Song Of Solomon (Cliffs Notes)

SONG OF SOLOMON NOTES including • Life and Background of the Author • Introduction to the Novel • A Brief Synopsis • Li...

Author: Durthy A. Washington

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SONG OF SOLOMON NOTES including • Life and Background of the Author • Introduction to the Novel • A Brief Synopsis • List of Characters • Critical Commentaries • Genealogy • Character Analyses • Critical Essays • Review Questions and Essay Topics • Selected Bibliography

by Durthy A. Washington M.Ed., University of Southern California, Los Angeles M.A., San Jose State University

Editor Gary Carey, M.A. University of Colorado

ISBN 0-7645-8507-X © Copyright 1993 by Cliffs Notes, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printed in U.S.A. 1999 Printing

The Cliffs Notes logo, the names “Cliffs” and “Cliffs Notes,” and the black and yellow diagonal-stripe cover design are all registered trademarks belonging to Cliffs Notes, Inc., and may not be used in whole or in part without written permission.

Cliffs Notes, Inc.

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CONTENTS Life and Background of the Author ......................5 Introduction to the Novel ..........................................9 A Brief Synopsis ..........................................................12 List of Characters ........................................................13 Critical Commentaries .............................................17 Genealogy ......................................................................60 Character Analyses ....................................................96 Critical Essays ............................................................102 Review Questions and Essay Topics ..................113 Selected Bibliography ..............................................116

Center Spread: Song of Solomon Genealogy



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SONG OF SOLOMON Notes LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR Personal Background. Chloe Anthony Wofford—Toni Morrison—was born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, a racially mixed Midwestern steel town of around 75,000 that—like the settings of most of her novels—was “neither ghetto nor plantation.” She was the second of four children born to George Wofford, a laborer, and Ramah (Willis) Wofford, a homemaker whose name, according to Morrison, was “picked blind” from a page in the Bible. Morrison’s parents taught her to believe in herself and not let external events control her life. Growing up during a time marked by overt racism and open hostility toward blacks, Morrison learned early on that in order to survive, she had to develop a strong character and create her own life. She also learned the value of being part of a loving, supportive family and community, the futility and self-destructiveness of hatred, and the healing power of music. After graduating from Lorain High School with honors, Morrison moved to Washington, D.C., to attend Howard University, where one of her professors was Alain Locke, a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. While at Howard, she began writing short stories and changed her name to Toni. Much of the African-American literature she encountered while at Howard left her, in her own words, “bereft” since it seemed to be written to someone other than herself or the black people whom she knew. Consequently, she resolved to write books that focused on “black people . . . talking to black people.” In 1953, Morrison began graduate work at Cornell University. Two years later, she received a master’s degree in English, with a minor in classics. As part of her degree requirements, she wrote her thesis on the theme of suicide in the works of William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf.



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6 From 1955 to 1957, Morrison taught humanities and English at Texas Southern State University in Houston. In 1957, she returned to Washington, D.C., to teach English at Howard University, and a year later, she met and married Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect. Stifled by her marriage, she discovered that writing enabled her to cope with depression and isolation: “I had nothing left but my imagination. I had no will, no judgment, no perspective, no power, no authority, no self—just this brutal sense of irony, melancholy, and a trembling respect for words. I wrote like someone with a dirty habit. Secretly—compulsively—slyly.” Consequently, she joined a writer’s workshop and began developing a short story about a black girl’s obsession with blue eyes, which eventually became her first novel, The Bluest Eye. In 1964, following a family trip to Europe, Morrison left Howard University, divorced her husband, and moved back to Lorain with her two sons, Harold Ford and Slade Kevin. A year later, in 1965, she moved her children to Syracuse, New York, where she worked as a textbook editor for Random House. In 1967, she was promoted to senior editor, a position that enabled her to help publish the works of several African-American authors, including Andrew Young, Gayl Jones, Toni Cade Bambara, and Angela Davis. In 1970—while working as a full-time editor, teaching parttime, and raising her two sons—Morrison completed The Bluest Eye, which depicts the psychological destruction of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl who idealizes white standards of female beauty. In 1971, Morrison returned to the classroom as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at the State University of New York in Purchase; she continued to write. In 1973, she completed her second novel, Sula, which would be nominated for the National Book Award in 1975. In Sula, Morrison established a theme that would pervade each of her subsequent works: the secret, mystical world of the black woman living in a pariah community. Morrison’s editorial position at Random House enabled her to work on The Black Book, a project that would provide a wealth of material for her later writing and profoundly influence her approach to literature. Published in 1974, The Black Book is a collection of African-American memorabilia that spans three centuries



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7 of black history, from slavery to the 1940s. It contains newspaper clippings, bills of sale, sheet music, announcements of slave auctions, invitations to “rent parties,” letters, graphic photographs, sports files, patents granted to African Americans, and other memorabilia gathered from the scrapbooks and attics of its editors and other supporters. Although her name does not appear on the book, Morrison conceived The Black Book as a tribute to “the anonymous black man.” In explaining her desire to publish the book, Morrison says that she wanted to create a genuine black-history book that “simply recollected life as lived” and celebrated the common, collective achievements and experiences of black people. The publication of Morrison’s third novel, Song of Solomon (1977), which focuses on the quest for cultural identity, heralded the public’s recognition of her as a serious author. The mythic folktale evolved from Morrison’s grief over her father’s death. Song of Solomon was awarded the 1978 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Eighteen years later, in 1996, it soared to the number one position on national bestseller lists when it was announced as a featured novel of Oprah Winfrey’s book club. In 1981, Morrison published her fourth novel, Tar Baby, an allegorical fable about colonialism, commitment, and black identity, based on white folklorist Joel Chandler Harris’ “Uncle Remus” story. Morrison imposes her own interpretations on the original story, which, she recalls, frightened her as a child. Consequently, the tar baby in her novel—a beautiful, light-skinned model named Jadine—is “the black woman who can hold things together.” Seven years later, in 1988, Morrison published her next novel, Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Based on the life of Margaret Garner, an escaped Kentucky slave, Beloved tells the harrowing story of a mother who kills her infant daughter rather than see her enslaved; she is forced to come to terms with her desperate act when, twenty years later, the dead daughter’s ghost returns to haunt her and demands an explanation for her murder. In preparation for the book, Morrison researched the shameful history of the institution of slavery and found that no memorials existed to mark that history. She decided that her book would provide such a memorial. Morrison’s sixth novel, Jazz, published in 1992, explores the relationship between Joe and Violet Trace, a middle-aged couple



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8 who find their way back to each other after the husband has a tragic affair with an eighteen-year-old girl. Set in Harlem during the 1930s, the novel unfolds as a series of scenes, or jazz “riffs.” Morrison followed Jazz with Paradise. Published in January 1998, Paradise completes the trilogy that includes Beloved and Jazz. Set in the 1970s, it tells the story of four young women who are brutally attacked in a convent near Ruby, Oklahoma, a fictional town populated exclusively by African Americans. In writing the novel, Morrison says that she wanted to understand “the love of God and love for fellow human beings.” Career Highlights. In 1993, Toni Morrison became the first African-American writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The prestigious honor, which marks the crowning achievement of Morrison’s literary career, was another in a series of “firsts” in her distinguished career. In 1977, Morrison’s third novel, Song of Solomon, was chosen as a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, which had not selected a novel written by a black author since Richard Wright’s Native Son in 1940. And in 1981, Morrison became the first African-American woman since Zora Neale Hurston in 1943 to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Morrison has held teaching posts at Yale, Bard College, and Rutgers, among others. She held the Albert Schweitzer Chair in the Humanities at the State University of New York for six years. In 1990, she delivered the Clark Lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Massey Lectures at Harvard. In addition to receiving honorary degrees from many prestigious institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Sarah Lawrence, and Brown, she is the recipient of numerous awards: She was named Distinguished Writer of 1978 by the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 1980, she was appointed to the National Council on the Arts by former President Carter; the following year, in 1981, she was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Writer’s Guild, and the Author’s League. In 1988, she was named as a member of the Helsinki Watch Committee and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her fourth novel, Beloved. And in 1989, she won the Modern Language Association of America’s Commonwealth Award in Literature. That same year, she accepted the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities Council at Princeton University, where she holds a joint appointment in African studies, creative writing, and women’s studies.



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9 Renowned for her detailed imagery and visual language, her powerful metaphors, her “righting” of black history, and her inimitable gift of fusing fantasy and reality, Morrison, in addition to her novels, is the author of numerous works of nonfiction, including a landmark essay, “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The AfroAmerican Presence in American Literature,” and Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992), a book of literary criticism that explores the way white authors deliberately and systematically exclude blacks from their works. She is also the author of a play, Dreaming Emmett, which focuses on the murder of a black urban youth who travels to Mississippi in 1955, and a song cycle, “Honey and Rue,” which won the New York State Governor’s Art Award in 1986. She is the editor of several books, including Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power, a collection of essays on the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy, and Birth of a Nation’hood. In her multiple roles as writer, editor, educator, scholar, parent, and activist, Morrison has consistently demonstrated her commitment to black literature and culture. Speaking of her concern for black people, who provide the catalyst for her art and activism, she has said, “If anything I do, in the way of writing novels or whatever I write, isn’t about the village or the community or about you, then it isn’t about anything. I am not interested in indulging myself in some private exercise of my imagination.”

INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVEL Song of Solomon is Morrison’s third novel and one of her most commercially successful. Published in 1977, the novel—tentatively titled Milkman Dead—was condensed in Redbook. It was later chosen as a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, which had not selected a novel written by a black author since Richard Wright’s Native Son in 1940. The same month in which it was published by Knopf, Song of Solomon was sold to New American Library, a paperback publisher, for an estimated $115,000 and quickly became a bestseller. Well over half a million copies are now in print, and translation rights have been sold in more than ten countries. The novel won fiction awards from the National



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10 Book Critics’ Circle and the American Academy and Institute of Letters. It also won the National Book Award for best novel and made the front page of the New York Times Book Review. Since Morrison is known primarily for her “womanist” writings that portray the challenges of growing up black and female in a white, male-dominated culture, the phenomenal success of Song of Solomon, which features a black male protagonist, is especially remarkable. (“Womanist,” according to Alice Walker, who coined the term, is the African-American equivalent of “feminist.” Consequently, while feminists focus on sexism and strive for women’s liberation and economic equity, womanists focus on both sexism and racism, demanding respect for the achievements and contributions of black women and recognition of the black woman as an integral part of the male-dominated black community.) Morrison, asked why she chose a male protagonist for Song of Solomon, responded, “Because I thought he had more to learn than a woman would have.” She also confessed to intentionally “trying to feel things that are of no interest to me but I think are of interest to men, like winning, like kicking somebody, like running toward a confrontation; that level of excitement when they are in danger.” Drawing on a variety of stories, myths, and legends, the novel centers on two key stories: the Yoruba folktale of the flying Africans and Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, the twenty-second book of the Old Testament. Song of Solomon is often classified as an impressionistic comingof-age novel, or bildungsroman, that merges elements of fantasy and reality. According to Morrison, the novel is about a man who “learns to fly and all that that means. But it’s also about the ways in which we discover, all of us, who and what we are. And how important and truly exciting that journey is.” In part, Song is a wakeup call for young black males struggling to survive in white America. Given Morrison’s insistence that a strong family and community are the means to black survival, we can surmise that the novel’s abbreviated title—SOS—is no accident. Although Morrison dedicated this novel to her father, we can also read it as a love song to young black men who, as Morrison illustrates through the character of Milkman, are doomed to spiritual death and self-alienation unless they read and understand their history.



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11 Historically, Song of Solomon was published in the wake of the Black Arts/Black Power movements. Advocates of the Black Arts movement—including Larry Neal, Etheridge Knight, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni—believed that the primary objective of all black artistic expression was to achieve social change and moral and political revolution. Consequently, if art fails to make a political statement, it is irrelevant. The movement’s philosophy— which countered the “protest literature” movement of the 1940s and 1950s led by such writers as James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright—is best summarized by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), who believes that art should be “fists and daggers and pistols to clean out the world for virtue and love.” Although the Black Arts movement drew a strong following, some black artists objected to its violent imagery and its rejection of traditional forms of black art, such as the blues and dialect poetry. Although Song of Solomon is a tribute to the movement— Morrison agrees that “the best art is political”—it also challenges some of the movement’s basic tenets, including the role of black women in the largely black male-oriented movement, and reaffirms the place of black vernacular and the blues as an integral part of African-American art and culture. Through numerous conversations between Milkman and Guitar, Morrison explores some of the underlying principles of the Black Arts movement; through the friends’ problematic relationships with women, she questions the validity and viability of the movement as the “spiritual sister” of the Black Power movement. Song of Solomon demonstrates Morrison’s commitment to black life and culture and examines the role of African Americans in relation to white mainstream society and the legacy of slavery on the history and experience of blacks in America. “I simply wanted to write literature that was irrevocably, indisputably Black,” Morrison has said, “not because its characters were or because I was, but because it took as its creative task and sought as its credentials those recognized and verifiable principles of Black art.” Although her work explores many of the major themes in AfricanAmerican literature—for example, alienation versus identification, the search for roots/the journey home, and freedom and liberation—she repeatedly returns to what has become the overriding theme in her novels: the search for love and identity.



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A BRIEF SYNOPSIS Song of Solomon explores the quest for cultural identity. Based on the African-American folktale about enslaved Africans who escape slavery by flying back to Africa, it tells the story of Macon “Milkman” Dead, a young man alienated from himself and estranged from his family, his community, and his historical and cultural roots. Milkman is mentally enslaved and spiritually dead, but with the help of his eccentric aunt, Pilate, and his best friend, Guitar Bains, he embarks on a physical and spiritual journey that enables him to reconnect with his past and realize his self-worth. The action of Song of Solomon spans thirty-some years. The narration comprises two distinct sections. Part I (Chapters 1-9) is set in an unnamed town in Michigan—presumably Detroit. It traces Milkman’s life from birth to age thirty-two and focuses on his spiritually empty, aimless life as a young man caught between his father’s materialistic lifestyle and Pilate’s traditional values. These chapters are interspersed with various characters’ flashbacks to their pasts. We learn that Milkman’s father, Macon, and Macon’s sister, Pilate, ran away from home after their father was murdered for protecting his land. However, after a disagreement between them, they each went their own way. Although both Macon and Pilate eventually end up in the same unnamed Michigan town, Macon refuses to speak to his sister, whom he feels is an embarrassment to his social position in the town. This section ends with Milkman’s decision to leave Michigan in search of Pilate’s illusory gold—Milkman’s “inheritance”—which Macon is sure his sister hid in one of the many places she lived prior to coming to Michigan. Part II (Chapters 10-15) begins with Milkman’s arrival in Danville, Pennsylvania, where his paternal grandfather had built the near-mythological Lincoln’s Heaven, a prosperous farm for which he was killed. Unable to find Pilate’s gold in Danville and prompted by the mysterious stories surrounding his ancestors, Milkman traces his ancestry to the fictional town of Shalimar, Virginia, where he meets his father’s “people” and discovers the true spiritual meaning of his inheritance. The novel’s ambiguous ending centers on Milkman’s “flight” across Solomon’s Leap.



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LIST OF CHARACTERS Milkman (Macon Dead III) The first “colored baby” born at Mercy Hospital. Milkman is the youngest child and only son of Ruth and Macon Dead. Torn between his father’s materialistic values and his aunt Pilate’s unconventional lifestyle, Milkman—prompted by his father’s greed—embarks on a quest to claim Pilate’s illusory gold. During the course of his journey, Milkman is transformed from an immature, irresponsible boy to a mature, responsible man who values his cultural heritage. Macon Dead, Jr. Milkman’s wealthy, materialistic father. Macon’s fervent belief in the mythological American Dream causes him to reject his heritage and adopt the value system of the white mainstream culture. As a result, he finds himself alienated from his family, his community, and his African heritage. Ruth Foster Dead “The dead doctor’s daughter.” Ruth, Milkman’s mother, is a frail, fragile woman who copes with her empty life by escaping to a fantasy world and maintaining near-incestuous relationships with her father and son. Magdalene (Lena) Dead Ruth and Macon’s eldest daughter. Although Lena lacks a formal education, she possesses instinctive, intuitive knowledge that enables her to resist her father’s distorted value system. First Corinthians Dead Ruth and Macon’s youngest daughter. A well-educated young woman, Corinthians adopts her father’s materialistic values; eventually, however, she escapes her empty life when she finds a job, takes a lover, and leaves home.



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14 Pilate Dead “The singing woman.” Milkman’s aunt, teacher, and spiritual guide. Born without a navel, Pilate is a self-created, independent woman who carries her name—the source of her power—inside a dangling brass box earring. Reba (Rebecca) Pilate’s unmarried daughter. Reba’s life centers around her daughter, Hagar, and her brief, noncommittal relationships with various men. Hagar Pilate’s granddaughter and Milkman’s cousin and lover. Obsessed with romantic love, Hagar internalizes the ideals of white female beauty. Jake (Macon Dead, Sr.) Milkman’s grandfather. The youngest son of Solomon and Ryna, Jake is renowned for creating and cultivating Lincoln’s Heaven, a thriving farm he carved out of the wilderness. Loved by the black community because he identified with his people and served as their role model, he is murdered by whites for trying to protect his land. Solomon/Sugarman “The Flying African.” Milkman’s great-grandfather. According to legend, Solomon flew back to Africa, leaving behind his wife, Ryna, and their twenty-one children. Mr. (Robert) Smith “The little insurance agent,” whose death heralds Milkman’s birth.



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15 Freddie “The gold-toothed man.” Freddie works as a janitor for Macon Dead and considers himself a friend of the family. An incorrigible gossip, he is responsible for naming Milkman. Guitar Bains Milkman’s friend, confidant, and intellectual sparring partner. A street-wise hustler, skilled hunter, and political activist, Guitar’s arrogance and skewed sense of justice leave little room for compromise. Mrs. Bains One of Macon Dead’s tenants. She is a proud woman struggling to survive amidst abject poverty while raising her two grandsons, one of whom is Guitar. Henry Porter Another of Macon Dead’s tenants. He and Corinthians eventually move in together as lovers. Railroad Tommy and Hospital Tommy Owners of Tommy’s Barbershop, located in Southside’s Blood Bank district. Feather Owner of Feather’s Pool Hall, a Southside hangout for local residents. Mary A barmaid and part owner of Mary’s Bar and Lounge, another Southside hangout.



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16 Empire State A World War I veteran. Empire State is a casualty of love and war who seeks refuge in silence and revenge. His name alludes to his behavior: “He just stood around and swayed.” Michael-Mary Graham The local poet who hires Corinthians as her maid. Reverend Cooper A minister in Danville, Pennsylvania. He introduces Milkman to the group of old men who knew Milkman’s grandfather, Jake, and who remember Macon and Pilate as children. Esther Reverend Cooper’s wife. Nephew Reverend Cooper’s nephew. Circe The midwife who delivered Pilate and Macon and helped them escape following their father’s murder by the Butlers, the wealthy white family that employed her as their housekeeper. Solomon Owner of Solomon’s General Store in Danville, Pennsylvania. Omar, Calvin Breakstone, Small Boy, Luther Solomon Members of the hunting party who initiate Milkman into the rituals of the hunt and accept him as part of Danville’s black community. Sweet The young woman who introduces Milkman to the pleasures of reciprocal love.



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17 Susan Byrd Daughter of Mary and Crowell Byrd, and granddaughter of Heddy Byrd, the Indian woman who adopts Jake after he is abandoned by his father, “the Flying African.” Sing Byrd (Singing Bird) Milkman’s grandmother and Jake’s wife. Grace Long A friend of Susan Byrd who befriends Milkman when he visits Susan seeking information about his family.

CRITICAL COMMENTARIES EPIGRAPH Traditionally, an epigraph—an introductory citation that suggests the theme of a literary work—is a brief quotation from a renowned literary source. However, in Song of Solomon, Morrison defies tradition by creating her own epigraph, one that focuses on flight away from something or flight toward a goal, foreshadowing the family dynamics of the novel’s four generations of a black family, in which each generation, the father figure is either physically or emotionally absent. Emphasizing the impact of personal choice and responsibility, the epigraph suggests that fathers are integral to the survival of black families and the black race and presents a provocative paradox: Fathers need to be physically and emotionally present in their children’s lives, but, in contemporary American society, black fathers are often absent, which leaves the demanding job of raising children to the mothers. Morrison’s epigraph introduces the myth of flight that surrounds the men in the Dead family, beginning with Solomon, the Flying African, and explores some of the reasons why the “fathers may soar,” or fly away: to escape death, to seek freedom, or to pursue a better, more liberating life for themselves and their families. Consequently, while stressing that children need a strong father figure in order to develop into mature, well-adjusted adults,



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18 Morrison acknowledges that black fathers are often forced to abandon this role due to societal pressures or their own untimely deaths. Thus, the epigraph alludes to the alarming statistics concerning the endangered status of the black male and the resulting threat to the survival of the black family. It also explains the myth of the black matriarch, the fiercely independent woman who raises her family without the love and support of a strong black man. The epigraph’s powerful image of men seeking to escape conventional boundaries and limitations, leaving behind their children and the women who love them, is the first of many instances of escape found in the novel. Ironically, instead of viewing this phenomenon as inherently tragic, Morrison describes it as “a part of black life, a positive, majestic thing.” Consequently, she depicts these men not as traitors or deserters but as strong, adventurous spirits responding to a powerful urge to move on and be free even if their children must ultimately pay the price for the fathers’ wandering ways. But absentee fathers can leave a strong legacy for their children: As long as children “know their names”—that is, know who their fathers, their ancestors, are—they can cope with the potentially crippling handicap of being raised without a father. As Morrison explains in a candid New York Times interview, “The fathers may soar, they may leave, but the children know who they are; they remember, half in glory and half in accusation. That is one of the points of Song: all the men have left someone, and it is the children who remember it, sing about it, mythologize it, make it a part of their family history.” PART ONE CHAPTER 1 Summary On February 18, 1931, about fifty black people have gathered to watch Robert Smith—a black insurance agent who works for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company—prepare to fly, using homemade blue silk wings, from the roof of Mercy Hospital across Lake Superior. The group of onlookers includes a stout woman with several children, a gold-toothed man, and a welldressed pregnant woman—“the dead doctor’s daughter”—with her



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19 two daughters. Startled to see Mr. Smith perched atop the hospital roof, the pregnant woman drops her basket of red velvet rose petals, which temporarily distracts the spectators from the spectacle of Mr. Smith. Suddenly, as the crowd scrambles to help the woman’s daughters save the rose petals from being trampled in the snow, another woman, wearing an old quilt and a navy-blue knitted cap, starts to sing. The hospital’s white staff, who have been watching the black spectators from inside the hospital and are relieved that the crowd has not gathered to riot, cautiously venture outside the hospital and begin moving through the crowd, shouting orders and creating confusion. As the crowd anxiously awaits the arrival of the fire truck summoned by one of the hospital staff, they marvel that a quiet, unassuming man like Mr. Smith would attempt such a daring feat. Meanwhile, the singing woman advises the pregnant woman to keep warm because her expectant baby will be born the next morning. Suddenly, a roar from the crowd interrupts the two women’s conversation as Mr. Smith temporarily loses his balance. Immediately, the singing woman shifts her attention back to Mr. Smith and resumes her song. By the time the fire truck finally arrives at the hospital, Mr. Smith has already leaped to his death. The next morning, as the singing lady foretold, the pregnant woman gives birth to her baby, a son, who is the first “colored baby” born inside Mercy Hospital. The narrative now shifts to four years later, and the dead doctor’s daughter, Ruth Foster Dead, is entertaining guests in the spacious house she inherited from her father. As Ruth’s guests eat her nearly inedible sunshine cake, they discuss her “peculiar” fouryear-old son, Macon Dead III, who is also in the room. Noticing her son’s discomfort, Ruth allows him to escape upstairs, past the room where his sisters, Lena and Corinthians, are making red velvet roses. After her guests have gone, Ruth retires to what used to be her father’s study, where she proceeds to breast-feed her “peculiar” son and lose herself in daydreams and fantasies. Consequently, she is startled and embarrassed when Freddie, the “gold-toothed man,” comes to pay his rent and interrupts her secret afternoon ritual of suckling her son. Soon after this incident, Ruth learns that the townspeople are referring to her son as “Milkman.”



