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Literary analysis of Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Song of solomon toni morrison analysis
A essay on song of solomon by toni morrison
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The novel “Song of Solomon” by Toni Morrison emphasizes in the 1977 when the black community were getting mistreated by the whites. However, the novel explains about an individual learning through many obstacles in life because he was able to grow on his own. This individual goes by Milkman, but his real name is Macon Dead the third. Milkman was the first African American born in Mercy Hospital. Milkman maiden name is Ruth, and his father name is Macon Dead JR. Macon was believe that he pretended to act white, and wanted to kill his own son before he was born. Luckily that Pilate an aunt of Milkman was there at that time to rescue when Macon attempted to murder his family. In addition, Milkman was a serious person, and started to mature at …show more content…
The novel begins by Milkman as a child was still being breastfed at the age of five, and being spoiled by his mother and sisters. Macon the third was given Milkman as a nickname because he was a momma’s boy. Morrison quotes “He was too young to be dazzled by her nipples, but he was old enough to be bored by the flat taste of mother’s milk, so he came reluctantly, as to a chore, and lay as he had at least once each day of his life in his mother’s arm, and tried to pull the thin, faintly sweet milk from her flesh without hurting her with his teeth” (13). Usually most kids let the nipple go at the age of two, but Milkman was attached to it, and loved the taste. Even though Ruth was embarrassed, she still breastfed, and while she had visitors at home, she realized that it was time for Milkman to let go the …show more content…
So therefore, he was part of the Seven days back in 1920, and they had no love for the whites because they were preferable to be dead. Morrison points out “But when a negro child, negro women, or negro man is killed by whites and nothing is done about it by their law and their courts, this society selects a similar victim at random and they execute him or her in a similar manner if they can” (PG 154) Racism is not going to stop until this day, and that is why there is violence and drama still trending. Guitar believes that there should be justice for killing innocent color
In the novel Song of Solomon a major ambiguous event occurs. The author, Toni Morrison leaves the interpretation up to the reader on the issue of whether or not Macon killed the "white" man in the novel. In Song of Solomon, Macon tells his son, Milkman, the story of when his father was killed by white men and he and his sister, Pilate, ran away together. Macon says that he and Pilate were followed by "a man who looked just like their father." (168) After three days of being followed by this man, they decided to find an escape by taking cover in a unused cave. In the middle of the night, Macon awoke to find a man sleeping near him, "very old, very white, and his smile was awful." (169) Spurred by the images floating through his mind of his father's cold blooded murder at the hands of white men, Macon lashed out in anger and threw a rock at the "white" man's head. Instead of falling to the ground, the "white" man "kept coming and coming"(169) towards Macon. This action by the grinning, sadistic "white" man signified Macon's sentiment that the white race would not cease to plague his ev...
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.
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.
Milkman experiences many changes in behavior throughout the novel Song of Solomon. Until his early thirties most would consider him self centered, or even self-loathing. Until his maturity he is spoiled by his mother Ruth and sisters Lena and Corinthian because he is a male. He is considered wealthy for the neighborhood he grew up in and he doesn't socialize because of this.
Toni Morrison's novel “Song of Solomon" is an evident example of literary work that utilizes the plight of the African-American community to develop an in-depth and complex storyline and plot. Not only does Toni Morrison use specific historical figures as references for her own characters, she also makes use of biblical figures, and mythological Greek gods and goddesses. When evaluating Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” you can relate each and every character to a specific historical figure or mythological being in history. But to focus on a specific character you would look towards one of the protagonists. Guitar and Milkman can serve as main individuals that can be symbolic of other political and civil rights activist involved in history.
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.
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).
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.
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
The miller's daughter is literally trapped in a tower room while Ruth is imprisoned in her marriage. The miller's daughter turns to Rumpelstiltskin in an act of desperateness, as he seems to be the only way she can be freed. Similarly, Ruth turns to Milkman to provide her with a source of happiness within her trapped state. Milkman is used as an object rather than a human being within his own life. In a fairytale, the mother figure, whether that be a fairy godmother or a mother are loving and do not use their loved ones as a means to end or to halt their pain. Milkman’s relationship to his mother is not constant, one of many things that makes his fairytale differ from those around him and stories like Rumplestiltskin. In the second part of the novel, the last fairy tale is mentioned signifying Milkman’s start of his own journey. Many are familiar with the tale of Hansel and Gretel. Milkman embarks on his journey to find the gold, and stumbles across Circe who invites him into her house and cares for him. The correlation between these stories is how Morrison shows that the journey Milkman goes on, symbolizes him finding his own fairytale. The interconnectedness of all these fairy tales allows for us as the readers to see how they are representative of a timeline and Milkman’s life. By starting with Rumplestiltskin and revealing the intimate relationship between Milkman and Ruth, and ending with Hansel and Gretel, Milkman’s story ends and his fantasy begins. This is similar to Hansel and Gretel in the sense that both the children leave home and are taken in by an old lady, who is hospitable at first: “‘Come, come,’ she said to Milkman. ‘In here.’ She took his hand in both of hers, and he followed her -- his arm outstretched, his hand in hers -- like a small boy being dragged reluctantly to bed.” (240) Circe welcomes Milkman into her
Morrison sets the stage with many explanations for Milkman's unlikable qualities. Milkman's father, Macon Dead Jr., is an aristocratic black businessman. Macon Dead prides himself on his money and his land, believing that it is his wealth that earns him respect and power. Macon Dead is a cold and unfeeling person, having no regard or respect for women or the poor black folk that live in the town that he owns a large part of. Because Macon has no respect for the poor black people of the town he and his family naturally are disconnected from the ongoing racial issues affecting the black society. Where the Dead's live they are more white than they are black.
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).
In part two, Milkman goes south to his father's hometown. He is looking for a fortune that his father and aunt had found long before. When he does not find the fortune he begins trying to find where it went. This takes him to where his great grandfather and mother originated. Milkman eventually is led to the town where he is a direct descendant of the town's legend, Solomon. It is in this town that Milkman finds himself and becomes his own m...
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.
Throughout the first half of Song of Solomon Milkman is immature and selfish. Milkman’s father, Macon Sr. wants him to love money and become a materialistic man just like him. However, Milkman wants to become free of his father's influence and wants to be nothing like him, “Macon was clean-shaven; Milkman was desperate for a mustache. Macon wore bow ties; Milkman wore four-in-hands. Macon didn’t part his hair; Milkman had a part shaved into his. Macon hated tobacco; Milkman tried to put a cigarette into his mouth every five minutes.” (Morrison,63). Even though Milkman did not appear to be like his father, he still took after him in small ways. Milkman still shares his father's values of many things such as treating the people he deems inferior without much respect and not being able to keep strong relationships with women. Being different from someone that a person