilate’s name and influence will live on after her death, symbolized by her earring being snatched up by a bird that flies away with it: although her body remains on the ground, her name remains and moves
Song of Solomon tells the story of Dead's unwitting search for identity. Milkman appears to be destined for a life of self-alienation and isolation because of his commitment to the materialism and the linear conception of time that are part of the legacy he receives from his father, Macon Dead. However, during a trip to his ancestral home, “Milkman comes to understand his place in a cultural and familial community and to appreciate the value of conceiving of time as a cyclical process”(Smith 58).
Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon tells the life story of Milkman and his family. The novel is well written and complex, while talking about several complex issues such as race, gender, and class. Although the novel makes reference to the several issues, the novel primarily focuses on what people’s desires are and their identities. Specifically through the difference between Macon Jr. and Pilate, Morrison illustrates that our most authentic desires come not from material items, but from our wish to connect with others.
During the long period of time in which Milkman doubts human flight, he is essentially shunned from his community. However, by accepting human flight as both a natural and possible occurrence, Milkman achieves acceptance. In actuality, flight as a means of escape is conveyed as a selfish act, harming all those left behind. Furthermore, in reference to Robert Smith and Milkman, death, not flight, was what caused them to essentially escape. In Song of Solomon, flight comes across as an act of desperation, in which those involved would risk anything to escape their troubled lives. Only when you “surrendered [yourself] to the air” could you truly escape and find freedom (Morrison 337).
Beloved is one of Toni Morrison's most famous novels that was published in 1987 and earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year. In it the author vividly displays the horrors and devastating consequences of slavery and honors all the victims by giving them a voice to tell their unembellished side of the history. Although a person’s name plays an important role in the development of one’s identity and self, the names given to the African-American slaves by their masters were only one of the instruments of oppression and dehumanization they were subjected to that lead to the eventual loss of identity, both individual and collective.