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20 The rest of Chapter 1 focuses on the background and history of the Dead family: Ruth and her husband, Macon; their daughters, Lena and Corinthians; their son, now nicknamed Milkman; and Macon’s sister, Pilate, “the singing woman,” a bootlegger who lives in a remote house in the woods with her daughter, Reba, and granddaughter, Hagar. Macon is a domineering, abusive misogynist who hates his wife and sister, is disappointed in his daughters, and generally ignores his son. Ruth and Macon have been married for approximately twenty years but have not had sex since Ruth’s father died several years ago. Macon, who makes his living in real estate, is hated and feared by blacks, who detest his arrogance, and is ignored by whites, who use him to control the town’s black population. We learn that Freddie, one of Macon’s tenants, works for Macon and imagines himself a friend of the Dead family. Knowing Freddie to be an incorrigible gossip, Macon relies on him for information concerning his tenants, totally unaware that Freddie is responsible for nicknaming his son “Milkman.” As we follow Macon through a typical workday, we share his daydreams concerning his father, his sister, and his early days with Ruth, and we witness his confrontations with two of his tenants, Porter and Mrs. Bains, the “stout woman.” That evening, as Macon walks home after his stressful day and passes Pilate’s house, he pauses to listen to Pilate, Reba, and Hagar singing. Reluctant to return to his own house, where “there was no music,” he heads back to Pilate’s and, under the cover of darkness, again listens to the women singing and watches their peaceful evening ritual. Commentary Chapter 1 introduces us to Song of Solomon’s main characters and the narrative’s unique structure, in which Morrison intermixes the present, the past, and the future and presents numerous stories from various characters’ perspectives. Because the narrator functions only as a detached observer who simply reports things as they happen, the characters tell their own stories, and the community comments on or responds to these characters’ actions. This call-and-response pattern between the characters’ individual voices and the community’s collective voice, which originates in the African oral tradition, resonates throughout the novel. The



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21 opening chapter also illustrates Morrison’s emphasis on participatory reading: She expects readers to participate in the novel’s construction by filling in the spaces of the narrative, connecting various seemingly unrelated details as they are revealed. For example, Chapter 1 poses several questions: Who is Mr. Smith? Why is he about to fly from the roof of Mercy Hospital? And why does he ask the community’s forgiveness? The chapter also introduces Morrison’s concept of history as “rememory,” an approach that views history not as a series of significant public events marked by wars and other national crises but as a compilation of stories filtered through the personal memories of individuals. Consequently, readers receive apparently disjointed fragments of stories that are understandable only in retrospect. Viewed from this perspective, history is not “the master’s tale,” publicly recorded in newspapers, textbooks, and historical documents that generally reflect a white male perspective and discount the contributions of people of color and women; history is a master tale, or master text, composed of collective experiences, including songs, poems, and personal stories. Mr. Smith’s note introduces the concept of language as a powerful tool for transmitting information and manipulating reality. The note, which proclaims Mr. Smith’s promise to fly, performs much the same function as the city legislators’ notice proclaiming Mains Avenue as the new, official name of the former Doctor Street. However, the street name notice is posted in “stores, barbershops, and restaurants” but not in schools, churches, or libraries, which are important places for blacks to gather socially. Ironically, the black community recognizes the legislators’ notice as official correspondence—note the legal language of the proclamation—but generally ignores Mr. Smith’s “unofficial” note, which contains a far more important message in terms of its impact on the black community. Although the black community acknowledges and appears to accept the legislators’ notice, it resists the notice’s message by manipulating the content of the proclamation. Appearing to acquiesce and accept the name of Mains Avenue, the community holds onto its memories by referring to Mains Avenue as “Not Doctor Street.” Complying with the letter rather than the spirit of the law, the community effectively resists the city’s racist power structure without confronting it directly. Thus, the emphasis



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22 on writing notes and recording information provides an insightful commentary on the function of written language and indirectly mocks the national legislation created to protect black citizens’ rights. Mr. Smith is “the little insurance agent” who keeps each of his insurance records on a “little yellow card” and who lives in a “little yellow house.” This repetition of “little” not only refers to the language of racist whites who attempt to demean black men by addressing them as “boys” but also suggests the community’s attempt to diminish Mr. Smith’s life. Also note that Porter’s ranting speech later in the chapter, when he is threatening to kill himself, is oddly similar to Mr. Smith’s note. Porter yells, “I love ya! I love ya all”; Mr. Smith’s note reads, “I loved you all.” In addition, Porter cries, “Oh, God have mercy”; Mr. Smith writes, “I will take off from Mercy.” These similarities are clues to what we later learn about these two men: At one point in their lives, both belonged to the Seven Days, a group of seven men who retaliate against whites for their senseless killings of African Americans. The scene of Mr. Smith’s flight from Mercy Hospital also demonstrates Morrison’s delight in wordplay and her skill in merging fact and fiction to create a new reality. For example, Mr. Smith, a fictional character, works for North Carolina Mutual Life, an actual black-owned insurance company. February 18, 1931, the date of his proposed flight, is Morrison’s birth date. Morrison’s emphasis on the transforming power of language is illustrated by her fluency in the language of domination and submission, which enables her to convey the race and class of various characters solely through their interactions—mannerisms, choice of words, body language, and forms of address. For example, when the white hospital nurse initially addresses Mrs. Bains, the “stout woman,” outside the hospital with a gruff “You,” Mrs. Bains’ eyebrows “lifted at the carelessness of the address.” But note Mrs. Bains’ change in character when she realizes that a white woman is addressing her: “Then, seeing where the voice came from, she lowered her brows and veiled her eyes.” The “You” with which the nurse addresses Mrs. Bains raises another important theme in the novel: legal names. Except for Mr. Smith, whose radical act places him physically and psychologically outside the community’s control, characters are not referred to by



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23 their legal names. Instead, they obtain their identities—“the dead doctor’s daughter,” “the gold-toothed man,” “the singing woman”— from the community, which functions as a chorus, or social commentator. This distinction between what people are named and what they are called is important: For African Americans, community identity often supersedes individual identity. The vital link between the community and the individual is further emphasized by the black spectators’ and the white hospital staff’s different opinions of Mr. Smith: The black spectators see Mr. Smith as a member of their community, but the staff sees him as a problem. Ironically, the white staff, symbolic of early twentiethcentury white society, is blithely unaware that they are responsible for “the Negro problem,” which they are now attempting to resolve: “They wondered if one of those things that racial-uplift groups were always organizing was taking place.” Morrison’s message is clear: The two groups cannot communicate because they speak different languages. Consequently, they hold different views of reality. Readers should also note Morrison’s multifaceted approach to language, which often reveals hidden meanings behind seemingly innocuous words and phrases. For example, Ruth’s cloche (hat) marks her as a well-dressed woman, but since the term also designates a covering for delicate plants, it supports the evolving image of Ruth as a fragile, vulnerable female. Similarly, the reference to the cupola (dome-like, cloche-like structure) on the roof of Mercy Hospital suggests an image of the hospital as a church, but the hospital offers neither mercy nor charity. Another example of hidden meanings here in Chapter 1 is when the narrator says, “Then in 1918, when colored men were being drafted . . .” Left unsaid is the fact that there was a time in the not-too-distant past when black men were barred from serving in the United States military. Although black soldiers participated in all U.S. wars from the 1776 American Revolutionary War forward, African Americans were not granted the right to vote until 1944, and the armed forces remained segregated until 1948. By drawing more attention to seemingly trivial details—for example, the velvet rose petals—than the main event of Mr. Smith’s flight, Morrison introduces another recurring theme in the novel: Events that are trivialized, discounted, or ignored are often more



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24 important than those that command our attention. The novel also provides a biting social commentary on contemporary American culture, in which people are often judged in terms of race, gender, or material wealth rather than on the basis of their personal character and integrity. Because color symbolism plays a key role in the novel, readers should be aware of the themes and images suggested by various colors. In her essay “Unspeakable Things Unspoken,” Morrison discusses color symbolism and writes, “The composition of red, white, and blue in the opening scene provides the national canvas/flag upon which the narrative works.” In other words, the red velvet rose petals, the white snow, and Mr. Smith’s blue silk wings mirror the colors in the United States national flag. Consequently, we can surmise that Milkman’s story is the story of a young man struggling to come to terms with his dual identity as both an American and as a black man in white America. Other key color references in Chapter 1 include Pilate’s navy-blue cap and Ruth’s gray coat, which allude to the Union blue and Confederate gray during the American Civil War, fought in large part over the issue of slavery, and the white linen that covers Ruth’s mahogany table—an image of whiteness concealing, or negating, the blackness of mahogany. Ruth’s fantasy, in which she envisions herself as a “cauldron issuing spinning gold,” provides a rare moment of insight into her true character and probes the origins of her spiritual death. It also introduces gold as a “thread,” an image that recurs throughout the novel and further establishes the theme of the quilt—Pilate has a quilt wrapped around her as she stands outside the hospital—as a symbol of African-American culture. “Stunned into stillness” by her husband’s hatred, Ruth has grown accustomed to repressing her feelings and emotions. Only through fantasy can she reunite the fragments of her shattered selfimage and see herself as a whole, functioning human being. Subjected for nearly twenty years to her husband’s contempt, Ruth has internalized his vision of herself as a depersonalized object, stripped of such human emotions as hope and fear. She uses the water mark on her father’s mahogany table as a means—“a mooring”—to confirm that she is alive, which is why she looks at it several times daily: “She knew it was there, would always be there,



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25 but she needed to confirm its presence” and thereby confirm her own. Although Macon has shattered Ruth’s self-image, he has not succeeded in completely destroying her. By transcending her limited existence, which discounts her experiences and denies her reality, Ruth maintains her personal, private desires through her reveries and her fantasies. To convey Ruth’s surrealistic vision, Morrison merges elements of feminist creation mythology, European fairy tale, Greek mythology, and African folk tale. Ruth depends on external cues— for example, the watermark on her mahogany table—to confirm and validate her fragmented existence as both “the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner.” However, in her fantasy, she relies on internal cues and sees herself as a divine female endowed with the power of creation. The image of the miller’s wife spinning straw into gold clearly relates to the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin,” in which a miller’s daughter will be allowed to keep her child if she can guess the name of the little man who helped her spin the king’s straw into gold. The image of the cauldron “issuing spinning gold” also recalls the Greek myth of the three Fates, sister goddesses who preside over the birth, life, and death of humans: Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis measures its length and character, and Atropos cuts it off with her shears. In addition, the gold thread image alludes to Anansi the Spider, a creature popular in African folklore and known for its magical powers. Although the story of Rumpelstiltskin appears to dominate Ruth’s vision, it is only one, and perhaps the least significant, image associated with spinning thread. Therefore, we can surmise that despite her materialism, which reflects the values of a white, Western culture, Ruth is deeply rooted in her African heritage. We can also speculate that Ruth’s scenes here in Chapter 1 reflect Morrison’s belief that women—especially black women—who allow themselves to be defined by men and who believe that beauty, material possessions, and self-denial—rather than creativity, spirituality, and personal responsibility—will lead them to a “happily ever after” life are destined for failure and heartbreak. Contrasted with Ruth is Pilate, who is “as poorly dressed as the doctor’s daughter was well dressed.” Ruth, pregnant and standing outside of the hospital, wears a “traditional pregnant-woman bow at her navel”; Pilate has no naval, in part, Macon surmises, because



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26 his mother died before giving birth to Pilate, and the unborn baby “had come struggling out of the womb without help from throbbing muscles or the pressure of swift womb water.” Pilate’s inching her way “headfirst out of a still, silent, and indifferent cave of flesh, dragging her own cord and her own afterbirth behind her” is one of many images of nature linked with the woman. For example, her father chose the name “Pilate” for her because he saw in the group of letters “a large figure that looked like a tree hanging in some princely but protective way over a row of smaller trees.” Pilate’s house is backed by four large pine trees, whose needles she stuffs her mattress; Macon notes that his sister has always chewed on plants or bits of wood; and the chapter ends with the image of Pilate swaying “like a willow over her stirring.” Although Pilate and Macon are sister and brother, no two characters in the novel are more different from each other. The nature imagery associated with Pilate is contrasted with the urban imagery of Macon, best exemplified in his ring of keys, symbolic of his materialism. Morrison describes Macon’s obsession with his keys as almost sexual: He “curled his fingers around them, letting their bunchy solidity calm him. . . . [H]e fondled them from time to time.” Note also that the important theme of naming also differentiates Macon from his sister. Whereas Pilate physically carries her folded-up name inside her dangling brass box earring, Macon struggles to understand why the “giving of names in his family was always surrounded by what he believed to be monumental foolishness.” He wants to believe that at least one of his ancestors “had a name that was real,” but he is not willing to chance his material possessions to find out. Instead, that spiritual journey will be pursued in the second half of the novel by his only son, Milkman. Already in Chapter 1, Morrison situates Milkman as the only living member of his family who has the potential, although deeply buried, to fly, an act that symbolizes movement from the material world toward a better, more spiritual and free existence. Pilate, Milkman’s aunt and spiritual advisor, says to Ruth while the two women stand waiting for Mr. Smith to fly, “A little bird’ll be here in the morning.” That little bird is Milkman, who, as Pilate foresaw, is born the next morning. Readers should note that a bird is traditionally a common symbol for the soul. Consequently, Pilate’s words not only predict her nephew’s birth, but they also



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27 imply that eventually Milkman will transcend the arbitrary limits placed on black people. However, that time is long in coming, for when four-year-old Milkman realizes that “only birds and airplanes could fly—he lost all interest in himself.” Milkman awakens to reality and realizes society’s limitations on him. This awareness illustrates the dilemma of many blacks in white America, who learn early on that their opportunities for social, economic, and political successes are limited because of their skin color. Milkman will unquestioningly accept his father’s skewed, materialistic view of the world because Macon has forbidden his son to interact with the one person who can help Milkman spiritually: Pilate. (Here and in the following chapters, difficult words and phrases, as well as allusions and historical references, are explained.) • Lindbergh Charles Lindbergh (1902–74), the American aviator who made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to Paris, in 1927. • corsets constricting undergarments worn by women to shape their waists and give them “hourglass” figures. • cupola

architecturally, a domed structure atop a roof.

• peck basket A peck equals eight quarts of any dry material; the peck basket that Ruth drops could hold a maximum of eight quarts of red velvet rose petals. • pregnant-woman bow Traditionally, pregnant women attached decorative bows to their clothes at the stomach to announce that they were pregnant. • cloche a bell-shaped hat that fits snugly over the ears and forehead. • galoshes rubber overshoes used to protect footwear during inclement weather. • racial-uplift groups During the early 1900s, white liberals and black nationalists founded several organizations dedicated to “uplifting the race.” These pioneering groups included the Niagara Movement, forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); the National Urban League; and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). • jumpers protective one-piece garments worn over clothes.



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28 • Father Divine a storefront preacher popular during the 1930s, hailed by some as a black messiah. Here, Father Divine “reigns” in Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love,” the home of the Liberty Bell, and the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The reference emphasizes the ironic fact that African Americans were being denied the “divine right” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” • nutwagon • reaper

here, an insane person.

meaning the Grim Reaper, traditionally a symbol of death.

• Hoover Herbert Hoover (1874–1964), the thirty-first president of the United States (1929-33). The people from whom Mr. Smith collects insurance money jokingly wonder if Hoover knows of Mr. Smith’s regularity in collecting their money; Hoover failed to correct the financial crash of 1929, which began the Great Depression. • “Right on time.” Pilate’s words allude to the African-American proverb, “He [Jesus] may not come when you call Him, but He’s always right on time.” • sedan a two- or four-door car; the term “sedan” has become somewhat antiquated today. • caul According to superstition, a baby born with a caul—part of the membrane that protects the fetus—was destined to have good luck. According to African legend, a baby born with a caul has the power to combat evil spirits and the ability to see ghosts. • sunshine cake a light, airy, circular cake, made with either a yellow cake batter or a white cake batter and then frosted with yellow icing. • gross equaling 144 items. • lilt

a happy, upbeat manner of speaking.

• salt cellar a salt shaker or a small, shallow bowl from which salt is pinched. • rennet dessert a cheeselike dessert in which rennet, a dried extract made from the stomach lining of a small animal, usually a calf, is the major ingredient. • iodine here, a reference to iodic acid, a disinfectant powder used to clean surfaces. • linseed oil an oil made from the seeds of flax, a plant widely cultivated for its seeds and stems, and used in paints and varnishes.



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29 • pussy willow a deciduous North American shrub having clusters of large, silvery, fuzzy flowers. • Scotch pine a pine tree native to Europe and Asia having a flattened top and triangular cones. • grosgrain ribbon a ribbon made from grosgrain, a coarse-textured silk or rayon fabric. • bodice the fitted part of a dress from the waist to the shoulder. • perspiration shields pads, probably made from cotton, that women wore underneath their armpits so that their sweat would not soil their clothes. • onyx skin Onyx is a crystal-like substance indigenous to India and South America and found in many colors; onyx skin would be a deep, black-colored skin. • fluky odd; eccentric. • relief check here, a government-issued check made payable to lowincome individuals and families. • tetter spots skin eruptions caused by various skin diseases, including psoriasis and herpes; tetter is common chiefly in the southern United States. • town crier an antiquated term for a person hired to make public announcements in the streets; here, a public gossiper, a person who feels it necessary to tell everyone’s business to everybody. • caught the eagle got paid. The phrase alludes to the AfricanAmerican folk saying “The eagle flies on Friday”—Friday is payday. • wild turkey a wild variety of turkey and the ancestor of the domesticated North American turkey. • calico a brightly printed cloth. • India rubber erasers erasers made from India rubber, cultivated from the rubber plant, an evergreen fig plant native to India and Malaysia.



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30 CHAPTER 2 Summary It is the summer of 1936, and the Dead family is on their ritual Sunday drive through town in their green Packard. Although the drive affords Macon little pleasure, he enjoys the opportunity to flaunt his affluence and prosperity. Ruth enjoys showing off her family, and Lena and Corinthians like watching the men. For fiveyear-old Milkman, the trip is “simply a burden.” During the drive, the Dead family’s strained conversation touches on numerous topics that reveal the family members’ personal beliefs and values. While Corinthians is excited about Macon’s plans to establish a beach community at Honoré for “high class Negroes,” Ruth’s comments are generally ignored. Lena is intent on keeping the peace between her parents, and Milkman fidgets and finally finds a way to escape his imprisonment—he needs to go to the bathroom. After a brief stop results in a minor family crisis, the family heads back home. The narrative now shifts to seven years later, and twelve-yearold Milkman meets seventeen-year-old Guitar, who introduces him to Pilate—Milkman’s aunt—and the mysteries of her wine house. Pilate invites the two boys into her house, offers each of them a soft-boiled egg, and tells them stories about growing up in Montour County, Pennsylvania, and about her childhood relationship with her brother, Macon, and her and Macon’s escape from Montour County following their father’s murder. Entranced by her stories, her brass earring, and the “piny-winy” smell that permeates her house, the boys are fascinated to learn that the rumor concerning Pilate’s being born without a navel is true. Suddenly, their conversation is interrupted by Pilate’s daughter, Reba, and Pilate’s granddaughter, Hagar, who have returned from picking blackberries. For Milkman, meeting his cousin Hagar is love at first sight. Returning home, Milkman learns that Freddie has told Macon about Milkman’s visit to Pilate’s house, which Macon strictly forbade Milkman to enter. Macon scolds Milkman for disobeying him and is stunned by his son’s questions about the Dead family’s history. Consequently, like Pilate earlier in the chapter, Macon reminisces about his childhood in Montour County, sharing with



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31 Milkman some of his fondest memories concerning Pilate, his father, and his father’s beloved farm, Lincoln’s Heaven. However, as Macon regains his autocratic composure and his anger returns, he reiterates his warning to Milkman to stay away from Pilate, whom he describes as a “snake.” He also says that it is time for Milkman to learn the family business, to “learn what’s real.” He will teach his son the “one important thing [he’ll] ever need to know: own things.” Commentary As we follow the Dead family on their Sunday drive, we realize that their being “pressed” into the Packard symbolizes their being trapped by materialism. Like the Deads’ house, which is “more prison than palace,” the green Packard provides no joy for its owner; like Macon’s ring of keys, the car is strictly a status symbol. The Packard, which is the color of money, elicits a range of emotions among both passengers and onlookers. Lena and Corinthians fantasize that they are princesses riding in a “regal chariot driven by a powerful coachman”; Milkman views it as a cramped space that inhibits his mobility; Macon is satisfied with the Packard only because it is a symbol of success: “These rides . . . had become rituals and much too important for Macon to enjoy”; and the townspeople name the car “Macon Dead’s hearse,” emphasizing the link between material wealth and spiritual death. By referring to the Packard as a “chariot,” Morrison merges the elements of fairy tale and black culture, much like she did with the golden thread and “Rumpelstiltskin” in Chapter 1. Here in Chapter 2, the image of the “coachman” suggests the royal coach in “Cinderella,” and the term “chariot” alludes to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” a spiritual often sung at black funerals. Readers should also note the numerous allusions to flight, including Lena and Corinthians’ perception of “the summer day flying past them,” the Packard’s “silver winged woman” hood ornament, and the car’s “dove gray” seats. Perhaps more important is Milkman’s sensation of “flying blind”—yet another reference to his dulled, unenlightened existence. However, Milkman’s spirits are raised when he is later introduced to Hagar: “He seemed to be floating. More alive than he’d been, and floating.” This new feeling in Milkman emphasizes the relationship between flying and living, experiencing life on one’s own terms rather than on someone else’s.



