An Analysis Of An Outsider In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

The passage I have chosen to write about is from Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, in which Milkman is passing through the town of Shalimar and manages to get himself involved in a brawl at a general store with one of the locals. Milkman suffers a few bumps, bruises and cuts and exits the store enraged. Concentrating on the way Milkman reacts to being the loser of the fight, this passage depicts how, when made an outsider to the people of Shalimar, Milkman’s dark side is shown as he resorts to racist, sexist and malicious language, illustrating that exclusion often times leads to violence and outrage.
Many sentences in this passage stick out to me, but, towards the middle of the passage one particular sentence caught my eye which reads, “Children joined them, circling the women like birds” (268). Here, Toni Morrison uses a Metaphor to explain how the children gathered around the women to stare and examine the very furious Milkman. The way Milkman is referring to the children as birds circling around a group of women could be seen as an act of racism by Milkman towards his own race.

Because, anytime a human being, or the acts of a human are being compared to that of an animals’, often times it is perceived in a substandard and harsh way. And in this case, this metaphor that is used can be Milkman’s anger letting it get the best of him which leads to racist language on his part.
Another sentence where Milkman is shown expressing his annoyance and unhappiness is in the second to last sentence of this passage which states, “Under the hot sun, Milkman was frozen with anger” (269). This sentence popped out at me because in this instance, a paradox is being applied. The words “hot” and “frozen” are in the same sentence which you generally do not see together. We have hot describing the sun, and frozen describing the anger Milkman is going through at the moment. In this sentence Milkman is so upset about the way he is being treated as an outsider that he does not know how to act around the people, nor does he know what to say to the people. He is bottled up with rage and it ultimately leads to him having malicious thoughts and the idea of wanting to cause harm towards the people who are around him outside the general store.
The concluding sentence in this passage which sums up Milkman’s aggravation and anger is the one that I noticed the first time reading it and really stuck in my mind. It reads, “If he’d had a weapon, he would have slaughtered everybody in sight” (269). The main thing that I noticed was the choice of the word “slaughtered” here. Mainly when one looks at or hears this kind of word, you tend to think of a lot of gore or a very inhumane act that is being done on someone, or more specific, an animal. When I read this sentence, what comes to mind is an image of Milkman in an abattoir butchering animals. Or in this case, every person who is around him outside the general store. Like the sentence before when milkman compares the children to birds, this sentence is comparable to that one. The word “slaughter” is related to the word “slaughterhouse”, and when the word “slaughterhouse” comes to mind, generally you think of animals. Ultimately, the use of the word “slaughter” here could be another example of milkman resorting to racist language to his own race. Milkman’s dark side is exposed in this situation due to the fact that he is uncomfortable and not used to the role of being an outsider.
There is one final part in this passage where I have noticed an act of racism being done by Milkman. The sentence is very short and states, “Only the children and the hens walked around” (269). This sentence seized my attention after a couple times reading it since it is relatively short and I feel as if the second part of the sentence, “And the hens walked around”, was not necessary to include. It does give the audience a sense of what is happening during this scene but overall, by putting the children and the farm animals together in one sentence and giving them the same action as one another, it gives me the feeling that the chickens and the children are almost equal or the same thing. So, by placing the children and hens into the same sentence, Milkman is essentially giving the children the same value to that of the hens. This racist language is the direct act arising from the vexed Milkman who is not understanding why anyone is acting in a friendly manner towards him at the moment.
The last sentence I have chosen to talk about does not include a literary device but pops out at me for one particular reason. The sentence reads, “Even the four men on the porch were quiet” (268). Here, I see an emphasis on the word “even”, because if you take a look at the sentence right before this one, it says “Nobody said anything. “ (268). by placing the word “even” into the sentence I see it as sort of a sexist point being made. Only because earlier in the passage it mentions that there were three women looking at Milkman but not doing or saying anything to him. The “even” in the sentence makes it sound like Milkman just assumes that the women aren’t going to talk to him because they’re too good for him or they don’t want to be involved with him. But, when he notices that “even” the four men on the porch aren’t associating themselves with him, he realizes that he is no longer in his friendly hometown near Lake Superior. He is merely a stranger who is upset with the locals at the moment and uses harsh language to cope with his uneasiness.
This certain passage in which Milkman comes face to face with exclusion and resorts to harsh language and violence is similar to another part in Song of Solomon when Milkman breaks off his relationship with Hagar.

Hagar is in full depression after she loses Milkman and in her own way, excludes herself from the outside world and is excluded from being with Milkman as well. Until, finally she is overcome by anger and begins to go after Milkman in an attempt to take his life away. These two passages are very similar in which Milkman and Hagar are both excluded from a group of people or a certain person. And, they both resort to a type of violence in order to cope with their unsettledness. Milkman is more verbal and Hagar uses physical violence when she attempts to murder Milkman. The main thing to take away from these two passages is that violence can be the direct result of

exclusion.
As a whole, from the passage that I chose to talk about and the one I compared it to, one can see that when things go bad like Milkman getting in a fight with the man in the general store or Hagar getting dumped by Milkman, things become rattled and tempers flare. When this happens, people can become excluded from things or people just how Milkman and Hagar were excluded. When one becomes an outsider or stranger, they tend to do things unlike them and their dark side or their “true colors” are revealed. Milkman, who is usually a friendly man to others, resorts to racist, sexist and violent language after he begins to feel as if he is an outsider to the locals of Shalimar. Exclusion is the ultimate reason for the acts of violence that are done by Milkman in this passage. And overall, Being excluded from something not only makes you feel like less than a human being and out of it, but it also fills you with anger until you lash out at someone in the most violent ways possible. Even if it is from a verbal standpoint in which Milkman has shown us.