This book was a coming of age story for multiple reasons. Milkman, the protagonist of Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon, went on a quest and at the end discovered his identity. After, Macon Jr, Milkman's father, tells him to retrieve gold from a cave in Virginia, Milkman starts his journey to get the gold but ends up on a spiritual journey trying to discover his identity. Eventually towards the end of his journey, flight surfaces as a symbol representing identity.
In the beginning of the book we are aware of childhood Milkman's wish to be able to fly. It appears at first that Milkman is just any other kid wishing for some sort supernatural power. But then, Morrison gives us myriad examples of the supernatural; forcing us to realize that this is the norm. So why shouldn't Milkman be able to fly? Well, for a lot of reasons. First, he doesn't really want to. It is shown through out the book that Milkman is very uncomfortable with the supernatural. When he sees his mom being suffocated by tulip buds, he tells his friend Guitar that it was just a dream. He denies it because he is uncomfortable with it. When Freddie, a janitor, tells him about ghosts he tell Freddie he doesn't believe him. But his failure to be convinced of the reality of the supernatural is not the only reason why he can't fly in the beginning of the book. He is "grounded" in the earth by material things. First, it is his love for sex with Hagar. He eventually rejects her and then his love for sex is replaced by money. Macon Jr., his father, tells him that there is gold in a cave in Virginia. Macon Jr. remembers a white peacock that appeared to him when he was a kid in the cave. It appeared while he decided on whether or not to take the gold. He ended up leaving it so he's sending Milkman to get it for him. Milkman concludes that if he recovers the gold from the cave in Virginia, he will be able to live independent of his father; a much needed privilege. Guitar finds out about his mission and asks him to bring him some of the gold too. Milkman agrees to this but Guitar doesn't trust him. They eventually begin to fight over this and Milkman runs away in search of the cave.While they are fighting a white peacock appears to the two of them just like the one his dad had seen in the cave. Milkman gets to the cave, but there is no gold. This is where he begins to find his identity. The peacocks are a symbol of greed and pride. Because they described the peacocks feather in the book as, "fanned out and pompous" (293) it's explicitly saying it is a very proud animal. It is described that Milkman and Guitar both look at the peacock but eventually turn away. Revealing how they recognized their greed for gold, but eventually ignored it for the gold they were about to receive. It is not untill Milkman "begins to shake with hunger. Real hunger" (253) after he is left food-less for a few days while hunting, that he realizes materialistic items are not what you need to survive in this world. He then discovers that his family lineage is important to him and he travels to Susan byrd, an elderly lady who took care of his great-grandfather, to ask her about his family history. She explains how his descendant were the flying African children. She described how Solomon and his wife Reyna gave birth to a son called Jake who turned out to be Milman's great-grandfather. After he heard this story of how his great-great grandfather flew, he became more self-aware. He realized what he had done wrong to Hagar (the girl Milkman rejected) and that his mom genuinely loved him. He realizes that his name is crucial to his identity and what he associates with it. After this he goes with his aunt Pilate to bury the bones of his great-grandfather. Unconvinced that Milkman didn't find the gold, Guitar had been looking for Milkman and found him with Pilate. It is their that Guitar shoots a gun at them in efforts to kill Milkman but misses and kills Pilate. Milkman sings to Pilate as she dies and stands up ready to face Guitar. It is then that he leaps and "wheels towards Guitar...For now he knew : If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it"(337). The symbolism of flight here is very important. Not only is it the transition from his materialistic mindset to the discovery of his rich identity, but it also shows his flight from boy to man.
I would strongly recommend this book because it is a very fresh read. Each page turned was like a bite deeper into a juicy cucumber. The novel never got boring; it screamed at your eyes for you to taste it's rough skin. Morrison's Milkman is a ten dimensional character who's problems are so specific they become relatable, but maintain unpredictable: therefore very fresh. It's even more invigorating if you read this book with Foster, Prose, Nabokov, O'Conner, and Perrine on your shoulders. In my journey through this book I found myself noticing Vampirism. For example, the "bloody red" tulip buds and Macon Dead Jr. and how both of them were pretty much sucking the life out of Ruth. But also being able to notice Morrison's techniques helped give more understanding to the novel. In Flannery O'Conner's essay Writing Short Stories, she mentions how you only need to write one story; there is no need to tie up loose ends in every character. If I hadn't been aware of this I would be left unsatisfied, still trying to figure out what was going to happen Reba, Milkman's cousin, and all the other side characters. Instead, I realized the irrelevance of the continuation of the story and was able to focus on what mattered: giving the story a greater deal of apprehension.
Song of Solomon is clearly a book that explores the ideas of religion and superstition in great detail. I found it really interesting to read your blog posts because of the fact that the book I read, The Dollmaker, also deals a lot with religion on a personal level. Milkman and Gertie, the protagonist of the story I read, both have to consider what religion means to them and how it affects their lives. You talked about how Milkman’s unwillingness to believe in the supernatural is what keeps him grounded, both literally and figuratively. I think that this probably has to do with a sort of disconnect that he has from the culture that he has been raised in. Gertie also interprets the religion and culture she was raised in very differently from others around her. She doesn’t think of Christianity as being a religion of wrath that highlights people’s sins; she thinks that Christ should represent the good in people and the noble qualities that individuals have.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting parallel that I drew was that both Milkman and Gertie spend the entire book (or almost all of it) trying to get to a certain goal -- for Milkman, it’s to get to the gold, and for Gertie, it’s to finish carving her wooden Christ -- and then give up their goals near the end of the book. You wrote that Milkman gives up the quest for the gold because he relinquishes his greed, and that “he realizes materialistic items are not what you need to survive in this world.” Gertie decides to chop up her Christ statue because she needs money, but the underlying messages are the same: both realize that their personal desires are less important than the greater good. I think Milkman’s transition is also one that demonstrates his strong faith; Gertie’s decision to chop up the statue is also representative of the religion that has guided her life, because she discovers that Christ can be found in the good people around her, and not in a block of wood.
I really enjoyed reading your blog posts, since I think you interpreted a lot of the symbols in ways that would not have occurred to me; for example, you saw the tulips as demonstrating women’s submissiveness in the book. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t read the book or the full scene, but I didn’t get that idea at first. Your thoughts about the book’s messages were really valuable and they allowed me to understand Toni Morrison’s goals in writing Song of Solomon.