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32 One of the most revealing aspects of this chapter is Corinthians’ conversation with her father concerning the beach community of Honoré. Through her thoughtless comments, she reveals her racial prejudices against blacks and her psychological distance—much like her father’s—from the black community. For example, although she giggles that “Negroes don’t like the water,” she readily admits that she would love to live at the beach—so long as it is restricted to “nice colored people” and does not allow people like Mary, the barmaid, to move there. Commenting to her mother about Mary, Corinthians says, “I don’t care what she owns. I care about what she is.” Corinthians accepts and internalizes stereotypes of blacks. Ironically, however, she seems unaware that she herself exemplifies the fallacy of those stereotypes. We should not be surprised when, at the chapter’s end, Macon, scolding Milkman for visiting Pilate, says of his own sister, “It ain’t what she did, it’s what she is.” Corinthians has obviously learned her prejudicial views from her father, whose comments about Pilate only confirm his narrow-minded, intolerant opinions of the black community. The long litany of what the family’s car ride is not underscores the sterility of the family’s existence. Morrison emphasizes this lifelessness by repeatedly using the words “never,” “no,” and “no one,” a stylistic device that recalls how the black community rejected the city legislators’ proclamation about Mains Avenue and refers to it, instead, as Not Doctor Street. That the green Packard had “no real lived life at all” is confirmed later in the chapter when Pilate says to Milkman, “Ain’t but three Deads alive”—Pilate, Reba, and Hagar. One comment that the narrator makes about Milkman during the Dead family’s ritualistic Sunday afternoon drive is especially important. Because Milkman is only five years old, he is forced to ride between his parents in the Packard’s front seat. However, because he is still small, he cannot see over the front hood and therefore kneels on the front seat and looks out the back window. Coupled with this backward viewing is the short scene in which Milkman, startled by a sound behind him while he is urinating in the woods, turns around and urinates on his sister Lena. Morrison comments, “It was becoming a habit—this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had.”



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33 Although Milkman cannot yet know that his grandfather was shot from behind, that threats from behind—the past—affect the future, he learns this important lesson immediately following the car-ride section when he talks to Pilate. Here, Morrison suggests that our actions are somehow influenced or predetermined by our ancestors. The more we learn about our families’ pasts, the more clearly we can identify our ancestors’ influences in ourselves and thereby gain a better, more spiritual appreciation of our daily lives. Milkman and Guitar’s visit to Pilate’s wine house provides a striking contrast to the Dead family’s drive. Instead of a meaningless Sunday ritual, we are introduced to the rituals of making wine and boiling eggs, which symbolize fertility, renewed life, and a state of equilibrium: “Now, the water and the egg have to meet each other on a kind of equal standing,” Pilate explains to the boys. “One can’t get the upper hand over the other.” Although we might think that Pilate is crazy when she discusses eggs at such length, her words have import: They exemplify a way of life in which every part is equal. Instead of stories about restricted beach communities, we hear stories of real life and a song about an imagined flight that recalls Mr. Smith’s flight in Chapter 1 and foreshadows Milkman’s flight at the end of the novel. Also note that the story that Pilate tells about the man who has a heart attack and feels that he is “about to fall off a cliff” foreshadows Milkman’s jumping off Solomon’s Leap in the novel’s last chapter. Pilate’s comment “I don’t know if the cliff was real or not” mirrors the novel’s ambiguous ending. Unlike the Dead family’s Sunday ritual, in which certain family members—namely, Ruth and Milkman—are ignored or silenced, everyone in Pilate’s house participates in the conversation. Consequently, we experience firsthand the difference between the atmosphere of death that permeates Macon’s household and the vibrancy that characterizes Pilate’s. Again images of nature are linked to Milkman’s aunt. Morrison characterizes Pilate’s voice as “light but gravel-sprinkled,” and Milkman thinks of it as “little round pebbles that bumped up against each other.” To both Milkman and Guitar, Pilate looks like a “tall black tree,” and odors of “pine and fermenting fruit” fill her house: “the piny-winy smell was narcotic.” Note that the house has sun “streaming in, strong and unfettered because there were no curtains or shades at the



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34 windows that were all around the room”; this image is the opposite, the antithesis, of Macon’s “big dark [urban] house.” Pilate’s wine house, with its allusions to the traditional African agricultural system in which yams and palm wine play an integral part in the community’s social and economic survival, functions as a recurring image in the novel. It establishes Pilate not only as the local African storyteller figure but also as an ancestor who preserves and protects the culture of her people. She is a “pilot” who charts a new course for her black community’s future by incorporating both the positive and negative elements of its past. Whereas Macon attempts to control Milkman, Pilate attempts to influence him. When Guitar, the boy who “liberate[s]” Milkman, introduces his friend to Pilate, “the woman who had as much to do with his future as she had his past,” Milkman realizes that his expectations of his aunt, largely influenced by his father, are wrong. Like Macon, Milkman has internalized the white community’s perspective of lower-class blacks. In doing so, he has separated himself from poor blacks, refusing to acknowledge that, to racist whites, all blacks are the same regardless of their wealth or status. Because Pilate is economically poor by Milkman’s standards, he expects her to be spiritually defeated as well. Macon had led his son to equate “poor” with “worthless,” but Pilate refutes this crass stereotype. Milkman recognizes of Pilate, “And while she looked as everyone said she was, something was missing from her eyes that should have confirmed it”—namely, resignation, or defeat. Milkman learns that material worth does not equal personal worth. Symbolically, even the whites of his aunt’s fingernails are like “ivory.” • Packard the name brand of a family-oriented automobile produced by Packard Motor, Inc., which was founded in 1900 and merged with Studebaker Corporation in 1954. In Chapter 1, Macon Dead drives a green Dodge sedan on Sunday afternoon outings. • the Blood Bank The name of Southside’s notorious neighborhood alludes to Dr. Charles Richard Drew (1904-1950), a world-renowned surgeon, scientist, and educator. The pioneer of blood plasma preservation, Dr. Drew established the first successful blood plasma bank. In 1950, while on his way to a medical convention at Tuskegee Institute, Dr. Drew was fatally injured in an automobile accident. Denied



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35 treatment at a nearby white hospital because of his black skin color, he was refused the blood transfusions that might have saved his life. Here, the term for the neighborhood is used ironically, for this part of town is notorious for crime and murder—bloodletting, the opposite of blood banking. • fermenting

rotting.

• poot slang for “lousy” or “inferior.” Pilate says that Macon could not cook worth “poot”—he was a lousy cook. • hickories hickory trees, grown in the eastern United States for timber and nut production. • brambles a prickly shrub or bush, including blackberry and raspberry plants. • hoot owl According to West African legend, the owl is the king of witches. If an owl’s hooting disturbs the tranquility of a campsite, it is considered a warning that one of the inhabitants is destined to die. • crock an earthenware container. • war bond promissory notes issued by a government to finance a war. When the bond reaches maturity, the person who purchased the bond receives the amount of money originally paid for the bond plus interest. • Mayflower Restaurant and Sears By juxtaposing the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to North America in 1620 with the name of a modern department store, Morrison alludes to the progress of white Americans in the United States. She also emphasizes that for black Americans, not much has changed, as they are still denied full participation in American society. • Four Roses • cracklin South.

a brand of blended bourbon not widely sold today.

browned, crisp rinds of roast pork, especially popular in the

• maws stewed pig stomachs, usually served with greens or beans. • Freedmen’s Bureau officially, the United States War Department’s Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Established in 1865 to aid thousands of people (black and white) left displaced and homeless after the American Civil War, the bureau was discontinued in 1872 by congressional inaction.



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36 CHAPTER 3 Summary Spanning a period of ten years, Chapter 3 traces Milkman’s life from age twelve to twenty-two. The chapter begins and ends with conversations between Milkman and Guitar. Milkman works at his father’s real-estate office and likes his job because it gives him more time to visit Hagar at Pilate’s house and to meet people who live in Guitar’s Southside neighborhood. As the chapter opens, Guitar and Milkman have decided to skip school and “hang out” in Southside. They stop first at Feather’s pool hall, located in a rough part of Southside known as the Blood Bank. At Feather’s, they see several men playing pool, including three awe-inspiring air force fighter pilots. When Feather refuses to admit Milkman into his establishment or sell him a beer because he dislikes Milkman’s father, Guitar and Milkman continue down Tenth Street to the local barbershop, owned by two old men, Railroad Tommy and Hospital Tommy. Hospital Tommy asks the boys why they aren’t in school and then lectures Milkman on how unfair he’ll always be treated, painting a dismal picture of the things he’ll never have, the least of which is a bottle of beer. After the boys leave the barbershop, they continue through the Southside neighborhood. Along the way, Guitar tells Milkman the story of his father’s death and Guitar’s subsequent aversion to sweets. The narrative then shifts to fourteen-year-old Milkman and the changing relationship between him and his father. Knowing that he can never be like his father, Milkman determines to be as different from him as possible. Meanwhile, Macon is happy to have his son working with him because it relieves him of the job of collecting rents and makes him feel that his son now belongs to him rather than to Ruth. To Macon, Milkman is as much a possession as the rental property he owns. The story line again shifts, this time to twenty-two-year-old Milkman seated at the dinner table with his family. After Ruth tells a story about her embarrassing behavior at the wedding of the granddaughter of one of her father’s former clients, Macon slaps her. Milkman jumps up to defend his mother, knocks his father to the floor, and threatens to kill him if he ever abuses Ruth again.



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37 Later, Macon, who has gained a new respect for his son, tells Milkman the story behind his estranged relationship with Ruth. Overwhelmed by his father’s sordid story concerning how his mother lay naked with her father after he died, sucking his fingers, Milkman leaves the house and heads for Southside, hoping that Guitar can help him sort out his confusing thoughts. Along the way, he begins thinking about his mother and suddenly recalls, in fragments, how she used to breast-feed him even after he was old enough to walk. This new awareness makes him ashamed and adds credibility to his father’s story about his mother’s perverseness. Milkman finds Guitar at Tommy’s Barbershop among a group of men gathered around the radio, listening to a news report about a fourteen-year-old black youth found stomped to death after whistling at a white woman. A heated discussion among the men about the boy’s murder leads to an exchange of war stories concerning the abominable treatment of black soldiers during World War II. Milkman distracts Guitar from the conversation and talks him into accompanying him to Mary’s bar for a drink. At the bar, he questions Guitar about the origin of his own nickname and tells him about the confrontation with his father. Empathizing with Milkman’s ambivalent feelings toward his mother, Guitar tells him a story about a hunting trip in Florida during which he accidentally shot a doe. When Milkman fails to see the connection, Guitar tells him to try to understand Macon’s reasons for acting the way he does, “but if you can’t, just forget it and keep yourself strong.” As the chapter closes, the friends’ conversation turns to names and naming. After telling Guitar the story behind his family’s surname, Milkman resolves to ask Pilate about Hagar’s last name, which he believes will help him discover his own “real” name. Commentary Chapter 3 establishes the tradition of storytelling as a means of passing on culture and tradition and examines the use of oral versus written language. By introducing Railroad Tommy and Hospital Tommy, who talks like an “encyclopedia,” Morrison challenges the concept that Black English is synonymous with poverty. Note that Milkman learns his history from the community, not from school textbooks—much like his grandfather, who could neither read nor write, learned his history. And after Macon tells Milkman



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38 the story of his surname, Milkman relates the story to Guitar. The chapter also paints a vivid picture of a traditional black small-town community, with its distinctive rhythms and traditional establishments—bar, pool hall, barbershop, beauty parlor, and fried-fish restaurant—and illustrates how these establishments serve as gathering places for the people to discuss the day-to-day events that affect their lives. It also continues the community-as-chorus theme as community members comment on the actions of Milkman and his family, as well as on national events. With the introduction of the Southside community, we are plunged into the heart of the black community. Whereas in Chapters 1 and 2 we were inducted into Macon Dead’s sterile, silent household and were provided only a quick glimpse into Pilate’s house and into the pretentious beach community of Honoré, Chapter 3 introduces us to the people who work to support the affluent lifestyles of the black (and white) middle class. Like Chicago’s Southside district, noted for its crushing poverty and violence, Guitar’s Southside is also characterized by crime and violence, as indicated by its notorious nickname, the Blood Bank. Still, people gather in barbershops, beauty parlors, and pool halls to relax, tell stories, and pass the time. The scene in Hospital Tommy’s and Railroad Tommy’s barbershop is especially effective in relating the real lack of opportunities, both social and economic, for African Americans during the mid-twentieth century. Note that their names refer to the types of labor blacks were often required to do: working as hospital orderlies and railroad porters. Also note the allusion to two barbers— John Merrick and Alonzo F. Herdon. Although they may have been readily dismissed by the white community as two “Uncle Toms” based on their menial jobs, the two men were the organizing forces behind the founding of the first major black insurance companies: North Carolina Mutual (1898) and Atlanta Life Insurance Co. (1905). Note Morrison’s use of negation as a stylistic device, similar to when she described Macon’s Packard in Chapter 2. Railroad Tommy’s double negatives, characteristic of black vernacular dialogue, emphasize Milkman’s and Guitar’s bleak futures at this point in the novel: “And I’ll tell you something else you not going to have. You not going to have no private coach with four red velvet



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39 chairs that swivel around in one place whenever you want ‘em to.” Additionally, this quote recalls—and deflates—Lena and Corinthians’ private fantasy of riding in a royal chariot driven by a “powerful coachman.” Note, too, the recurring image of velvet: In Chapter 1, Lena and Corinthian’s red velvet rose petals spilled in the snow outside the hospital; in Chapter 2, Pilate told Milkman and Guitar that she likes her egg yokes the consistency of “wet velvet”; here in Chapter 3, sitting in red velvet chairs is one more experience Milkman and Guitar will never have. The only things the two will have are broken hearts and “folly. A whole lot of folly.” Guitar’s painful past, inextricably linked to his aversion to sugar, alludes to the vital connection between sugar and the African slave trade. In 1645, when the first American slave ships sailed from Boston, African slaves were forcibly brought to the West Indies in exchange for sugar, tobacco, and wine, which were then sold for manufactured goods back in Massachusetts. African slaves also worked on United States sugar cane plantations in the South. This crucial piece of black history is documented in geographic names, including Harlem’s Sugar Hill, a section of New York City once populated by prosperous African Americans. Thus, it is no accident that the Flying African (Solomon/Shalimar) in Pilate’s song is referred to as “Sugarman.” Chapter 3 reveals an important physical characteristic about Milkman: His left leg is half an inch shorter than his right. More important, this physical limitation affects him psychologically. Morrison writes, “The deformity was mostly in his mind. Mostly, but not completely.” Because Milkman has an affected walk and therefore can never be completely like his father, he decides to be different from Macon “as much as he dared.” And while he imagines himself to be as much a part of the Southside community as Guitar is, he is unable to communicate with the Southside men, whose “crisscrossed” conversations elude him. He is effectively separated from both his father and the Southside community. Milkman’s hitting Macon is the first assertive action we have seen Milkman take and is the first step in his emotional development. Afterward, he thinks to himself, “His action was his alone.” However, he also realizes that standing up to his father “would change nothing between his parents,” nor, ironically, does it



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40 change his own passivity; he remains as uncommitted to everyone and everything as he was in the past. “Infinite possibilities and enormous responsibilities stretched before him,” Morrison says, “but he was not prepared to take advantage of the former, or accept the burden of the latter.” The incoherence he recognizes in his face symbolizes the incoherence of his “total self.” Ironically, immediately after Milkman ponders what his face looks like in the mirror, Macon enters his bedroom and tells his son, “You have to be a whole man. And if you want to be a whole man, you have to deal with the whole truth.” Macon’s words indicate his willingness to acknowledge his son as a man. But by accepting only part of his father’s story, Milkman indicates that he is not yet ready or willing to assume full adult responsibility. His words also allude to the biblical phrase, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”—Christ’s promise to the Jews that they would find freedom and salvation through knowledge of the truth. Milkman is not yet ready for the whole truth or for the responsibility of his own freedom. In addition to facing his father, Milkman’s emotional growth involves acknowledging his mother, Ruth, as an individual person and not solely as his mother. Although he reels from the story that Macon tells him about his mother’s seemingly incestuous relationship with her father, Milkman, for the first time in the novel, feels for another character rather than only for himself. For example, of Ruth, Milkman thinks, “Never had he thought of his mother as a person, a separate individual, with a life apart from allowing or interfering with his own.” Milkman unconsciously assumes that everyone with whom he interacts exists for him, that they do not have needs or lives outside of their relationships to him. As Lena says to him later, in Chapter 9, just prior to his leaving home to search for Pilate’s gold, “Where do you get the right to decide our lives?” Inversely, Milkman is forced to recognize the possibility that if he takes advantage of people without loving them, perhaps they merely accept him without truly caring for him: “He wondered if there was anyone in the world who liked him. Liked him for himself alone.” Unable to make sense of his father’s story about his mother and how his own life fits into their relationship, Milkman runs from his problems and tries to find Guitar. His confusion



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41 turns to anger, and he instinctively tries to push his family’s “strange” past from his mind: “He didn’t want to know any of it. There was nothing he could do about it. The doctor was dead. You can’t do the past over.” Milkman finds Guitar at Hospital Tommy’s barbershop, where a group of men are listening to a news report on the radio about a young black teenager who was “stomped to death” because he whistled at a white woman. Here, Morrison incorporates actual African-American history to emphasize not only the horrendous racist conditions against which blacks struggled during the midtwentieth century but the lack of viable opportunities a boy like Milkman has growing up in the United States. On August 28, 1955, Emmett Louis Till, a fourteen-year-old black youth from Chicago, visiting his grandparents in Money, Mississippi, was tortured and killed, allegedly for whistling at a white woman. His two white murderers were acquitted by an all-white jury—even after one of the accused men admitted his guilt. Milkman, still upset over the scene at his home, and Guitar, troubled by the death of the young black teen, escape to Mary’s bar. Note the surreal, fantasy-like atmosphere of Mary’s: “For in Mary’s the lights made everybody beautiful, or if not beautiful, then fascinating. . . . And the food and drink provoked people into behavior that resembled nothing less than high drama.” Morrison’s understatement in describing the bar’s atmosphere—“high drama”—emphasizes the escapism sought by the people in the bar from the real, outside world in which black teenagers are brutally murdered by whites who can laugh about their crimes and still walk free. Milkman and Guitar’s conversation at the end of the chapter involves the theme of naming, but here the theme is expanded as commentary on both the racist white society in which African Americans must survive and on Milkman’s continued interest only in himself. When Milkman admits to Guitar that he doesn’t like his own name, Guitar responds, “Niggers get their names the way they get everything else—the best way they can. The best way they can.” That Milkman is more upset about his name than about the murder of Emmett Till signals that emotionally he is still a child whose only concern is himself.



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42 • Red Cap a brand of beer. Interestingly, “Red Cap” is also a term originally used to describe black railroad porters and attendants, who could be identified by their red caps. • 332nd Fighter Group a highly decorated group of black World War II fighter pilots. The 332nd Fighter Group included the legendary 99th Fighter Squadron, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Calling themselves the “Lonely Eagles,” the Tuskegee Airmen became known as the “Black Birdmen” by their enemies because of their courageous, daring, and highly successful missions. A total of 450 black pilots fought in the aerial wars over North Africa, Sicily, and Europe during World War II. • sabbatical

a leave of absence.

• galley a kitchen. • Wild Turkey

a brand of straight bourbon.

• humidor a container used to store cigars at a constant level of humidity so that the cigars do not dry out. • Rothschild ‘29 and Beaujolais aristocracy and elitism.

two expensive wines, symbolic of

• baked Alaska a dessert made of angel food cake, ice cream, and meringue, and often topped with heated brandy, which is set ablaze for a dramatic presentation. • diabetes a common metabolic disease in which the body does not produce a sufficient amount of insulin, which regulates the body’s use of carbohydrates and fats. Diabetics suffer from increased sugar in the blood and urine, excessive thirst, and frequent urination. • divinity traditionally, a white, creamy Christmas candy, usually made with nuts. • polio poliomyelitis, an infectious viral disease that affects children and adults. Polio causes inflammation of the spinal cord and brainstem and can lead to paralysis and the deterioration of muscles. • President Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), the thirty-second president of the United States (1933–45), was crippled by polio. • Truman Harry S. Truman (1884–1972), the thirty-third president of the United States (1945–53). • Committee on Civil Rights a committee established on December 5, 1946, by President Truman, that eventually recommended anti-lynching and anti-poll-tax legislation, and the creation of the Fair Employment



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43 Practices Commission, an oversight commission charged with eradicating racism and unfair labor practices in the workplace. • four-in-hand

a necktie tied in a slipknot with the ends left hanging.

• rhododendron a common shrub or small tree found in North America, Europe, and Asia that prefers cool temperatures and acidic soil. They have white, pink, or purple flowers and tough leaves. • dahlias tall, spindly, coarse-blossomed flowers with large, showy heads of white, yellow, red, or purple. • geraniums hearty, heavily scented house or garden plants that have white, pink, or red flowers. • tuberculosis sanatorium Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by tubercle bacteria and characterized by fatigue, weight loss, coughing, and hemorrhaging of the lungs. In 1903, a person with the disease would have been sent to a sanatorium to prevent further infection of the general public; today, methods of early detection have reduced the incidence of the disease. • cod-liver oil oil extracted from the livers of cod, fish of northern Atlantic waters; a source of vitamins A and D. • host a consecrated wafer that is consumed by Christians, predominantly of the Catholic faith, during Communion in remembrance of Christ’s death. The wafer symbolizes the body of Christ. • Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam Latin, meaning “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who watches over our souls.” • communion the part of a Mass in which the Eucharist—the host—is received in remembrance of Christ’s death. • ether a colorless, highly flammable liquid that has an aromatic odor and a sweet taste. Ether is used as an anesthetic in medical practice, which helps explain how Dr. Foster could so easily get the substance that ultimately killed him. • Waterford bowl a glass bowl made in Waterford, Ireland, a town known for its craftspeople’s intricate glass-carving. • Erie Lackawanna here, a railroad. The U.S.S. Lackawanna was a United States warship stationed in Hawaiian waters during the 1860s, supposedly to guard American interests in Hawaii’s sugar plantations. In 1893, American military troops invaded Hawaii and overthrew its government; in 1898, Hawaii was forcibly annexed to the United States.



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44 By linking the name of the warship with the name of the fictitious railroad, Morrison links the devastating impact of United States colonialism in Hawaii with British colonialism in Africa. In both instances, white colonialism led to the annihilation of many indigenous people and the destruction of their cultures. • Radiathor an experimental drug used to test the effects of atomic radiation on humans. The term alludes to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. • King of the Mountain a children’s game in which participants try to topple the person standing on top of a mound, usually made of dirt; also, an allusion the fairy tale “King of the Golden Mountain.” Both references are from the realm of fantasy/make-believe and indicate that Milkman is only “playing” at being a man, believing he has usurped his father’s leadership role in the family. • knickers loose, baggy pants that are gathered just below the knee, exposing the calves. • Ovaltine the brand name of a powdered nutrient supplement for babies, mixed with milk, for children. • Till The reference is to Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old Chicago black youth who visited relatives in Money, Mississippi, in August 1955. Unused to the South’s fierce racism, he allegedly spoke to a white woman. A few days later, he was abducted by several white men, beaten, mutilated, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. • Scarlett O’Hara the female protagonist in Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, which was released as an epic film in 1939. Along with Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, which dramatized the American Civil War and Reconstruction, was denounced by blacks for its racist portrayal of blacks as unfit for freedom and was criticized for ending any hopes for getting anti-lynching legislation through the United States Congress. • Tom Sawyer Land Hannibal, Missouri, the fictional setting for Mark Twain’s classic novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). The sarcasm is directed toward the ignorance of any black man who thinks that the South is as harmless as the plot elements of Tom Sawyer. In that novel, “danger” is always synonymous with fun-filled adventures for young boys. • Bilbo country Here, Freddie alludes to the South as “Bilbo country.” Because “Bilbo” is capitalized, the initial reference is to the infamous, racist two-term governor of Mississippi and its multi-term senator,



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45 Theodore G. Bilbo, whose name is synonoymous with prejudice and corruption. Coincidentally, “bilbo,” with a lower-case “b,” refers to an iron bar to which ankle clamps are attached; it was used to shackle slaves during slavery and to shackle chain gangs during the 1950s. • crackers slang for poor white people, usually uneducated and usually racially prejudiced. • “Remember them soldiers in 1918?” The men in Hospital Tommy’s barbershop recall the atrocious behavior toward black soldiers who fought in World War I. After suffering discrimination in the military, they returned to the United States to face extreme hostility for daring to think that their military service had earned them the right to equal treatment in society. The hostilities led to the lynching of hundreds of African Americans, many of them soldiers still dressed in their uniforms, and culminated in the violent “Red Summer” of 1919, during which race riots erupted around the country, especially in such major cities as Detroit and Chicago.

CHAPTER 4 Summary In the early ’60s, during his last-minute Christmas shopping at a Rexall drugstore, Milkman contemplates how to break off his twelve-year relationship with Hagar. He reminisces about the beginning of their relationship following a domestic crisis involving Reba and one of her male friends. Milkman decides to write Hagar a farewell note rather than face her in person. Rather than buy her a gift, he decides to give her money, which he encloses in an envelope along with the note. Later, while finishing up some work at his father’s office, Milkman recalls a discussion with Guitar about the grisly, seriallike murders of a white boy and four white men. While the black community suspects that the killings were committed by Winnie Ruth Judd, an escaped, convicted murderer, the police claim that a witness to the boy’s murder saw a “bushy-haired Negro” running from the crime scene. Milkman recalls how the news report about the story led to a discussion among a group of men, including Henry Porter, Guitar, and Hospital Tommy, about all of the murders and the corrupt criminal justice system, and to his own suspicions that one or more of the murders had been either witnessed



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46 or committed by a black person. Milkman also recalls an argument with Guitar over middle-class values and Guitar’s reaction to Milkman’s vision in which he watches his mother being suffocated by tulips but does nothing to help her. While Milkman sits wondering about the recent changes in Guitar’s behavior, Freddie taps on the office window, and Milkman invites him in for a drink. As they sip their drinks, Freddie tells Milkman that he was abandoned as a child in Jacksonville, Florida, after his mother died from seeing a woman change into a white bull. When Milkman laughs at Freddie’s “white bull” story, Freddie is hurt and warns Milkman that a lot of strange things are going on around Milkman but that Milkman is too self-absorbed to recognize what is happening. When Milkman asks him to explain, Freddie becomes evasive and tells him to ask Guitar or Corinthians for more information. Commentary Milkman’s decision to end his relationship with Hagar, his vision of his mother being suffocated by tulips, and his reaction to Freddie’s “white bull” story reveal a number of things about Milkman’s character, his attitude toward women, and his role as a black, middle-class male. Although the three scenes seem unrelated, each illustrates Milkman’s selfish, egotistic approach to life, his lack of respect for women, and his indifference to the pain and suffering of others. These scenes also illustrate Milkman’s refusal to accept responsibility for his life, his inability to make decisions, and his lack of awareness concerning the impact that his actions have on the lives of others. Milkman’s boredom in selecting a gift for Hagar indicates his general lack of interest in her. That he shops for her on the day before Christmas Eve and limits his purchases to mundane drugstore items demonstrate that he approaches his task as an unpleasant but necessary chore. In the past, he had his sisters select his Christmas gifts for Hagar; now, although he is aware of Hagar’s eccentric taste for unique, impractical items, he inconsiderately decides to give her money, instead. Furthermore, his depiction of their long-term relationship as a cheap sexual affair that has lost its luster, his use of vulgar language and animal imagery to describe



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47 the relationship, and his cruel reference to Hagar as “the third beer” illustrate his insensitivity and disregard for Hagar’s feelings and his sexist, chauvinistic attitudes. Milkman’s surrealistic vision of Ruth being suffocated by tulips becomes more meaningful when we remember that Ruth wears a cloche, which is a hat, but which also means a covering for delicate plants, and that in Chapter 3, Milkman described his mother as a “frail woman content . . . to grow and cultivate small life that would not hurt her if it died.” Milkman’s indifference toward his mother’s plight also becomes more meaningful if we recall the scene in Chapter 1 in which Ruth, while nursing Milkman, is painfully aware of “his restraint, his courtesy, his indifference.” Given that the discussion of Milkman’s vision of tulips suffocating his mother follows his argument with Guitar over the destructive impact of middle-class values, we can surmise that the vision of Ruth’s tulips sucking up “all the air around her and [leaving] her limp on the ground” symbolizes the destructive powers of a racist society that methodically wears down its citizens to the point that they no longer have the will to fight for their personal rights. That Milkman does nothing to help his mother implies that he has become part of that system. He grudgingly admits that Guitar, who chastises Milkman for not helping his mother, is “right—partly. His life was pointless, aimless, and it was true that he didn’t concern himself an awful lot about other people.” Ruth attempts to express her creativity, but instead of nurturing her vibrant red tulips, she creates lifeless red velvet roses and nourishes the gray suede flower on her mahogany table with “nutritious” glances. In short, she focuses her energies on materialistic rather than spiritual values and dwells on the past instead of dreaming of the future. Consequently, she remains trapped in her limited life, constricted not only by being a black female in a white male-dominated society but by her own spiritual emptiness and lack of faith. Her tulips, however, refuse to be constrained by any boundary. Ruth is obsessed with death, which she views as a “more interesting subject than life.” Even Milkman sees her as welcoming death: She abdicates her role as wife and mother, preferring to play the part of “the dead doctor’s daughter”; she creates lifeless roses out of red velvet; and she passively accepts her role as a helpless, fragile wife. Her inability to nurture her creativity is



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48 symbolized by her inability to nurture her son; society’s indifference toward black women is symbolized by Milkman’s indifference toward his mother. Milkman’s reaction to Freddie’s “white bull” story illustrates his total lack of empathy for others’ feelings. Instead of realizing that Freddie is revealing a painful part of his past by sharing the horrifying vision of his mother’s death, Milkman laughs at his story. Comparing Milkman’s reaction to Freddie’s story with Guitar’s reaction to Milkman’s vision of his mother and her tulips, we realize that Guitar is much more compassionate than Milkman. Clearly, Freddie’s story is no more fantastic than Milkman’s vision; both form a part of each storyteller’s individual reality. But while Guitar accepts the reality of Milkman’s vision, Milkman rejects the reality of Freddie’s story and in doing so assumes the destructive role of the white majority culture, which systematically denies the reality of black existence by refusing to validate the credibility of black experience. Thus, Milkman’s indifference to his mother’s plight echoes the Jacksonville townspeople’s indifference to the plight of Freddie’s mother and to Freddie. Note too that earlier in the chapter, Milkman, listing the many things with which he is bored, thinks to himself, “The racial problems that consumed Guitar were the most boring of all.” The image of the white bull lends itself to many possible interpretations. Given the theme of broken promises prevalent throughout the novel, we might conclude that “white bull” is a metaphor for the lies and broken promises of whites. In classical mythology, the image alludes to the myth of King Minos of Crete, whose wife, Pasiphae, mates with a white bull sent by the god Poseidon. Their union produces the Minotaur, a monster with a human body but the head and tail of a bull. However, if we consider that Freddie is telling the story as it was told to him as a child, presumably by an adult hoping to shield him from the true horror of the situation, then by placing Freddie’s story in a historical context, we can surmise that the incident he describes occurred in the early 1900s, when the Ku Klux Klan spread its reign of terror across the South, and when many black Americans, still rooted in their African culture, acknowledged the existence of ghosts and spirits. Given that white sheets are associated with both ghosts and Klansmen, we might conclude that the person who told Freddie the story



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49 substituted ghosts for the hooded figures of Klansmen. And since no one would provide a home for Freddie because of the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death, we might also speculate that people were afraid to help him for fear of retaliation by the Klan. Because no one can corroborate or dispute Freddie’s story, it remains shrouded in mystery. • chubby a waist-length jacket, often made of fake fur. • snood place.

a cap made of fine netting that women use to hold their hair in

• rutabaga Also called a Swede turnip, it is a vegetable whose edible root is purplish with yellow flesh. • B-52 an American military bomber plane, used extensively during the Vietnam War (1954–75). • Prince Charming here, meaning the perfect man. In Walt Disney’s film-length cartoon Snow White and the 7 Dwarves (1937), Prince Charming kisses the sleeping Snow White and releases her from an evil witch’s enchantment. • MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a major United States movie studio whose most famous years were around the middle of the twentieth century. • dragnet a systematic law-enforcement operation to catch criminals; a “sting” operation. • pot of mustards “Mustards” refers to mustard greens, leafy plants whose leaves are rinsed and cooked much like spinach. • saddle shoes Popular in the 1950s and ‘60s, saddle shoes are flatlooking white shoes with a leather band—usually black—across the instep. • Sam Sheppard In 1954, a Cleveland jury found Dr. Sheppard guilty of second-degree murder of his wife, Marilyn. In 1966, a new jury found him not guilty. In the late 1990s, Sheppard’s son, Sam, authored Mockery of Justice and filed for DNA testing to further clear his father’s reputation. • men of the Ninety-second an all-black United States Army regiment that fought during World War I.



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50 • Belleau Wood a small forest in northern France, site of a World War I battle (1918) in which United States military forces stopped a German advance on Paris. • Orval Faubus a former governor of Arkansas. On September 4, 1957, Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, to keep nine black prospective students from entering. Despite the United States Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, which outlawed segregation of public schools, Faubus was determined to keep the schools segregated. The nine students later became known as “The Little Rock Nine.” • we’ve been tight Here, “tight” means “good friends.” • Kennedy or Elijah refers to President John F. Kennedy (1917–63), who was renowned for his promotion of civil rights legislation, and Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975), who founded the Nation of Islam, a religious organization that promotes self-reliance. • gnome a mythological dwarflike creature who lives underground.

CHAPTER 5 Summary Milkman goes to Guitar’s apartment to wait for Hagar, who has stalked him for the last six months, ever since he sent her the Christmas note breaking off their relationship, and has threatened to kill him. Having survived her bungled attempts on his life thus far, Milkman has resigned himself to death. As he lounges in Guitar’s bed, he recalls a conversation he had with his mother a week earlier, after he followed her on one of her secretive trips to Fairfield Cemetery to visit her father’s grave. Milkman hears Hagar breaking into Guitar’s apartment and awakens from his daydreams, but he doesn’t move from the bed, not even when she makes a half-hearted attempt to kill him with a butcher knife. Finally, realizing that she is unable to follow through with her plan to kill him, he rises from the bed, condescendingly pats Hagar on the cheek, and walks away in disgust, only slightly wounded. Ruth, who only a week earlier had learned from Freddie about Hagar’s repeated attempts to murder Milkman, resolves to stop Hagar. She goes to Pilate’s house and confronts her niece. Pilate



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51 intervenes and, determined to distract Ruth from Hagar’s attempts to kill Milkman, tells Ruth stories about her birth (Pilate’s) and childhood, her father’s death, and her physical and emotional split with Macon. She also describes her wandering lifestyle and her decision—following her granddaughter’s birth—to leave Virginia and move her family to Michigan. Pilate hoped to reconcile with her brother, but Macon was cold and angry, ashamed of her, Reba, and Hagar. Commentary Chapter 5 presents a series of contrasts and mirror images that reflect the tenuous relationships between various characters and provide conflicting perspectives on love, sex, and survival. Milkman’s pondering his impending death at the hands of Hagar, his distraught ex-lover, at the beginning of the chapter evokes many similar references to the presence of death throughout the novel. For example, note that Milkman’s picturing his own death as a “spurt of wine-red blood” foreshadows Hagar’s funeral scene at the end of Chapter 13, when a “sympathetic” wino drops his liquor bottle, “spurting emerald glass and jungle-red wine everywhere.” Resigned to let Hagar kill him if she wants to and can, Milkman is almost exhilarated by thoughts of death: “Gradually his fear of and eagerness for death returned.” His death-wish mirrors his mother’s own obsession with death, “a more interesting subject than life.” The scene in which Milkman criticizes Guitar’s efforts to make tea, followed by his joke about being a “soft-fried egg,” recalls the friends’ visit to Pilate’s house in Chapter 2, when she introduced them to the ritual of making a perfect soft-boiled egg. Consequently, even as Milkman feels like a “garbage pail for the actions and hatreds of other people,” we realize that within him lies a seed of spiritual awareness planted by Pilate that has the potential to counter his destructive self-image and overpower his morbid death-wish. Milkman’s following his mother to Fairfield Cemetery mirrors Hagar’s stalking Milkman through the streets of Southside. This similarity also establishes a contrast between the white community of Fairfield, distinguished by its sheltered suburbs, and the black



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52 community of Southside, noted for its bars and barbershops. Additionally, Ruth’s visit to the graveyard, ironically another type of “graveyard” love, highlights the racist practice of establishing separate cemeteries for blacks and whites. By confronting his mother at the cemetery and demanding to know why she breast-fed him for so long, Milkman hopes to confirm his father’s assessment of Ruth as a “silly, selfish, queer, faintly obscene woman.” Instead, Ruth’s refusal to defend her behavior prompts Milkman to see his mother in a different light and to grant her a grudging respect. Ironically, whereas in Chapter 3 Milkman emotionally matured enough to view Ruth as an individual rather than only as a mother, for Ruth, Milkman has never been a person; he’s always been a “passion,” a “beautiful toy,” and a “plain on which, like cowboys and Indians in the movies, she and her husband fought.” And later in the chapter, when Ruth confronts her niece, Hagar says to her aunt concerning Milkman, “He is my home in this world.” Ruth’s one-sentence response to Hagar is forceful because of its brevity: “And I am his.” Ruth continues to claim Milkman as a son and not as his own person. Ruth’s not defending her behavior also forces Milkman to contemplate the connections between love, sex, and violence. Note that Ruth’s question to Milkman, “What harm did I do you on my knees?” echoes Guitar’s question in Chapter 3 when, hoping to persuade Feather to let Milkman “hang out” at his pool hall, he asks Feather, “What harm can he [Milkman] do?” Morrison’s juxtaposing Milkman’s apathy toward life and his contempt for Hagar—“Die, Hagar. Die. Die. Die.”—with Ruth and Pilate’s passion for him provides a sharp contrast between Milkman’s selfish, egocentric existence and the two women’s relentless struggles to protect him from Macon, from Hagar, and from his own self-destructive tendencies. Morrison notes that although Pilate and Ruth are two different women in terms of skin color, dress, and education, their similarities are “profound”: Both are “vitally interested” in Milkman, and both have “posthumous communication with their fathers.” Speaking to Ruth, Pilate says of her father, “I tell you he’s a person I can rely on. I tell you somethin else. He’s the only one.” Earlier in the chapter, Ruth spoke very similar words about her own father: “Lots of people were interested in whether I lived or died, but he cared. . . . But he cared



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53 whether and he cared how I lived, and there was, and is, no one else in the world who ever did.” By linking Hagar’s “focused meanness” and Empire State’s empty, mute “graveyard love” with Ruth’s and Pilate’s nurturing love for Milkman and their fathers, Morrison explores the concept of love as a double-edged sword with the power to create or destroy life. She suggests that loneliness and despair are not necessarily linked to external events but often stem from our inability to recognize and accept the pain and pleasure of love as an integral part of life. Milkman’s confrontation with Ruth parallels Ruth’s confrontation with Hagar: Ruth tells Milkman the stories of his birth and of her father’s death to distract him from his obsessive interest in her nursing ritual; Pilate tells her life story to Ruth to distract her from Hagar’s murderous mission. However, unlike Ruth’s story, which is told mainly in flashback and dialogue, Pilate’s story gradually merges with the main narrative of the text. Essentially, Pilate’s voice supplants the narrator’s voice and establishes her story of birth, awareness, and self-creation as central to the novel’s themes of flight and mercy. Similarly, Hagar’s mission to kill Milkman sharply contrasts with Pilate’s mission “to decide how she wanted to live and what was valuable to her.” Hagar becomes a “wilderness,” wild and out of control, but Pilate remains calm and rational; Hagar sees her choices as limited and governed by external forces—if she can’t have Milkman’s love, she’ll settle for his fear; Pilate, who “must decide on whether to get to Virginia or settle in a town where she would probably have to wear shoes,” transcends the limiting concept of binary thinking—choosing one of two possibilities, but not both—and decides to do both. And while Milkman’s rejection of Hagar destroys Hagar’s fragile sense of self and compels her to resort to a murderous rage that rivals the “focused meanness of a flood or an avalanche of snow” and the “calculated violence of a shark,” Pilate’s rejection by the men who are terrified of her because she does not have a navel, her “defect,” empowers her and enables her to channel her rage into a more creative, constructive outlet—namely, living. Ultimately, Hagar is devastated by Milkman’s rejection of her and reduced to a “ghost,” but Pilate survives because she has learned to love and value herself, regardless of others’ opinions.



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54 • Earl Grey an expensive brand of brewing tea. • old man Lipton’s instant instant tea.

refers to a brand name of a popular

• miscegenation a sexual relationship between two people of different races. • Congo an African country that gained independence from France in 1960. • phosphorous a poisonous chemical that is highly reactive. Milkman avoids Guitar’s eyes because he knows he will see a venomous, agitated look in them. • Pall Mal

a brand of cigarettes.

• Planter’s a brand of peanut products, including peanut butter. • Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice the Michigan state motto; Latin, meaning “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you.” • Jack Daniel’s a medium-priced whiskey. • lethargy

sluggishness.

• infanticide • grits

infant-killing; a person who kills an infant.

ground dried-and-hulled corn kernels that are boiled and eaten.

• lye a white, crystalline substance, derived from ash and lime water, used to make paper, detergent, soap, and aluminum. • enema injecting liquid into the rectum, which then expels the liquid and all waste. • Argo cornstarch • pistil

a brand name of cornstarch, a thickener in cooking.

the seed-bearing sex organ of a flower.

• nicotiana commonly called flowering tobacco and native to South America; an annual or perennial flower with branching stalks and starburst-like flowers of white, pink, yellow, red, or green. • anaconda a large South American snake that suffocates its victims. Morrison characterizes Hagar’s feelings for Milkman as an “anaconda love” because Hagar’s love is all-consuming. • haint

ghost, from the vernacular spelling of haunt.



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55 • a root worker concoctions.

a fortune teller, or spell caster, using various root

• Society of Friends the Quakers, a religious denomination. Quakers were instrumental in helping runaway slaves reach freedom in the North. • the crash of 1929 refers to the United States stock market crash of 1929, which precipitated the Great Depression and contributed to a worldwide financial collapse. • truculent

in a fighting mood.

CHAPTER 6 Summary During a Sunday afternoon conversation with Milkman at Mary’s bar, Guitar tells Milkman that he took Hagar home after he found her at his place following her aborted attempt on Milkman’s life. Milkman is uncomfortable talking about Hagar, especially after Guitar asks him what he did to hurt her so badly. To avoid further discussion of Hagar, Milkman asks Guitar about his recent strange, secretive behavior. Initially, Guitar denies Milkman’s charge that he has been acting strangely, but finally he tells him about his involvement with the Seven Days, a black vigilante group that avenges the murders of blacks by methodically killing whites: Whenever a black man, woman, or child is killed by whites, the man assigned to the day on which the murder occurred is charged with killing a white man, woman, or child in the same manner as the black victim was killed. Appalled by Guitar’s revelation, Milkman tries to convince his friend that the Seven Days’ actions are just as heinous as the unconscionable crimes committed by racist whites. Guitar counters that the Seven Days is a group of seven brave men dedicated to restoring justice and order to a corrupt, unjust society. Consequently, these men’s actions are motivated by their love for black people, not by their hatred for whites. Milkman points out that there is no justification for murder and argues that if Guitar can arbitrarily kill innocent whites, he is equally capable of killing blacks. Guitar dismisses Milkman’s concerns and accuses him of being worried only about himself. The conversation ends in a stalemate, with the friends expressing concern for each other’s welfare.



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56 Commentary Although perceived as a gang of vigilantes by outsiders, the Seven Days is patterned after the secret societies that fulfilled an important role in traditional African societies, such as that of the Ibo people, one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. Among the Ibos, secret societies played a vital part in the community’s traditional social and political structures: They were often called upon to settle community disputes. In important judicial matters, masked “ancestors” might appear and pronounce a verdict. Also, the Seven Days’ practice of naming their members for the days of the week is an ironic reversal of a Jamaican custom in which the name that a child is given at birth depends on the day of the week on which it is born. Based on this premise, we can begin to see how the entire chapter turns on a series of reversals that attempt to establish a sequence of truths. In debating the mission of the Seven Days, Guitar and Milkman focus on a critical issue that lies at the heart of the ongoing struggle for black civil and human rights: What tactics should African Americans use to secure their rights? In exploring this issue, the two men wrestle with the two opposing views of politics versus economics. Guitar, who has never enjoyed the luxury of a comfortable middle-class life, believes that blacks can win freedom and equality only through aggressive, revolutionary political tactics aimed at dismantling the racist white power structure. Milkman, whose outlook on life has been influenced by his father’s prosperity and materialistic values, thinks that economics is the means necessary for blacks to gain rights: If they can make enough money, they can buy their way into white society. However, in Guitar and Milkman’s debate, which examines some of the key arguments that have been raging among black leaders for decades, each man has only part of the answer. Attempting to resolve the “race problem” requires attention to both politics and economics, as well as to such issues as personal choice, moral responsibility, and respect—including self-respect, respect for black women, and a dedication and commitment to the black community. The heated discussion between Milkman and Guitar also demonstrates Morrison’s ability to combine disparate elements of form, content, and style to create a new narrative structure. By



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57 skillfully combining the rhetorical elements of reason and logic with conflicting views on race, religion, politics, and economics, she crafts an argument that, although riddled with logical fallacies, seems perfectly logical. Guitar begins by establishing a syllogism—a form of argument used in deductive reasoning—in which he argues that because killing innocent people is murder, and because whites are killing innocent people, therefore all whites are murderers. When Milkman exposes Guitar’s logic as flawed because the Seven Days’ members are emulating the behavior of white racists by killing innocent people, Guitar changes his tactics. He argues that there are no innocent white people: Because all white people belong to a violent, “unnatural” race, they are all potential murderers. Therefore, they are all guilty and must be stopped before they have a chance to inflict more damage. Here, Guitar’s argument reflects the philosophy of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, which holds that the ultimate goal of whites is the annihilation of the black race, a philosophy designed to counter the ignorant white supremacist philosophy that blacks are a genetically inferior people who, even if exposed to the advantages of white society, will eventually revert to their uncivilized ways. Milkman again points out the flaws in Guitar’s argument. The Seven Days is no better than politically motivated vigilante groups such as the Mafia or hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Guitar argues that the Mafia “kills for money” and the Klan “kills for fun”; the Seven Days, however, kills for love. Sensing that he cannot make Guitar understand the fallacy of his argument by appealing to his sense of morality, Milkman appeals to his sense of self-preservation. At this point, the debate takes an interesting turn as Guitar, who has thus far espoused the philosophy Malcolm X held prior to the black leader’s renunciation of the Black Muslims, begins to advocate the philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When Guitar asserts, “And how I die or when doesn’t interest me. What I die for does,” he is essentially paraphrasing Dr. King: “The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important. . . . For if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”



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58 Although Guitar advocates his—and Malcolm’s—philosophy of retribution and armed resistance, he espouses Dr. King’s philosophy of nonviolence and passive resistance. However, when Milkman accuses Guitar of sounding like Malcolm X, Guitar responds that the Seven Days isn’t determined to change “slave names” but to change “slave status,” a response that reveals his misunderstanding of the true mission of both Malcolm X and Dr. King. Although these two black leaders’ tactics were radically different, both fought for the social, political, and economic equality of black people; both advocated self-help as a major step toward black empowerment; and both struggled to promote awareness of the global dimensions of poverty and racism. (Ironically, each man was assassinated at age thirty-nine.) Finally, when Milkman tries to convince Guitar that violence isn’t the answer, Guitar resorts to the logical fallacies of circular reasoning—“The Days are the Days”—and of a priori reasoning, or reasoning based on the assumption that the longer a belief is held, the more valid that belief must be—“It’s been that way a long time.” Although Guitar displays a brilliant gift for debate and fiery rhetoric, his fatally flawed argument is based not on reason and logic but on ignorance and emotion, accentuated by youthful arrogance. Relying on his own limited life experiences and supported by superficial research, he has gleaned just enough information to substantiate his own biased views. Consequently, he is just as guilty of distorting the truth as are the whites he despises and condemns for their racist, narrow-minded views. Additionally, he reveals that his thinking concerning whites is based on the same flawed premise as Hagar’s thinking concerning Milkman: If he can’t get the respect he wants from whites, he’ll settle for their fear. The number seven has numerous symbolic connotations. For example, the Seven Days is a reversal of the Creation story in the book of Genesis, in which God creates the world in seven days: Instead of seven days of creation, we have seven days of destruction. And because Guitar’s day—Sunday—is the seventh day, traditionally considered a holy day of rest and reflection, arguably his position in the group is the most radical. Within the context of African-American history, the number seven designates the conflicting predicament of the black race,



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59 especially in America. For example, in his book of collected essays, The Souls of Black Folk, the renowned scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois describes the Negro as the “seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.” Du Bois contends that the black man in white America, forced to come to terms with this limiting vision of himself, is “always looking at [himself] through the eyes of others, measuring [his] soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” He concludes that in order to survive, black Americans must reconcile themselves to a dual existence as “an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” Within the context of the 1960’s Civil Rights and Black Power movements, the number seven assumes yet another dimension. A case in point is the riot at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. The riot, which resulted in over a thousand injured people and more than six hundred arrests, culminated in the indictment of eight people—known as the Chicago Eight—on charges of conspiracy to incite. Later, the case of Bobby Seale, cofounder with Huey Newton of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, a black nationalist group that came to be known simply as the Black Panthers, was separated from that of the others; Seale was singled out for special punishment. Consequently, the Chicago Eight became the Chicago Seven. From this perspective, Guitar’s tirade on self-defense and retribution also incorporates the philosophy of the Black Panthers, best summarized by Newton’s explanation of why the group chose the black panther as its symbol: “The nature of the panther is that he never attacks. But if anyone attacks him or backs him into a corner, the panther comes up to wipe that aggressor or attacker out, absolutely, resolutely, wholly, thoroughly, and completely.” Note that we learn more information concerning Mr. Smith and his ill-fated flight, and Porter’s drunken tirade. Both men were members of the Seven Days, but the pressure of killing got to both of them—Mr. Smith permanently, Porter only temporarily. Guitar suggests that if a member no longer can psychologically or



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Song of Solomon Genealogy

Solomon (The Flying African)

Ryna

Heddy

Crowell Byrd (Crow Bird)

Mary

Susan Byrd

Sing Byrd = (Singing Bird) (d.1895)

Jake (Macon Sr.) (d.1907)

20 other sons

Dr. Foster Ruth Foster (b.1901)

Macon Jr. (b.1891)

Pilate (1895-1963) Reba (b.1911)

Henry = First Potter Corinthians (b.1918)

Magdalene (Lena) (b.1917)

Macon ΙΙΙ = Hagar (Milkman) (1926-1963) (2/19/31-1963?)

Married to

= Has sex with Caregiver to

61 emotionally handle killing, his only recourse is to kill himself: “And if it ever gets to be too much, like it was for Robert Smith, we do that rather than crack and tell somebody.” • a white robe Milkman’s reference to a white robe can be interpreted two ways: an angel’s robe, or a Klansman’s. • potbellied stove popular in the 1930s, a cast-iron stove having a round chamber—a “pot belly”—in which wood or coal is burned. • Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French philosopher and theologian; awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. • Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was known for her outspoken advocacy and support of the struggle for equality and race relations. • chromosomes strands of DNA that carry hereditary genes. Guitar reverses the white-supremacist argument that characteristics such as intelligence are race-based and genetically determined. • that red-headed Negro named X refers to Malcolm X (1925–65), formerly Malcolm Little (the letter X designates a rejection of his slave name). Malcolm X was a Black Nationalist leader during the 1960s. As a member of the Black Muslims (Nation of Islam), he supported the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, which held that all whites are “devils.” In 1964, Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Mecca; upon his return to the United States, he changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, renounced the Black Muslims, and founded the Organization of AfroAmerican Unity. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965, in Harlem, New York.

CHAPTER 7 Summary Milkman tries to persuade his father to support him financially for a year so that he can travel and find his own niche in life. In return, he offers to work for free for one year upon his return. Macon dismisses Milkman’s offer, insisting that he needs Milkman to help him run his business. Later, Macon and Milkman meet for lunch in a park, where Macon, inspired by Milkman’s off-handed mention of a green sack, filled with something heavy and hard, hanging from the ceiling in

62 Pilate’s house, tells his son the rest of his personal story, which he began recounting in Chapter 2, about his father’s murder and his and Pilate’s escape from Montour County, Pennsylvania, with the help of Circe, the midwife who had delivered them both. He narrates how his father’s ghost led him and Pilate to the shelter of a cave, where they encountered an old white man, whom Macon ended up stabbing. Afterward, he and Pilate argued about the dead man’s gold, which they found in the cave. Because they could not agree on what to do with the gold, Pilate threatened to kill Macon, who fled. As Macon ends his story, he pleads with Milkman to steal Pilate’s green sack, which he claims contains the gold from the cave. In return, he promises to give Milkman half of the gold so that he can go wherever he wants to go. Commentary The opening paragraph of this chapter universalizes Milkman’s personal history and explains his yearning to escape—at least temporarily—the demands placed on him by his family and friends. Of the many reasons Morrison suggests for why people leave home and strike out on their own, one—“a wish to hear the solid click of a door closing behind their backs”—is Milkman’s. Macon’s pleading with Milkman to stay and continue to work in the family business is based on money. He tells his son, “You’ll own it all. All of it. You’ll be free. Money is freedom, Macon [Jr.].” Note that later in the chapter, when young Macon sees the old man’s bags of gold nuggets, he characterizes their sparkling colors as representing monetary security. By associating “Life, safety, and luxury” with the vain, ostentatiously bejeweled “tail-spread of a [male] peacock,” Macon acknowledges the consuming greed that will envelop his adult life. As Macon tells Milkman the story of his and Pilate’s escape from Montour County, he reveals both his hatred for Pilate and his insatiable greed for the gold she took. Not satisfied with Ruth’s inheritance from her father, Macon also wants his sister’s gold. Afraid to confront Pilate directly, he convinces Milkman to do his dirty work for him: Macon is not only a coward but a cold and calculating man who has no qualms about pitting his own family members against each other to satisfy his greed.

63 Macon’s story also reveals his attitude toward the supernatural. Although he admits that he and Pilate were initially afraid of the “man who looked like their father,” he refers to his father’s ghost as a physical presence. In doing so, he unknowingly connects himself to his African ancestors, who believed that ghosts often walked the earth and accepted these spirits as a natural part of their world. • St. Lawrence the major river that defines the boundary between southeast Canada and the northeast United States. The St. Lawrence River stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Ontario. • stake here, to offer monetary support. • hickey here, a bump on the head. • slop jar

a container used to collect body wastes.

• scrapple a boiled mixture of ground pork and cornmeal, which is poured into a mold, chilled and left to gel, and then sliced and fried. • Susquehanna a river that begins in central New York, runs through Pennsylvania to the northeast corner of Maryland, and empties into Chesapeake Bay, which contains the body of water between the east coast of Virginia and the Maryland peninsula. • maw mouth. • lip here, the edge of a cave. • tarpaulin

a protective canvas against moisture.

• placidly calmly, or complacently and without emotion.

CHAPTER 8 Summary Milkman tells Guitar about his plan to steal Pilate’s gold, and Guitar agrees to help him. Although Milkman realizes that he doesn’t really need Guitar’s help, he is inspired by Guitar’s sense of fearlessness and his passion for living life “on the cutting edge.” The next day, the friends meet on a street far from their black neighborhood to plan how to steal the green sack from Pilate’s home. Suddenly, Milkman spots a white peacock in a nearby

64 used-car lot. Temporarily distracted from their mission, Milkman and Guitar initially try to catch the peacock but fail. When the peacock jumps onto the hood of a blue Buick and spreads its tail, they laugh at its ostentatious display. Fascinated with the peacock, the friends forget about planning the burglary and spend the rest of the afternoon fantasizing about how they’ll spend Pilate’s gold. Later, when Milkman realizes that Guitar has agreed to steal the gold because he wants to use it to support the vigilante activities of the Seven Days, he becomes uneasy but feels he has gone too far to back out now. The following night, they steal Pilate’s green sack, not realizing that the almost-seventy-year-old Pilate saw them. Commentary Guitar’s visions of “little scraps of Sunday dresses” at the chapter’s beginning provide the reason for his willingness to help Milkman steal Pilate’s sack of gold. More important, however, this phrase emphasizes the fierce racism that remains as a backdrop throughout the novel. This reference is to the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. A bomb, planted by whites protesting school desegregation, exploded and killed four black schoolgirls—Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson— and injured twenty-one people. As the Seven Days’ Sunday man, Guitar is expected to avenge the four deaths by killing four little white girls. Milkman and Guitar’s encounter with the white peacock recalls the scene in Chapter 7 in which Macon, upon discovering the sacks of gold nuggets, imagines a life of luxury that “fanned out before him like the tail-spread of a peacock.” Noted for its ostentatious and brilliantly colored tail, the peacock symbolizes pride and vanity. Guitar says of it, “Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” Here in Chapter 8, the peacock, although stripped of its colors, maintains its vanity, suggesting that the white peacock is a fitting symbol of American society, which is marked by arrogance and white-male dominance.

65 The peacock, with its heavy tail that hinders its ability to fly, symbolizes Milkman’s inability to fly. Hindered down by his materialistic values, his family’s expectations, and his own apathy, Milkman is unable to free himself of “the shit that weighs [him] down.” Fearful of his parents’ past “threatening to become his present,” he acknowledges that he avoids commitment and “strong feelings” but can do nothing to change himself. He even characterizes the plan to steal Pilate’s gold as a “Jack and the Beanstalk bid for freedom”—a fairy tale attempt. The references to ginger and spices at the chapter’s end link Song of Solomon to Song of Songs, in which the male lover likens his beloved’s fragrance to that of precious scents, including saffron, cinnamon, frankincense, and myrrh. That the “spice-sweet” smell of ginger is strongest in the Southside neighborhood suggests that Southside residents are more closely connected to their African roots than blacks living closer to white neighborhoods. The phrase “this heavy spice-sweet smell that made you think of the East and striped tents and the sha-sha-sha of leg bracelets” emphasizes a theme that resonates throughout the novel: Black history is world history, which can be traced far beyond the era of slavery in the United States when, for millions of Africans, leg irons replaced their traditional decorative leg bracelets. To Milkman and Guitar, the spice smell represents “the way freedom smelled, or justice, or luxury, or vengeance.” Ironically, these qualities mirror those concepts which Macon thought of in Chapter 7 when he discussed Pilate’s gold with Milkman: life, safety, and luxury. All three men idolize the gold in worshipful terms. Morrison writes of the green sack at the end of Chapter 8: “It hung heavy, hung green like the green of Easter eggs left too long in the dye. And like Easter, it promised everything: the Risen Son and the heart’s lone desire. . . . Guitar knelt down before it.” • greenbacks

slang for paper money.

• legal tender currency, or money. • White Castle hamburgers.

the name of a restaurant chain that serves small

• a yard and a half

slang for $1500.

66 • a deuce and a quarter a Buick Electra 225. Popular during the 1960s, the car was noted for its sleek, streamlined style and powerful engine. • acridness

bitterness; constant irritation.

• cop here, slang for steal. • clarion call a trumpet call that signals the start of a hunt. The phrase emphasizes Milkman’s inability to fly and his eagerness for the hunt. • salt According to African myth, black people could fly until they ate salt, introduced by the white man; according to superstition, putting salt on a bird’s tail keeps it from flying away; and in the Bible, as Lot and his wife flee the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt when she turns to watch the cities burning (Genesis 19:15–22). By linking apocalyptic biblical imagery with allusions to hunting and grounded birds, Morrison not only creates a vivid image of the powerful bond between Milkman and Guitar; she also foreshadows the rift between the two friends, brought about by their hunt for Pilate’s gold. • ginger a plant native to tropical Asia and Indonesia whose tuberous roots are used in cooking; ginger has a pungent, spicy taste. • clove an evergreen tree native to the Molucca Islands, also known as the Spice Islands, a group of islands in Indonesia. The tree’s small purple flower clusters are dried to produce cloves, a common spice used in cooking. • Accra the capital of Ghana, West Africa. (On August 27, 1963, renowned writer, scholar, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois, who greatly influenced Morrison, died in Accra, his adopted home, at age ninety-five.)

CHAPTER 9 Summary Overwhelmed by the emptiness of her life, Corinthians decides to go to work. However, unable to find a professional position despite having attended college for three years, she finally accepts a position as a maid in the home of Michael-Mary Graham, the State Poet Laureate. Ashamed that she has to do domestic labor, she resolves to hide the nature of her employment from her family and the community.

67 One day, while riding the bus, Corinthians meets Henry Porter, who works as a yardman—the same Henry Porter who, in Chapter 1, got drunk and threatened people with a shotgun from inside his apartment building, which Macon owns. Although ashamed to be seen with him in public, Corinthians begins meeting him in secret. When Porter invites her to his apartment, Corinthians declines, citing feeble excuses about her father censorious tirades. Realizing that she will always be ashamed of him, Porter decides to end their relationship. However, panicked at the thought of spending the rest of her life alone, Corinthians relents and spends the night with him. Near dawn, as she sneaks back into her house, she hears Milkman and Macon arguing about Milkman and Guitar’s botched burglary of Pilate’s “gold.” The next day, Milkman thinks about how he and Guitar were randomly stopped by the police after stealing Pilate’s green bag and subsequently arrested. He also recalls how Pilate came to the police station to help them by telling the police that the bag contained her dead husband’s bones. Disgusted with his treatment by the police and overcome by his embarrassment at having his father bail him out of jail, Milkman is especially upset over Pilate’s “Aunt Jemima” act at the police station, which he realizes she put on just to save him. Remembering her willingness to humiliate herself in order to ensure his freedom and her love and support in the past, Milkman is overwhelmed by guilt, shame, and self-hatred. Later, as Milkman leaves his house to look for Guitar, he sees Guitar, Porter, and several other men talking near a gray Oldsmobile parked near Guitar’s house. Recognizing the car as the one he has seen Corinthians getting out of near home, he suddenly realizes that the men are the Seven Days and that Porter is one of them. Instead of attempting to talk to Guitar, he walks away and goes on a two-day drinking binge. As Milkman stumbles up the stairs to his room during the end of this two-day drinking binge, Lena confronts him. In a loud, angry voice, she vents her hatred of him because of his treatment of her, her sister, and their mother. She also tells him that because he told their father about Porter and Corinthians, Macon has forced Corinthians to quit her job, has forbidden Corinthians to see Porter, and has evicted Porter from his apartment. Unable to respond to or defend himself from his sister’s wrath, Milkman merely listens,

68 then continues on to his room. When Lena tells him to get out of her room, Milkman suddenly decides to leave home. Commentary This chapter focuses on two key story lines: the relationship between Porter and Corinthians, and Milkman and Guitar’s failed burglary attempt. Each story, in turn, reveals important information about the characters connected directly and indirectly with each incident. In the first story line, Corinthians resolves to break free of her stifling existence within the Dead family household and assume responsibility for her own life. Unable to find a professional position despite her impressive credentials, she accepts a position as a maid for Michael-Mary Graham, the State Poet Laureate. Morrison, by drawing comparisons between the two women, parallels the roles of black and white women in 1960s American society. Miss Graham’s inheritance includes her father’s mansion and the legacy of white Southern aristocracy. Consequently, she tries to recreate the tradition of old Southern gentility, with Corinthians as her servant/slave. In short, Morrison contrasts the white woman’s inheritance of wealth and privilege with the black woman’s legacy of poverty and slavery, which forces Corinthians to struggle for economic survival in a white, racist culture that denies her opportunities to pursue her dreams and use her impeccable academic credentials. Morrison also exposes how whites reap the benefits of black labor and how white women, who are also subject to subjugation by males, are part of the oppressive force that perpetuates racism. By giving Miss Graham the first name “Michael,” Morrison is “signifying”—using the language of an oppressive society to indirectly confront that society—on a tradition common during the Victorian Age of the nineteenth century, when female writers such as Mary Ann Evans, who used the pen name George Eliot, often adopted male pseudonyms in order to get their works published. By hyphenating the names “Michael-Mary,” Morrison also suggests the link between white males and females in perpetuating the subjugation of black Americans and plays on the concept of

69 “hyphenated Americans” (African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Chinese-Americans). Through Corinthians’ story, Morrison roundly indicts the American educational system for failing to provide black Americans with an education that will enable them to function as educated citizens and assume leadership roles in their communities. Her position echoes that of historian Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950), who argued that America’s educational system is designed to enslave the minds of blacks and to perpetuate the myth of black inferiority. Woodson contends in his ground-breaking book The Mis-Education of the Negro, “Taught the same economics, history, philosophy, literature and religion which have established the present code of morals, the Negro’s mind has been brought under the control of his oppressor. . . . When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. . . . The Negro thus educated is a hopeless liability to the race. The difficulty is that the ‘educated’ Negro is compelled to live and move among his own people whom he has been taught to despise.” Corinthians’ contempt for “those women” on the bus and for Porter, who works as a yardman, clearly indicates that she has fallen prey to the type of brainwashing Woodson describes and has become part of the system that routinely discredits the uneducated blacks. Instead of preparing her to assume a leadership role in her community, Corinthian’s Western Eurocentric education has taught her to despise her own people, whom she believes need civilizing, and has alienated her from her African roots. That she is able to break free from her misguided thinking and does not seek refuge in fantasy, like her mother, indicates that Corinthians has managed to liberate herself from the mental chains that bind her to a false sense of reality and a capitalistic society. Note that as she bangs on Porter’s car-door window, images of Mr. Smith’s bloodless death fill her mind. We can surmise, therefore, that the crippling images of Mr. Smith’s “doll-broken body” and of Ruth’s pregnant body confined to a wheelchair give Corinthians the strength to break free from her suffocating lifestyle and “escape the velvet.” A key element of this section is its sensual language and its explicit description of the sex act as a ritual that involves the man as aggressor and the woman as passive recipient. Also significant is

70 Porter’s note to Corinthians, which recalls Mr. Smith’s note to the community and Milkman’s note to Hagar. In each case, the note indicates the writer’s unwillingness or inability to speak, emphasizing not only the lack of communication among community members but the lack of communication between men and women. The central image in the second story line is Pilate’s bag of bones, which alludes to the biblical allegory of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14). According to this story, the bones were re-clothed in flesh and restored to life, symbolizing the resurrection of the dead, a motif prevalent in the book of Revelations, which focuses on the Last Judgment. Consequently, the bones symbolize the past (memory and experience), which must be reconstructed in order to understand the present. Pilate’s “Aunt Jemima” act at the police station demonstrates her willingness to swallow her pride to protect those she loves. Ironically, the policemen’s readiness to accept her story indicates that her tale of murder and violence is all too familiar. Also significant is the vulnerability in Milkman’s reaction to having been frisked by the policeman: “The touch of the policeman’s hand was still there [on his body]—a touch that made his flesh jump like the tremor of a horse’s flank when flies light on it. And something more. Something like shame stuck to his skin. Shame at being spread-eagled, fingered, and handcuffed.” The scene alludes to the degrading roles blacks historically have had to assume because of fear for their physical safety. Guitar’s unwillingness to recognize Pilate’s behavior as an act of selfless love indicates his inability to view life within the context of individual experience. To him, Pilate’s “Aunt Jemima” act recalls the humiliation and degradation of blacks forced to play subservient roles just to please whites. He appears totally ignorant of the fact that these “acts” were often a matter of survival, a means of people’s masking their true selves. Guitar’s criticism of Pilate’s behavior also illustrates the inability of young blacks to relate to the hardships suffered by their ancestors and to understand that many of the indignities the earlier generations were forced to endure helped gain the freedoms that the younger generations enjoy today. Consequently, Pilate’s subservient actions at the police station provide a vital link between the past and the present. Interestingly, while disgusted with Pilate’s “mammy,” Guitar

71 seems totally unaware of Macon’s role: that of the black man who can buy his way out of trouble with the law. Lena’s tirade when she confronts Milkman and accuses him of peeing on her and Corinthians and stunting their growth like that of the dying maple tree outside her bedroom window marks a turning point in her character when she declares to Milkman, “I don’t make roses anymore, and you have pissed your last in this house.” Milkman’s failure to respond to her passionate appeal or to defend himself demonstrates his complete detachment from his family. Consequently, in the next chapter, his leaving home physically underscores the fact that, like Macon, he has always been psychologically absent. Note that Chapter 9’s last sentence, “He closed the door,” recalls one of Morrison’s reasons for why people leave home: to hear the door click behind them. • amanuensis

a person who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.

• Bryn Mawr located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a private women’s college founded in 1880. • Fisk, Howard, Talledega, Tougaloo secondary educational institutions whose students are predominantly black. • Queen Mary in 1967.

a luxury British steamship, launched in 1934 and retired

• Contes de Daudet French, meaning The Short Stories of Daudet; Alphonse Daudet (1840–97) was a French short-story writer noted for his humorous characterization of life. • loafers

comfortable, flat-soled shoes.

• rummy slang for a drunkard. • Walden a book of eighteen essays by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854. The book records Thoreau’s experiences of living a solitary life in the woods for over two years. • Bohemian carefree; a person who disregards conventional standards of behavior. • entrez

French, meaning enter.

• slicks slang for glossy, high-end magazines that cater to the social and economic elite.

72 • print peignoir a loose-fitting dressing gown. Michael-Mary’s has a print design, probably very bright, showy, and somewhat ostentatious, or gaudy. • tripe here, something that presents itself as valuable but really is worthless. • men rose like giants from dragon’s teeth alludes to the story of Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece. To prove himself worthy of the Golden Fleece, Jason sowed a freshly plowed field with dragon’s teeth, which then sprang up as armed men who attacked him. Jason defeated the dragon-teeth men and escaped with the Golden Fleece. • Louise Beaver[s] and Butterfly McQueen black actors known for their servile maid-Mammy roles in white films. Louise Beavers (1908–1962) played Claudette Colbert’s maid in the 1934 version of Imitation of Life, famous for its portrayal of the “tragic mulatto.” Butterfly (Thelma) McQueen (1911–1995) played Prissy, Olivia de Havilland’s scatterbrained slave, in the 1939 film Gone With the Wind. She uttered the regrettably unforgettable line, “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies!” Because she refused to keep playing similar parts, her professional career was ruined and she ended up working as a clerk and dishwasher. • Only The Shadow knows refers to the 1950s mystery radio program The Shadow.

PART TWO CHAPTER 10 Summary As Milkman stumbles through a forest headed toward a “big crumbling house,” he recalls his airplane flight from Michigan to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then his bus ride from Pittsburgh to Danville. He also relives his last conversation with Guitar before leaving home and the series of events that prompted his hunt for Pilate’s gold. Upon arriving in Danville, Milkman encounters an old, oddly dressed black man, who tells Milkman that Reverend Cooper can

73 help him locate Circe, Macon and Pilate’s caregiver, who, Milkman hopes, will lead him to the cave containing Pilate’s gold. At Reverend Cooper’s, Milkman receives a warm welcome. He learns that the reverend remembers Macon and Pilate as the children of the town’s local hero, Macon Dead, Sr., the creator of Lincoln’s Heaven, and that Reverend Cooper’s father made Pilate’s brass earring. Milkman meets many of the town’s old black men and listens to their stories of when they were young and personally knew Milkman’s father and grandfather. As he listens to these stories, Milkman begins to feel as if something is missing from his life. For the first time, he is able to visualize his father as a young man and to envision the loving relationships that once existed between his father and aunt and between his father and grandfather. Sensing that the men are hungry for news of Macon and Pilate, Milkman indulges them with his own stories, embellishing the truth to satisfy their curiosity and preserve their cherished memories of Macon Dead, Sr., and his two children. When Milkman tells Reverend Cooper that he wants to visit the site of his grandfather’s farm, named Lincoln’s Heaven, the reverend’s thirteen-year-old nephew (called “Nephew”) drives Milkman to it, from which Milkman sets out for the old Butler mansion, the house where Circe worked and where she hid Macon and Pilate after their father was killed—ironically, we learn, by the Butlers. Arriving at the crumbling mansion, Milkman enters through the front door and is assaulted by the stench of animals and decay. Suddenly the stench is replaced by the sweet smell of ginger, and he sees an old woman at the top of a staircase. The woman is Circe, whom Reverend Cooper honestly led Milkman to believe was dead. Circe, mistaking Milkman for his father, embraces him, but when Milkman identifies himself as Macon’s son, Circe quickly loses interest in him. Fortunately, Milkman persuades her to tell him the stories of his grandfather’s murder and of Macon and Pilate’s escape from Montour County. Through his conversation with Circe, who is living in the mansion with a pack of German hunting dogs, Milkman learns about his father’s parents: Macon Dead, Sr., whose real name was Jake, and his part-Indian wife, Sing. Circe tells him that she has continued to live in the mansion even after the death of the last Butler

74 family member, who committed suicide after she spent all of the family wealth rather than live as a poor white woman. Circe is intentionally letting the dogs destroy the mansion. Circe gives Milkman directions to Hunter’s Cave, where he secretly hopes to find the gold. However, when Milkman finally locates the cave, he discovers that there is no gold. Realizing that Nephew, who was to drive him back to Reverend Cooper’s, has already come and gone because of how late it is, Milkman hitches a ride back to the Danville bus depot. Hungry, exhausted, and disillusioned, he heads for the freight yard to say goodbye to Reverend Cooper, but the reverend has already left for the day. Then, continuing on his hunt for the gold, he boards a Greyhound bus to Virginia, convinced that Pilate left the gold in Virginia before heading to Michigan. Commentary The fairy tale beginning of this chapter, including references to “Hansel and Gretel” and “There Was An Old Woman,” emphasizes the illusory world in which Milkman still lives. Completely caught up in finding Pilate’s gold, he is “oblivious” to the “wood life” through which he struggles. Only during the airplane ride to Pittsburgh has Milkman ever felt a “feeling of invulnerability.” Morrison comments about him, “In the air, away from real life, he felt free.” The episode between Milkman and Guitar prior to Milkman’s leaving for Danville highlights once again the racism faced by blacks—especially black men—in a white-dominated society. Remarking on the herculean demands placed on black men, including those by black women, Guitar explains to his friend how “they”—white men and women, and black women—“want your living life.” His comment “What good is a man’s life if he can’t even choose what to die for?” sheds light on how and why Guitar became a militant member of the Seven Days: When his father was literally split in half working at a sawmill, the white sawmill owner gave Guitar’s mother only forty dollars as compensation for her husband’s life. In other words, to the owner, a black man’s life is worth only forty dollars.

75 Milkman’s subsequent encounters with Reverend Cooper and Circe also mark a major turning point in his personal development. Like the biblical Prodigal Son, who is welcomed back by his father after squandering his inheritance (Luke 15), Milkman is welcomed by his father’s “people.” His return “home” symbolizes the Northern Negro’s return to what author James Baldwin, in Nobody Knows My Name, calls “the Old Country,” a place that Milkman has “never seen, but which [he] cannot fail to recognize.” During Milkman’s trek through the forest toward Circe’s house and onward toward Hunter’s Cave, his materialistic trappings, including his hat, his Longines gold watch, and his Florsheim shoes, are either stripped away or disfigured. Note also that in crossing the creek, he first slips to one knee and then is completely submerged in the water. Many readers will interpret these actions as symbolic of Milkman’s being re-baptized. Later, he discovers that the bag he has left at the bus depot is now missing— he had told Nephew to pick it up for him, but now he can’t locate Nephew. By the time he leaves for Virginia, he is symbolically stripped of most of the trappings of his old identity. The episode in which Milkman tells his story to Danville’s old men alludes to a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus, at a royal banquet, tells the story of his wanderings. Triggered by Reverend Cooper’s exclamation “I know your people!” the stories function as “links”—Milkman’s own word—that connect the past and present. But whereas Odysseus’ story is the highlight of the banquet, Milkman’s is not. Although his story ignites the imagination of the old men, who look to Milkman to “rekindle the dream and stop the death they were dying,” it is the exchange of stories that fuels the local legend of Lincoln’s Heaven and creates the magic that transforms Macon Dead, Sr., a simple farmer, into a mythical hero akin to High John the Conqueror, a black folk hero. The stories further support Morrison’s use of cultural geography: The old men in Danville tell many of the same stories as those told by the old men in Southside. The creation of Lincoln’s Heaven, depicted in powerful sermonic language, is a key passage in this chapter. Sermonic language refers to language characteristic of old Negro sermons, which are noted for their vivid imagery, their call-and-response pattern, and their repetition of key phrases. The phrase “We got a home in the rock”

76 recalls the spirituals “I Got a Home in Dat Rock” and “Rock of Ages.” In these spirituals, the “rock” of salvation is Jesus; in the novel, the “rock” is the land. Emphasizing the sacred legacy of the land, the sermonic passage also alludes to Moses’ speech to the Israelites upon their arrival to the land of Moab, following their forty years of wandering in the wilderness: “The Lord your God has now laid the land open before you. Go forward and occupy it in fulfillment of the promise which the Lord the God of your forefathers made you; do not be afraid or discouraged” (Deuteronomy 1:21). But discouraged is exactly what Danville’s old men are: If Macon Dead, Sr., the best of them, can be killed for fulfilling his dream, what hope do the rest have of succeeding? Milkman’s discovery that there is no gold in Hunter’s Cave marks another major turning point in his spiritual development: Soon after his emergence from the womb-like cave, symbolic of the initial stage of his spiritual rebirth, he discovers that his inheritance is not the gold. Consequently, he learns that the “nothing” he finds in the cave is, in fact, everything. The scene alludes to the biblical story in which Jesus’ followers discover His empty tomb but fail to recognize it as evidence of Christ’s resurrection. In addition, it embraces the Buddhist philosophy that true existence and understanding come from emptiness. Chapter 10 marks a major turning point in Milkman’s transformation from an apathetic, egotistical over-thirty man to a man who is preparing to assume his role as a culture-bearer for his people. By the chapter’s end, Milkman, like Odysseus, has survived numerous perils, including an encounter with the dead—he thinks of Circe, “she had to be dead”—and a visit to the underworld—the cave. Headed now toward Virginia, where he believes Pilate took the gold, “Milkman followed in her tracks”—tracks both physical and, for Milkman, newly spiritual. • nape

the back of the neck.

• macadam small, broken stones, mixed with tar, and used in making roads. • Cutty Sark

the name brand of a blended scotch liquor.

77 • the gold Longines obviously, an heirloom from Milkman’s father. Longines were very expensive, very elegant watches, dating back to the nineteenth century. • Western Union a communications company best known for its telegraph division. In 1861, the company completed the first transcontinental telegraph line in the United States. • A.M.E. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Incorporated in New York in 1801, the A.M.E. Zion Church is the oldest black church in the United States. In 1821, the church was formally founded and held its first annual conference. Its worship services generally incorporate traditional African and Afro-centric elements. • cane-bottomed chair a chair whose seat is made of interweaving cane, a strong but flexible stem from certain reed plants. • Philly Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. • Armistice Day November 11 of every year; originally celebrated in the United States to commemorate the United States’ signing the armistice that ended World War I, today it is part of Veterans Day, which honors all veterans of the armed forces. • rheumy mucous-covered; filmy. • hip-roofed barn

a barn whose roof and sides slope out outward.

• mellifluent sweet-sounding. • AKC American Kennel Club, the premier organization of dog breeders in the United States. • Weimaraners a breed of hunting dog developed in the former German Republic of Weimar, which was dissolved in 1933 after Hitler became chancellor. • coiffure hairstyle. • celluloid • stile

a colorless material used to make photographic film.

generally, a set of steps used for crossing a fence or wall.

• muslin a sturdy cotton fabric. • brocade a heavy fabric with a raised design. • Shirley Temple Adored by American film audiences, Shirley Temple, with her hallmark dimples, corkscrew golden curls, and twinkling blue eyes, was the highest-paid child actress of the 1930s and early 1940s.

78 • Wells Fargo founded in 1852, originally an express-service and banking company noted for its overland mail and stagecoach business. Today, the company is a successful banking conglomerate.

CHAPTER 11 Summary Milkman arrives in Virginia and asks for directions to Charlemagne. After several unsuccessful attempts, he learns that the correct name for the town he is seeking is Shalimar. He buys an old car and continues on his journey, only to have the car break down in front of Solomon’s General Store, where he is welcomed by Solomon, the store’s owner, and discovers that he has reached his destination. Through a brief conversation with Solomon, Milkman learns that Guitar has been there and is looking for him. Although initially alarmed, Milkman reasons that Guitar must be in trouble and that he simply left a cryptic message to inform Milkman of his whereabouts. After Milkman makes several comments about the town of Shalimar and its women, comments perceived as arrogant and insulting by a group of younger men in Solomon’s store, Milkman is goaded into a fight. Although wounded, he is saved from serious injury when two women intervene and plead with Solomon to stop the fight. An older man who introduces himself as Omar invites Milkman to go hunting with him and his friends. Milkman agrees to meet the men at sundown. At the designated meeting place, the men (Omar, Calvin Breakstone, Small Boy, and Luther Solomon) outfit Milkman in army fatigues, a knit cap, and a pair of old, sturdy shoes. As they drive to the hunting spot, Milkman notices a car speeding past them; earlier, he had wondered if someone else was meeting them for the hunt, but now he realizes that there are no others in the hunting party. During the hunt, Milkman is initiated into the ways of the hunters, learns the legend of Ryna’s Gulch, and begins to feel connected to nature. After becoming separated from the group, he is attacked by Guitar, who tries to strangle him with a wire. Having

79 sensed Guitar’s presence seconds before the attack, Milkman manages to escape. The hunters kill a bobcat, and Milkman participates in the ritual of skinning the cat and cutting up the carcass. He also accepts the honor of lifting out the bobcat’s heart from within its ribcage. Later, Omar gives Milkman directions to the home of Sweet, a woman who takes him in, bathes him, and makes love to him. Commentary Chapter 11 marks a major turning point in Milkman’s spiritual growth and depicts marked changes in his cultural awareness, his sensitivity toward others, and his ability to commune with nature. It also illustrates Morrison’s focus on “the transforming power of language.” Milkman’s arrival in Shalimar, he hopes, will mark his return to a kinder, less threatening world, one that initially appears to be the direct opposite of Southside. Seemingly free of violence, Shalimar is depicted as a friendly, peaceful place where men gather at Solomon’s store, women stroll down the street unafraid and empty-handed, and children sing and play nearby, surrounded by an assortment of docile farm animals. As Milkman enters this idyllic, Edenic setting, blissfully unaware of its social dynamics, he is the proverbial stranger in the village. A Northerner unfamiliar with Southern customs and traditions, he has blindly accepted the myth of Southern hospitality. Consequently, he is surprised to discover that “these people” are not eager to accept him into their midst based solely on the color of his skin. Instead, they perceive him as an outsider, a white man in black face, and, therefore, a potential threat. What’s more, they resent his arrogance and “city ways.” Determined to test his true identity, the men goad him into a vicious verbal battle that quickly escalates to physical violence, and only after two women intercede on his behalf is Milkman saved from serious bodily harm. Soon thereafter, Omar, one of the men sitting on the store’s front porch, invites him to go hunting. Determined to show the men that he can “play their game,” Milkman accepts. During the ritual of the nighttime hunt, he communes with nature and proves himself worthy of acceptance into their brotherhood of men. Thus, like the hero of folklore and fairy

80 tale, Milkman successfully meets the challenges placed before him and is rewarded with the beautiful princess—Sweet. In Shalimar, the first indication that Milkman is beginning to pay attention to his surroundings and view the world from a different perspective is his ability to appreciate the beauty of the small town’s women, who, unlike the women he is accustomed to, are comfortable with themselves and proud of their African features. Consequently, he is finally able to recognize the beauty of black women within the context of black culture. Also significant is Milkman’s participation in the black cultural ritual of verbal sparring—“signifying”—with the men at Solomon’s General Store, which indicates his ability to relate to black men and to reconnect with the heart and soul of the black community. In Shalimar, Milkman has matured enough to recognize the verbal challenges, whereas in Southside, he was not even aware that verbal sparring was a form of challenge: “Everybody smiled, including Milkman. It was about to begin.” Unlike his futile attempts to participate in this form of word play with the Southside men, this time Milkman proves himself a worthy contestant in Shalimar. By playing with the various spellings of words with similar sounds—Solomon/Shalimar/Sugarman/Charlemagne—Morrison explores the vital link between the sounds and meanings of words and between written and oral languages. By focusing on the sounds of the spoken word rather than on the spelling of the written word, she emphasizes the primacy of black vernacular and oral tradition over written language and Standard English as they relate to the transfer of black culture. She also lends credence to the saying that language defines who we are. What’s more, she focuses the reader’s attention on words as “codes” or “signals” that can be used to test someone’s identity, a concept that becomes crucial for Milkman as he proceeds on the quest for his inheritance and that alludes to a biblical story in which the pronunciation of a word is literally a matter of life and death. According to the Old Testament (Judges 12:6), the victorious Gileadites devised a simple plan to keep their enemies, the Ephraimites, from escaping by crossing the Jordan River. After setting up barricades, the Gileadites ordered each person seeking passage to pronounce the word “shibboleth.” Unable to pronounce the sh sound, the Ephraimites pronounced it incorrectly as “sibboleth” and were killed.

81 In order for Milkman to fulfill his mission and decode the meaning of Solomon’s song, he must first learn to listen and to relinquish his sole reliance on external cues such as road maps and written records as primary sources of information. In short, Milkman must learn to focus on orality (sound and pronunciation) rather than literacy (spelling and definition). For example, although Milkman hears the children of Shalimar sing their song, which begins with the line “Jay the only son of Solomon,” he does not listen to the words or display any particular interest in their game. Instead, the song serves only to remind him of his own childhood and the beginning of his friendship with Guitar. Later in the chapter, however, during the hunting episode, Milkman comes to realize the importance of orality. He discerns the hunting dogs’ different barking sounds and the hunters’ responses to them: “The men and the dogs were talking to each other. In distinctive voices they were saying distinctive, complicated things.” Morrison characterizes this orally symbiotic relationship as primal, existing before language. Milkman’s growing spiritual awareness is revealed through the ritual of the hunt, during which his newly acquired ability to “listen with his fingertips, to hear what, if anything, the earth had to say,” ultimately saves his life, enabling him to sense Guitar’s presence just before the attack. Also, the scene in which the hunters give Milkman the honor of pulling out the bobcat’s heart indicates his ritualistic initiation into the tribe—the community of hunters— and his readiness to assume his role as the hero, generally described as a “man with heart.” The image of the cat’s heart falling away from its chest “as easily as yolk slips out of its shell” recalls Pilate’s speech to Milkman in Chapter 2 concerning the perfection of eggs. Milkman’s growing awareness is also illustrated in the scene between Milkman and Sweet, in which he demonstrates, for the first time, his ability to participate in a mutually nurturing relationship with a woman and to view lovemaking as more than merely a sexual act designed solely for short-lived physical gratification. For example, at no time during his relationship with Hagar would he have offered to bathe her as he does Sweet. Note that the chapter’s last paragraph mirrors the reciprocal relationship between Milkman and Sweet. Morrison begins the sentences in this

82 paragraph with altering masculine and feminine pronouns followed by a verb, the effect of which is a balanced “He did . . . / She did . . .” singsong effect. • Shalimar a word derived from “sheol,” Hebrew for pit, cavern, womb, or underworld. In its earliest forms, sheol was the virgin’s “enclosed garden of flowers, fruits, fountains and fairy-nymphs,” called Shal-Mari (“land of souls”) in Tibet and Shalimar in India (Women’s Encyclopedia). • Red Cap

a brand name of beer.

• Cherry smash

a brand name of soda pop.

• shotgun houses narrow, single-level houses with the rooms arranged in a straight line, one directly behind the other. A bullet fired from the front room would pass through all the other rooms and exit through the back. • corduroy

a heavy fabric with vertical ribs.

• straights here, long pants without gatherings; the opposite of straights are knickers. • Neanderthals

disparaging slang for illiterate, primal-like people.

• soughing rustling. • sweet gum tree native to North and Central America, a tree with prickly fruit clusters and used to make furniture. • talcum

a soft powder made from talc, a fine-grained mineral.

• witch hazel a shrub or small tree found especially in the eastern United States. Sweet uses a liquid solution made from the bark and leaves of witch hazel to soothe Milkman’s swollen neck. • gumbo a soup made with okra and commonly eaten in the South. The word “gumbo” was originally introduced by slaves forcibly captured in Africa and brought to the United States.

CHAPTER 12 Summary Milkman visits Susan Byrd, who tells him only that her father, Crowell Byrd, had a sister named Sing. On his way back to town,

83 Milkman runs into Guitar, who accuses him of trying to cheat him out of the gold. Guitar warns Milkman that he still intends to kill him, but on his own time, and only after Milkman has received the gold, which Guitar believes Milkman shipped from Danville to Shalimar. Milkman is unable to convince Guitar otherwise. He returns to Shalimar, spends the night with Sweet, and dreams of flying. The next morning, Milkman goes back to Solomon’s store to see if his car has been repaired. As he waits, he listens to the town’s children singing Solomon’s song, which includes the names Solomon, Jay (Jake), Heddy, and Ryna; the song begins to make sense to him—these are the names of his ancestors. Excited, he decides to revisit Susan Byrd for more information. Commentary Susan Byrd’s house, with its brick front, white picket fence, and “four little steps painted blue,” evokes the all-American red, white, and blue imagery introduced in Chapter 1. But here again, the American Dream has fallen short of its promise. Susan Byrd’s “people” have all left Shalimar and are “passing” as white because of their light skin. Like Macon, Susan has only the empty trappings of success. Despite the illusions of flight associated with her— suggested by the gray velvet wing-back chair in which Milkman sits—this Byrd is unable to fly. Although Susan is a direct descendant of people who could fly, she has lost those magical powers. Morrison delights in systematically setting up and demolishing readers’ expectations. We are met with the smell of gingerbread baking, but the “witch” who lives in this gingerbread house prefers pale butter cookies and coffee with both cream and sugar— symbolic of Susan’s relatives passing as white. The smell of ginger recalls the same smell earlier at Circe’s mansion and, at night, in Southside. And although the child’s swing hanging from the cedar tree suggests the presence of children, all children are long gone. As Milkman learns compassion, he becomes whole. Although he leaves Susan’s house feeling “tired and off center,” for the first time in his life he feels a genuine, positive connection to his black heritage and to the people of Shalimar. Morrison writes of him, “He didn’t feel close to them, but he did feel connected, as though

84 there was some cord or pulse or information they shared.” And when he sees Guitar waiting for him, he is calm and surprised at the “complete absence of fear” in himself. Milkman is now an adult who faces conflicts rationally rather than emotionally—and rather than running away. Back in Shalimar, as Milkman listens to the children singing Solomon’s song, he thinks about his past. He sympathizes with his mother and her forced twenty-year celibacy; he understands more fully his father, whose materialism Milkman now sees as “homage” to Macon’s own father, the founder of Lincoln’s Heaven; and he becomes ashamed of his treatment of Pilate and Hagar. He also realizes that he has no reason to hate his sisters. When he catches a glimpse of himself in the plate-glass window of Solomon’s store, he sees a reflection of himself that is not distorted or fragmented: “He was grinning. His eyes were shining. He was as eager and happy as he had ever been in his life.” • ridge here, a chain of hills. • wing-back chair a high-backed chair from which enclosing side pieces are attached. • normal school a school that trains teachers for the elementary grades. • Quakers the Society of Friends, a religious denomination. Quakers were instrumental in helping runaway slaves reach freedom in the North. • okra

a pod-shaped vegetable, commonly grown in the South.

• fluted plates a pie.

plates whose edges are grooved, like the outer crust of

• stove eye slang for a stove’s opening.

CHAPTER 13 Summary In a flashback to the beginning of Chapter 6, Guitar returns to his home to find Hagar in a state of shock following her aborted attempt to kill Milkman. He carries her outside, then borrows a car

85 to drive her home. During the drive, he tries to console her, but Hagar remains silent and unresponsive. Guitar finds himself mentally comparing Hagar to his own two sisters, who were watched over by the entire community and grew up feeling loved and protected. He concludes that Hagar’s lack of such support has led to her crippling sense of low self-worth. At home, Pilate and Reba do everything they can think of to support Hagar, who takes to her bed and remains severely depressed. Finally, in an attempt to cheer her up, Pilate gives her a compact mirror. When Hagar sees her disheveled reflection, she rouses herself from her stupor and announces that she needs to go shopping so that she will appear more beautiful—and desirable—to Milkman. Elated that she has finally emerged from her stupor, Reba pawns her diamond ring to finance Hagar’s shopping spree. However, when Hagar returns home from shopping, rain-soaked, exhausted, and disoriented, and realizes that her efforts have been in vain, she succumbs to tears. Burning with fever, she becomes delirious and eventually dies—of a broken heart. Because Pilate and Reba have no more money left for her funeral, Ruth passively coerces Macon to pay for it. The chapter closes with Reba and Pilate’s emotional tribute to Hagar at the girl’s funeral. Commentary Hagar’s frenzied shopping spree, followed by her physical death, recalls Milkman’s shopping at a Rexall drugstore in Chapter 4 while contemplating the end of his and Hagar’s relationship. It also illustrates Morrison’s ability to paint a vivid portrait of the tragicomedy of life. Convinced that Milkman has abandoned her because she fails to meet his expectations, obsessed with her “graveyard love,” and seduced by the promise of consumerism—that the “right” product will magically solve her problems—Hagar resolves to recreate herself into what she envisions as Milkman’s image of an ideal woman. When she realizes that her efforts have been in vain, she fixates on the idea that he doesn’t love her because he doesn’t like her kinky hair. Morrison has said that the concepts of physical beauty and romantic love are two of the most destructive forces in civilization.

86 Here, she illustrates the powers of these destructive forces through Hagar, who not only has been socialized to accept both concepts but has internalized them as primary values that define her identity and self-image. Although Hagar’s obsession with her hair may seem trivial, it symbolizes the black woman’s frustrated efforts to meet white standards of beauty, epitomized by blue eyes, fair skin, and long, flowing hair. Thus when Guitar speculates that Hagar’s low self-esteem stems from her lack of support from the black community, he fails to take into account the damage inflicted on Hagar’s self-image by the beauty myths fostered by whitedominated society and perpetuated by the mainstream media. Like Macon, Hagar is so caught up in trying to create an acceptable image that she has lost touch with herself—with her self. And like Ruth, she tries to cope with reality by escaping into a fantasy world. When she is no longer able to sustain her fantasy and realizes that, unlike Sleeping Beauty, she will not be saved by love, she loses the will to live and dies. Pilate’s plea for Hagar to recognize her own unique beauty alludes to the words of Malcolm X, a powerful advocate of black pride and the “black is beautiful” concept: “Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? . . . Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself . . . [and] to hate . . . what God gave you?” Although Pilate tentatively blames Milkman for Hagar’s immediate despair, she realizes that he is merely an agent of the indifferent, impersonal capitalistic system whose perverse perspectives on race, sex, and class have led to Hagar’s physical, emotional, and psychological destruction. To offset the impending tragedy of Hagar’s death, Morrison interjects humor for comic relief. For example, when Guitar reminisces about his two sisters and recalls “the litany of their growing up,” we can’t help but smile at the snatches of humorous dialogue cast in the language and rhythms of black vernacular. And as we witness Reba’s determination to cheer up her daughter by investigating the “mysteries” of jello-making, we are again temporarily distracted from Hagar’s suffering. Morrison also depicts the different ways in which men and women cope with crisis, suggesting that while men tend to express their feelings and become angry, women tend to internalize their

87 feelings and become depressed. For example, in Chapter 9, when Milkman panics following the bungled burglary of Pilate’s green sack, he becomes angry, blames others for his feelings, and embarks on a drinking binge. Hagar, however, becomes depressed, blames herself for Milkman’s behavior, and blissfully believes that shopping will cure her damaged relationship with Milkman. Note, however, that when Hagar loses her purchases while stumbling home in the rain, she has nothing with which to replace her shattered faith in consumerism. However, when Milkman loses his material possessions while sloshing through the shallow river leading to Hunter’s Cave, eventually he is able to replace his distorted values with a spiritual inheritance. Morrison also hints that the hunt for a lover may be just as deadly as the hunt for wild game: Milkman has “ripped out” Hagar’s heart as surely as he pulled out the heart of the bobcat. Thus Hagar, the hunter, has become Milkman’s prey. In describing Hagar’s funeral, Morrison evokes the AfricanAmerican funeral service as homecoming ritual, in which the deceased is perceived as going home to Jesus and death is seen as a means of escape from a land of trial and tribulation to a place where there is no more pain and suffering. The bereaved are consoled by eulogies extolling the virtues of the deceased and by sermons denouncing death and focusing on the glory of eternal life in the hereafter. A gospel choir singing inspirational spirituals such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Steal Away to Jesus” often highlights such a service, emphasizing the release from earthly troubles and depicting the glorious journey “home.” The culmination of the homecoming ritual is generally a moving and highly emotional sermon designed to reassure the bereaved that the deceased has gone to a better place. But Pilate has no time for sermons or rituals. Placating platitudes and soothing songs cannot console her. She refuses to accept the pat answers to life’s difficult questions offered by organized religion. Ignoring tradition, she bursts through the church door shouting “Mercy!” and begins walking toward Hagar’s coffin, shaking her head as if to deny the reality of Hagar’s death. After Reba joins her in her mournful plea for mercy, Pilate walks up to the coffin and softly sings a lullaby to her granddaughter, as though Hagar were a little girl who had simply gone to sleep. Watching

88 Pilate, we perceive her song as somehow inadequate in capturing the tragedy of Hagar’s death. But when Pilate proceeds to affirm her granddaughter’s life by acknowledging her as “My baby girl,” we realize that she is commemorating Hagar’s memory by singling her out from all others who have died before her. In describing the funeral scene and the events leading up to it, Morrison uses a number of stylistic devices, including sense impressions, allusions, and color symbolism. For example, we can hear Pilate’s song, see Hagar laid out in her satin-lined coffin, and feel Pilate’s and Reba’s anguish. Note that Hagar lies in bed, consumed with a burning fever, for three days, after which (like Jesus and Lazarus) she rises and makes one final effort to confront her personal demons. The colors red, black, and green that so dominate the funeral—embodied by the “jungle-red wine,” the “total blackness” of Pilate’s dress, and the “emerald glass”—have replaced the red, white, and blue imagery of Mr. Smith’s death in Chapter 1. In essence, the American flag has been replaced with the Pan-African Liberation flag. Created by Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey, the flag reflects the colors of Jamaica’s Rastafarian movement, as noted by Leonard E. Barrett, Sr., in his book The Rastafarians: “The red signifies the blood of martyrs of Jamaican history, including heroes from the time of the Maroons down to Marcus Garvey. The black represents the color of the Africans whose descendants form ninety-eight percent of all Jamaicans. The green is the green of Jamaican vegetation and of the hope of victory over oppression.” Essentially, Hagar is not only “going home” to Jesus; she is also “going home” to Mother Africa. In this chapter’s final scene, Pilate is portrayed as a trumpeting elephant, an animal native to both Africa and India. Picturing her as this great, lumbering beast, we are reminded of earlier references to her as a protective cedar. If we consider the connections between these two images, we realize that despite the powerful imagery associated with Pilate, she is, ironically, quite powerless to protect herself or the people she loves. The trumpeting elephant symbolizes a creature—Pilate—so overwhelmed by grief that words cannot express her pain. Also significant is the image of Pilate and Reba bending over Hagar like two divi-divi trees, which are native to South America and the West Indies and are noted for their highly astringent qual-

89 ities. Associating the two women with the healing properties of these exotic trees again underscores the ironic fact that they are powerless to heal Hagar. And considering that divi-divi trees are not native to either Africa or the United States, we can surmise that through death, Hagar, like Mr. Smith, is finally able to transcend the boundaries that limited her physical and emotional life. • mangoes edible citrus fruit from the mango tree, native to Asia. • fuchsia

bright purplish red.

• bath salts • placket

a perfumed salt solution used for softening bath water.

a slit in a piece of clothing, such as a dress or skirt.

• luxe luxury. • to truck

slang, meaning to get into a dispute with.

• sluicing leaking and sloshing water. • bolero an open-front, short jacket. • bier a stand on which a coffin is placed—for example, during a funeral.

CHAPTER 14 Summary Milkman returns to Susan Byrd’s house to ask her about Jake, and Susan tells him the story of Jake’s father, Solomon, the Flying African. She also tells Milkman that although the townspeople were led to believe that Sing Byrd (whose real name was Singing Bird) left Shalimar to attend a private Quaker school in Boston, she actually ran off with Jake and a wagonload of ex-slaves, supposedly headed for Boston. Since Jake couldn’t read, perhaps he mistakenly took a wrong turn and ended up in Pennsylvania. Susan also tells Milkman the story of Solomon’s wife, Ryna, who went mad when Solomon flew off, leaving her behind. As a result, Heddy, an old Indian woman, raised Jake, the youngest of Solomon’s twenty-one children and the only one whom Solomon tried to take with him when he flew away. Heddy was devastated

90 when Sing and Jake ran away, leaving her alone with her youngest son, Crowell Byrd (originally named Crow Bird), Susan’s father. Commentary When Milkman returns to Susan Byrd’s house, he notices that it looks “different”: The white picket fence is flaked, peeling, and in need of repair, and the blue steps leading to the porch are faded into a “watery gray.” Whereas on his first visit he focused on the house with its white picket fence, this time he focuses on the cedar tree standing in the yard and notices that it looks like “the leg of an ancient elephant”; in the previous chapter, Pilate was referred to as being “like an elephant.” The little house, which had initially impressed Milkman with its trappings of success, now appears to him as gray and faded, indicating that he is more aware and critical of the mythological American Dream and is prepared to begin his search for more spiritually substantial values. For example, Milkman’s final disinterest in recovering his gold watch from Grace Long indicates not only that he is willing to give up his material possessions but that he is moving closer to Pilate, who tells time by the sun and, as Guitar notes, is “not a clock person.” As Susan tells Milkman the story of her grandmother, Heddy, her father, Crowell Byrd, and her aunt, Singing Bird, she reveals her contempt for Jake, whom she refers to as “Jake. Black Jake. Black as coal.” She makes no attempts to hide her color prejudice. Consequently, when Milkman realizes that he is related to Susan through Heddy, he doesn’t reveal his newfound knowledge and lets Susan believe that he is just a stranger and not a “new-found relative who was as black as Jake.” As revealed in Chapter 12, Susan is ashamed of her black and Indian blood and takes pride in the fact that her “people” can “pass” for white. But although she has tried her best to erase her past, her efforts have been in vain: Grace knows the truth, Milkman has discovered her secret, and the cedar tree—symbolic of Pilate—bears witness to her true roots. The stories of the Flying African and Ryna’s Gulch are two more examples of Morrison’s genius in combining disparate elements of myth and oral tradition to create contemporary fiction. Also, by contrasting the fantastic events that took place in Shalimar, which have not been documented but exist in the memo-

91 ries of the people who learned about them through stories from those who witnessed them, Morrison again contrasts oral tradition— “re-memory”—with recorded “history.” The book-length study Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies Among the Georgia Coastal Negroes contains numerous accounts of flying Africans told by various inhabitants of the Georgia coastal regions, and Morrison herself recalls hearing these stories from her grandmother. One of the stories in Drums and Shadows focuses on a woman named Ryna, whose mother flew back to Africa, leaving her daughter behind. The book also includes a story about a slave ship about to be caught by a revenue boat. To avoid paying taxes on their cargo of about fifty slaves, the slave runners tied rocks around the slaves’ necks and threw them overboard. According to local legend, the cries of the drowned slaves, like the weeping sounds echoing in Ryna’s Gulch, can still be heard today. As we observe Milkman listening to Susan Byrd’s “gossip, stories, legends, [and] speculations,” eventually piecing together a story that makes sense to him, we realize that he is participating in the storytelling process and contributing to the legacy of oral tradition by adding his story to those created by his ancestors. But Susan Byrd has become so disconnected from her roots and so adept at hiding her family’s secrets by inventing her own stories that she is completely oblivious to the rich heritage inherent in the stories she tells Milkman. What’s more, having consistently devalued and discounted her family’s history, she is unaware of the vital role she herself is playing in continuing the tradition of creating a master tale—composed of collective experiences, including songs, poems, and personal stories—by repeating the stories handed down to her by her ancestors. Consequently, after telling Milkman the magical stories of Solomon and Ryna, she demonstrates her disinterest and detachment by commenting that Shalimar is a “dull place”: “There’s absolutely nothing in the world going on here. Not a thing.” Ironically, she’s completely wrong: Life is going on.

92 CHAPTER 15 Summary Milkman returns to Shalimar, finds Sweet, and convinces her to go swimming with him in a nearby river, where he excitedly tells her what he has discovered about his ancestors. Then he boards a bus and heads back to Michigan. On the way, he thinks about his experiences and his newfound knowledge and speculates on the meaning of names and on Guitar’s role in his life. When Milkman arrives back home, he stops at Pilate’s house. But when he starts to tell her about his discoveries, instead of welcoming his news, Pilate hits him over the head with a bottle and throws him into her cellar. When he regains consciousness, Milkman senses that Hagar is dead and realizes that Pilate’s behavior against him was prompted by grief. He calls out to her and tells her that the bones she has been carrying around are those of her father. Finally he convinces her to go back to Shalimar with him to bury the bones. Pilate gives him a box filled with Hagar’s hair, which he takes home with him. Milkman and Pilate return to Shalimar. After a reunion with the people in the community, Pilate and Milkman go to Solomon’s Leap to bury the bones. Pilate stoops down and drops her earring containing her name into the grave along with the bones. When she stands up, she is shot in the back of her head by a rifle fired by Guitar, and she dies in Milkman’s arms as he sings Solomon’s song to her. As he holds her, two birds circle around them, and one dives into the grave, then flies off with Pilate’s earring. Knowing Guitar will shoot him as soon as he stands up, Milkman intentionally stands and calls out to his friend, then leaps into the air toward Guitar, who is standing on another flatheaded rock. Commentary Milkman’s symbolic baptism and rebirth at the river complete his transformation from “Milkman”—the immature, irresponsible youth—to “Sugarman”—the subject of Pilate’s/Solomon’s song; he is the heir to Pilate’s role as the transmitter of his people’s culture and history. But even at this stage of his spiritual growth, he is un-

93 aware of the cost of his quest. For example, when he tells Sweet the story of his great-grandfather Solomon’s flight back to Africa, he doesn’t understand the meaning behind her question, “Who’d he leave behind?” Not until he returns home and learns his final lesson of love from Pilate is he able to understand that his freedom (like Solomon’s) has come at the expense of the people he left behind—namely, Hagar. Consequently, his challenge is not only to reclaim the gift of flight but to break the legacy established by Solomon and followed by Jake and Macon of men who abandon those who love them. Ironically, despite his transformation and newfound awareness, Milkman’s victory is tenuous and has little impact on his family or community. Upon returning home, he learns that Hagar is dead due to his cruelty and inability to love. He also finds that although Pilate is surprised to discover that the bones in her sack are her father’s, she is generally unmoved by this knowledge due to her reverence for all life and her close relationship to her father before and after his death. By giving Milkman the box containing Hagar’s hair, Pilate entrusts him with her granddaughter’s soul. According to the voodoo religion, the hair and fingernails of the deceased contain the dead person’s soul and generally are burned to keep them out of the hands of individuals who might want to harm the soul of the deceased or keep it from finding peace in the afterlife. Pilate’s action also reflects her adherence to her father’s philosophy: “You just can’t fly on off and leave a body.” Because Milkman is responsible for Hagar’s death, he must assume responsibility for her soul, thus carrying on the tradition Pilate has established by caring for the bones she thought belonged to the white man whom her brother supposedly killed in Hunter’s Cave. By burying her father’s bones, Pilate demonstrates her faith that the legacy of the Dead family will live on through Milkman. Now that Milkman knows his true name, Pilate is able to bury her name, contained in her brass earring. Having completed her task, she accepts her death as she listens to Milkman sing Solomon’s song. But even in death, Pilate’s concern is not for herself but for Reba, the daughter she must leave behind: “Watch Reba for me,” she instructs Milkman. Her only regret is not having known more people so she could have “loved ‘em all.” Thus Milkman’s quest is

94 secondary to the lessons on grace and mercy that he learns through Pilate’s wisdom and unconditional love. Although numerous critics have commented on the novel’s ambiguous ending as unsatisfactory, Morrison views it as keeping with the context of the novel, which focuses on duality and ambiguity. Consequently, it is up to each reader to fill in the spaces of the narrative concerning Milkman’s fate. Given that Milkman has inherited Pilate’s and Solomon’s gifts of flight, perhaps his ultimate fate is secondary to the direction of his flight, which, unlike Solomon’s, is not toward freedom but toward the “killing arms of his brother.” • quarry

an excavation pit from which ore is mined.

• iridescent brilliantly glowing. • water moccasins

a harmless water snake.

• tee double you ay a vulgarized pronunciation of TWA, or Trans World Airline, a major United States airline carrier. • ocher an orangish yellow color. • Algonquins a Native-American people who lived in the Ottawa River area, in southern east-central Canada, around 1600. Driven from their homeland by the Iroquois, eventually they were absorbed into other Canadian tribes. • Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield (b. 1915), famous blues singer.

• Jelly Roll Ferdinand Joseph “Jelly Roll” Morton (1885–1941), renowned jazz composer. • Fats a reference either to pianist and composer Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904–43), or to Antoine “Fats” Domino (b. 1928), renowned pianist and rhythm-and-blues singer. • Lead-belly Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter (1885–1949), a folk singer. • Bo Diddley Otha “Bo Diddley” McDaniels (b. 1928), renowned rockand-roll singer. • B. B.

Riley “B. B.” King (b. 1925), a famous blues singer.

• Lemon “Blind Lemon” Jefferson (1897–1930), the most influential African-American blues singer and guitarist of his time.

95 • Tampa Red Whittaker Hudson (1903–81), a blues singer also known as “the Guitar Wizard.” • Shine a black folk hero who—like Stagolee, John Henry, and High John the Conqueror—epitomizes the “bad nigger,” or outlaw trickster. • Staggerlee The story of Stagolee (also known as “Stackolee” or “Staggerlee”) originated in a black folk ballad about two gamblers, Stagolee and Billy. When Stagolee catches Billy cheating, he shoots him dead, then brags about his deed and steals Billy’s wife. • Katherine Hepburn (b. 1909) gravelly voiced American film actress best known for her starring role in The African Queen (1951), with Humphrey Bogart, and her long-term love affair with Spencer Tracy, with whom she starred in nine films. • lodestar a star by which one directs one’s course; a guiding principle or ideal.

CHARACTER ANALYSES MACON “MILKMAN” DEAD Throughout the first half of Song of Solomon, Milkman is the epitome of an immature young man drifting aimlessly through life. Having “stretched his carefree boyhood out for thirty-one years,” he is content to go “wherever the party is.” Although he functions as the novel’s protagonist, he is not a heroic figure—at least not for well over half of the novel. Spiritually dead and mentally enslaved by apathy and materialism, Milkman embarks on a quest for his inheritance, which he initially believes to be Pilate’s gold. Instead, through a series of mishaps and coincidences, he finds himself on a spiritual quest for his identity. Eventually he learns the meaning of grace and mercy, and he inherits the gift of flight. Although he prides himself on being nothing like his father, Milkman shares his father’s materialistic values, his arrogance, his indifference, and his sexist, chauvinistic attitudes toward women. Consequently, he has no empathy for those whom he perceives as being inferior to him socially or economically, he lacks a sense of commitment to his family and community, and he is unable to sustain a loving relationship with any woman, the exception being

96 Sweet—after he discovers his spiritual inheritance—but even then only briefly. Due to his apathy and lack of direction, Milkman feels pulled in several directions by the people around him, all of whom vie for control of his life: His mother wants him to go to medical school; his father wants Milkman to join him in the real estate business; Hagar wants him to marry her; Guitar wants him to accept the Seven Days; and Pilate wants him to assume responsibility for his life and fulfill his role as a leader, as foretold by his miraculous birth and attested to by his charmed life. (Milkman’s conception and birth were assisted by Pilate’s voodoo. He was born with a caul and had visions that revealed the truths hidden behind the facade of real life.) Unwilling to commit himself to any one goal, Milkman rejects all options, choosing to continue his aimless drifting and cut himself off from the people who care for him. With the help of Pilate and Guitar, Milkman eventually discovers the secret of Solomon’s song once he recognizes the vital link between the past and the future. His mission to find Pilate’s gold takes him back to his ancestral roots, enabling him to learn the origin of his name and to reconnect with the black community— his “tribe.” PILATE DEAD Pilate is the ancestor who, as the critic Stelamaris Coser notes, represents “the only sign of a vital black tradition surviving in the urban industrial environment.” Milkman’s “pilot” on his “flight” home, she defies virtually every stereotype of a black woman and exemplifies Morrison’s rejection of binary thinking. Just as Milkman fails to recognize Pilate’s innate beauty and dignity until he sees it reflected in the women of Shalimar, we may fail to recognize her courage and power until we place it within the context of African history and classical mythology. Viewed from these perspectives, we find that Pilate is both griot—a storyteller— and village elder, charged with preserving the cultural memory of her people, and a wise, moral teacher who offers a new vision of the future. A conjurer and root woman skilled in the art of voodoo, she is a healer and peacemaker who has no qualms about resorting to any means necessary to protect those she loves.

97 Pilate values family and community and reveres her African and American heritage, as symbolized by her quilt. Driven by an unselfish desire to care for others, Pilate gives up her wandering lifestyle to provide a stable home for her granddaughter, Hagar, and to watch over Ruth, her sister-in-law, who is “dying of lovelessness.” Exhibiting both male and female characteristics, Pilate is associated with images of snakes and serpents. Thus, she is both Adam and Eve, both Christ and Satan. When Milkman first sees her, she is seated with “one foot pointed east and one pointed west,” a posture that indicates that she embraces both Eastern and Western (African and American) traditions and values. Pilate’s aggressive, masculine stance and her reverence for her fourth-grade geography book allude to the angel in Revelation who holds a little book and sets his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the land. Even according to conventional Eurocentric standards, Pilate is the true hero: Odysseus wanders for ten years; Pilate wanders for twenty years and experiences a series of adventures that shape her character and free her to make hard choices concerning her role in society. From the moment she emerges from her mother’s womb, she creates herself, improving her situation by working her way up from washerwoman to entrepreneur. Unlike her brother, Macon, who inherits his wealth from Ruth, Pilate creates her own way. And unlike Odysseus, whose journey is aided by gods and goddesses with supernatural powers, Pilate herself is endowed with supernatural powers; she completes her journey without the help of others’ magic or divine intervention. She is a courageous woman who assumes full responsibility for her life and meets life head on, but because she is neither white and male nor young and beautiful, her accomplishments are discounted and her wisdom discredited— even by the black community. Like her father, who rejected the biblical meaning of Pilate as “Christ killer” and chose it because the shape of the word itself reminded him of a tree “hanging in some princely but protective way over a row of smaller trees,” Pilate refuses to be defined by the limiting perceptions of others and insists on creating her own reality. She delivers Milkman from his spiritually dead existence; the biblical Pontius Pilate delivered Jesus to his enemies. By creating herself, Pilate has crafted her own metaphorical

98 wings that—as Milkman observes—enable her to “fly” while remaining grounded. GUITAR BAINS As Milkman’s mentor, best friend, and confidant, Guitar, “the golden-eyed boy,” is Milkman’s counterpart and alter ego. To Milkman, he is the “wise and kind and fearless” boy who “not only could liberate him, but could take him to the woman [Pilate] who had as much to do with his future as she had his past.” As indicated by his symbolic name, Guitar is instrumental in helping Milkman learn to fly. In essence, he provides the musical accompaniment to Pilate’s blues song that holds the key to Milkman’s spiritual growth. Like Pilate, Guitar knows that if Milkman wants to fly, he must first relinquish his extra baggage, including his illusions of independence, his arrogance, and his materialistic values. As he tells Milkman when the two discuss the white peacock’s inability to fly, “Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” Thus Guitar shares Pilate’s innate wisdom; however, he lacks the ability to make rational decisions and the wisdom to temper his knowledge with love and compassion. Although he advises Milkman to give up the materialistic things that prevent him from flying, Guitar is also unable to fly because he has not given up his own psychological baggage that weighs him down, such as his hatred of whites. Both Pilate and Guitar share a tragic past: Both have witnessed the deaths of their fathers at a very young age. But although Pilate copes with her grief, goes on with her life, and keeps her father’s memory alive, Guitar is unable to cope with his grief. Instead, he allows his grief to control his life. The youngest and most extreme member of the Seven Days, Guitar’s background, politics, and leadership status recall the young Malcolm X. The novel draws numerous parallels between Malcolm X and Guitar: Guitar—born in 1925—lives in an unnamed town in Michigan; Malcolm X—born in 1925—lived in both Lansing and Detroit, Michigan. Macon refers to Guitar as “that red-headed nigger”; Malcolm X’s nickname was “Detroit Red.” Guitar has a gift for rhetoric and loves to debate history and geography; Malcolm X was noted for his outspoken views on history

99 and geography. Guitar’s racial politics and membership in the Seven Days parallel Malcolm X’s political views and his membership in the Nation of Islam (also known as the Black Muslims). And the gruesome circumstances surrounding the death of Guitar’s father parallel the events surrounding the death of Malcolm X’s father. But while Malcolm X ultimately expanded his views on race, Guitar is unable to move past his limited views and feels compelled to adhere to the Days’ strict moral code—even if it means killing his best friend. MACON DEAD, JR. Macon is the epitome of the black man who has acquiesced to the white capitalist system. Estranged from his family, his community, and his African heritage, Macon is hated and feared by blacks, who detest his arrogance, and ignored and ostracized by whites, who use him primarily to keep black tenants in their place. A fervent believer in the mythological American Dream, Macon prizes his ring of keys, which distinguishes him as a man of property. Convinced that his wealth will compensate for his race, Macon has no time for lower-class blacks, whom he considers beneath him socially and economically. Oblivious to the devastating spiritual toll that his lifestyle has taken on him, Macon is determined to have his son, Milkman, follow in his footsteps and does his best to convince Milkman that money is the key to power and success. Macon is the only father in the novel who is physically present with his children, but his presence is so overpowering that it appears to do more harm than good. Cold, controlling, and domineering, Macon rules his household like a tyrant. With a wife who is “stunned into silence” by his rejection, two “half-grown” daughters, and a son who refuses to accept responsibility for his life, Macon exemplifies the Western patriarch whose penchant for order and discipline provides him with the illusion of being in control. Macon’s lack of compassion is illustrated in his treatment of Porter and Mrs. Bains, both tenants of his, but it is especially evident in his treatment of his sister, Pilate, whom he despises for refusing to conform to his rigidly defined standards of correct

100 behavior. His disdain and lack of respect for other blacks are also evident in his speech, which echoes the beliefs and stereotypes of racist whites—he is the first one in the novel to use the word “nigger” to refer to Porter, Pilate, and Guitar. Unlike Pilate, who has earned her way in the world by working hard and persevering, Macon inherited his initial wealth through Ruth. Not satisfied with his wife’s inheritance, his insatiable greed prompts him to try to steal his sister’s inheritance—gold—as well. Macon longs for some connection to his past. Although he recognizes that Pilate has managed to maintain that connection, he refuses to yield to her influence, fearing that any expression of love or dependence will make him appear weak. As a result, he finds himself spiritually and psychologically estranged from himself and others, desperately clinging to the illusion that material success is all he needs to make his life worthwhile. RUTH FOSTER DEAD Ruth’s description of herself as a “small” woman captures the essence of her character. “Stunned into silence” by her psychologically abusive husband, Ruth’s growth has been stunted, like that of her “half-grown” daughters and the dying maple tree in the side yard. A complicated woman who seems to “know a lot and understand very little,” Ruth clings to the memory of her dead father, Dr. Foster, whom she perceives as the only one who ever really cared about her well-being. Consequently, she fails to see the similarities between Macon and Dr. Foster. Both are despised by the community but granted a grudging respect for having obtained a measure of status and prosperity. Both are contemptuous of lower-class blacks and oblivious to the fact that their ability to sustain their affluent lifestyles depends on the support of the black community. And both have found a way to escape the painful realities of their spiritually dead lives while maintaining their facades as prosperous community leaders. In many ways, the frail, vulnerable Ruth is the direct opposite of the strong, independent Pilate. Pilate is depicted as a tall, black cedar tree blessed with the power of an elephant and the wisdom of an owl; Ruth, with her “lemon yellow” skin, is a fragile flower

101 and a doll-like creature who seems to have no mind of her own. Pilate has overcome her “dry birth” and created a meaningful life for herself; Ruth relies on others to create her reality and validate her existence. Pilate revels in the beauty of nature; Ruth sees nature as an ominous force that threatens to intrude on her carefully crafted environment. And finally, Pilate’s house is a “safe harbor” for her extended family; Ruth’s house is “more prison than palace.” Conversely, although Ruth seems reluctant to admit that she is anything like the unkempt, eccentric Pilate, the women have several things in common. Both communicate frequently with their dead fathers and share an intuitive, internal wisdom that transcends the mundane, external knowledge of others. Both have found a way to manipulate Macon and undermine his oppressive, domineering behavior. And both share an intense love for Milkman and an ardent desire to see him succeed in the world. But while Ruth attempts to steer him into the medical field, Pilate encourages him to follow his own spiritual path. Ruth’s difficulties as a wife and mother stems in part from her failure to experience a close, nurturing relationship with her own mother. Unlike Pilate, who has fond memories of her mother, Ruth’s only memory of her mother is as a rival for her father’s love. Like Hagar, Ruth’s “narrow but deep” passions render her incapable of differentiating between sex and love. Consequently, for Ruth, nursing Milkman is not a maternal, nurturing act but a secret, furtive ritual she engages in for her own sexual pleasure. Frustrated by unfulfilled desires, she perceives her son’s imminent death at the hands of his lover not as a tragedy that would deny him the opportunity to achieve his potential but as “the annihilation of the last occasion she had been made love to.”

CRITICAL ESSAYS LEVELS OF LANGUAGE AND MEANING Song of Solomon is a richly textured novel that functions on multiple levels. For example, the theme of flight, which pervades the novel, alludes to numerous flights: Mr. Smith’s flight; the mythical flight of Solomon/Sugarman; the literal flight of birds, pi-

102 lots, and airplanes; the historical flight of black people from slavery, poverty, and violence; and the metaphorical flight of Pilate, who transcends the arbitrary boundaries of society. Allusions to flight pervade the novel. In addition to frequent references to birds (hens, chickens, ravens, peacocks) and to characters whose names allude to birds (Singing Bird, Susan Byrd, Crowell Byrd), readers should also note references that suggest bird imagery—for example, Pilate’s eggs, Ruth’s “peck basket” of rose petals, and Feather’s pool hall. Understanding the significance of Solomon’s song is a key to understanding the novel since it is the language of the song that eventually reveals the secrets of Milkman’s past. Once Milkman deciphers the song’s code and understands its language, he also understands the meaning of his inheritance. Consequently, he is able to view his life not simply as a series of random, disconnected events but as part of a vital link between the past and future. (This tension between fusion and fragmentation, which emphasizes the need for the individual to gather the bones of experience in order to recreate himself into a unified, whole—albeit imperfect— human being, is a key theme in the novel.) In addition to presenting us with the first of numerous biblical allusions, Solomon’s song introduces us to the intrinsic role that religious and secular songs, in the form of spirituals and the blues, play in defining and transmitting African-American culture. Although Solomon’s song is a children’s rhyme here, it provides divine guidance, leading Milkman from mental bondage to spiritual freedom. Thus, although different in form, it fulfills the function of the old Negro spirituals—such as “Steal Away,” “Wade in the Water,” and “Follow the Drinking Gourd”—which often served as “signal songs” to guide escaped slaves along the path to freedom. To these slaves, “Steal Away” often signaled a secret church meeting that would put them in touch with other runaways; “Wade in the Water” warned them to walk in shallow creeks and river beds, thus making it more difficult for bloodhounds to pick up their scent; and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” reminded them to use the Big Dipper to find the North Star. For Milkman, Solomon’s song contains the secrets to his inheritance, the path back to his “people.” Throughout the novel, characters’ abilities to manipulate language reveal their abilities to cope with reality. Note, for example,

103 Pilate’s language, which incorporates puns, proverbs, parables, and folk sayings, and which flows freely from standard English, to black vernacular, to the poetic/sermonic language of the Bible, as opposed to Macon’s language, which is marked by literal statements, nonstandard English, and racial epithets. (Other examples include Hospital Tommy, who “talks like an encyclopedia,” Corinthians, who uses language to disguise her reality, and Freddie, the town crier, who uses language primarily to spread his skewed version of “truth.”) Also note Morrison’s use of Homeric epithets, which underscores the message that this story of one young man’s quest for identity is part of the universal quest for identity common to all humanity. (Attributed to Homer, Homeric epithets are compound adjectives, such as “wine-dark sea,” “brighteyed Athena,” and “rosy-fingered dawn.”) Examples of this kind of epithet in the novel include “the cat-eyed boy,” “the baked-too-fast sunshine cake,” and “ice-pick-wielding Hagar.” Song of Solomon also challenges readers to consider the definitions of concepts such as “success” and “progress.” Although Macon Dead has achieved a certain measure of material success, the drive for success has left him morally and spiritually bankrupt and unable to relate to himself, his family, or his community. Macon’s dilemma symbolizes the dilemma of contemporary middleclass blacks who find that the trappings of success—a big house, a new car, and name-brand luxuries—do not guarantee them respect and social equality. Consequently, Morrison challenges us to consider the price of success in our capitalistic society and to ponder the progress made by African Americans over the last several decades, given that—despite the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s—many are still struggling for basic human rights. In addition to the various levels of meaning inherent in the novel in general, readers should be alert to the multiple meanings of words and phrases—that is, literal versus figurative language— and to the relationships between oral and written language (how words sound versus what they mean within a specific context). Readers should also note Morrison’s use of verbal irony, which explores the meaning behind seemingly innocuous words and phrases, such as “agent,” “mercy,” and “life insurance.” They should also be familiar with the concept of “signifying,” a type of wordplay originating in African-American culture.

104 Morrison expects readers to note not only what is being said but what is left unsaid. As she points out in “Unspeakable Things Unspoken,” “Invisible things are not necessarily ‘not there,’ [and] a void may be empty, but it is not a vacuum. . . . Certain absences are so stressed, so ornate, so planned, they call attention to themselves.” Consider, for example, Pilate’s missing navel, which is conspicuous by its absence. Consequently, Song of Solomon challenges readers to examine the various ways language can be manipulated to reveal or conceal information, and to consider how silence can be used to send subtle but powerful messages. For example, in Chapter 1, the narrator relates how the “official notice” informing Southside residents of the naming of Mains Avenue is posted “in stores, barbershops, and restaurants.” Left unsaid is the fact that the notice is not posted in churches, schools, or libraries. The narrator also refers to a time “when black men were being drafted.” Left unsaid is that in the not-too-distant past, black men were not being drafted and were, in fact, barred from serving in the military. The motif of music—with an emphasis on the blues—resonates throughout the novel. Readers should note the numerous references and allusions to music, including references to musical instruments (drums, guitars, trumpets, pianos); references to musical terms (notes, keys, scales); references to blues musicians (Blind Lemon Jefferson, Fats Waller, B. B. King); references to sounds made by humans and animals (the humming Weimaraners, the screaming hounds, the shouting men); references to radios, records, and jukeboxes; and plays on words such as “grooves” and “jam.” Another key to the novel is the vital role of “the ancestor,” who plays a pivotal role in African and African-American culture. In her essay “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation,” Morrison defines ancestors as “timeless people whose relationships to the characters are benevolent, instructive, and protective, and [who] provide a certain kind of wisdom.” According to her, the role of the ancestor is to render a source of comfort or solace. Consequently, the function of the ancestor in African-American literature is equivalent to “the contemplation of serene nature” in white mainstream literature. Morrison contends that, in order to build and maintain a strong, culturally rooted African-American community, each member of that community must assume responsibility for keeping the ancestor alive; killing the ancestor is equivalent to

105 killing oneself. In Song of Solomon, Pilate is the ancestor who provides solace and guidance for her family and community, and whose wisdom enables Milkman to “fly.” Throughout the novel, Morrison blends fantasy and reality. But rather than adhering to the conventional belief that fantasy—in the forms of magic, superstition, and voodoo—limits or contradicts “real world” scientific knowledge, she illustrates, through the character of Pilate, that individuals in touch with nature and their own spirituality develop alternate ways of knowing that ultimately enhance their knowledge. In this way, she addresses the issue of “discredited knowledge” among black people. As she points out, blacks were often stigmatized and discredited by racist attitudes that held that blacks were morally and intellectually inferior to whites. Consequently, their knowledge was also discredited. By comparing Pilate’s innate wisdom to Corinthians’ external, academic knowledge—which leaves Corinthians totally incapable of coping with the brutal reality of contemporary society—Morrison stresses the power of knowledge that comes from within and challenges readers to question the value of formal education if that education does not equip individuals with the tools required to survive in the real world. In tracing Milkman’s spiritual development, note that his strength and awareness increase as he recognizes the links that bind him to his past and comes to terms with the present and future through his relationships with members of the black community. His development demonstrates a classic Afrocentric principle: The community is essential to the survival of the individual. Contrary to the Western Eurocentric perspective, which emphasizes individualism and competition, the Afrocentric perspective emphasizes community and cooperation. This concept is illustrated in the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child.” It is also expressed in the African proverb “I am because we are,” which sharply contrasts Descartes’ assertion, “I think; therefore, I am.” In short, although Milkman must ultimately define himself, he is also defined by his relationships. Therefore, he cannot learn his lessons in isolation; he can learn them only within the context of the community.

106 SONG OF SONGS AND FLYING AFRICANS In addition to its overriding theme of music—blues, jazz, spirituals, and gospel songs—as an integral force in the creation and survival of African-American culture, Song of Solomon draws on a wide variety of myths, stories, and legends from a diverse range of cultures. These narratives include the Bible (Song of Songs, the Prodigal Son); African folklore and oral tradition (Flying Africans, Anansi the Spider, the Signifying Monkey); black folk tales and trickster tales (Stagolee, High John the Conqueror); epic narrative (the Odyssey, the quest for the Golden Fleece); European fairy tales (“Rumpelstiltskin,” “Sleeping Beauty”); and contemporary American myths (the American Dream, Feminine Beauty, Romantic Love). Within this broad context, Song of Solomon focuses on two key stories: Song of Songs and the myth of the flying Africans. Song of Songs. Morrison’s third novel takes its title from Song of Songs, the twenty-second book of the Old Testament, comprised of a collection of love songs presented in the form of a dialogue between two lovers. The lovers are generally identified as King Solomon, the third king of Israel, renowned for his wisdom and gift of self-expression, and a Shulamite woman, possibly the legendary queen of Sheba, also known as the queen of the South, the Black Minerva, and Makeda, the Beautiful. Song of Songs explores two people’s love relationship and defines love as a powerful life-giving and life-sustaining force that begins with the mother/child relationship and branches out to encompass not only the lovers’ families and society but plants, animals, and geography. The lovers are two individual people, but the eight songs, taken together, that comprise Song of Songs create a single, unified personality to which both lovers contribute. Song of Songs is renowned for its sensual—and sometimes explicitly sexual—language, its lyricism, its surreal images, and its seemingly incongruous metaphors, which often merge images of the human body with nature imagery. For example, the bride describes her beloved as “an apple tree among the trees of the forest” and like a gazelle or a young stag. She describes herself as a “rose of Sharon, a lily growing in the valley” (Sharon refers to a fertile plain along the coast of ancient Palestine; it is also the name of a flowering bush). The bridegroom depicts his lover as a rare “lily

107 among thorns.” He praises the beauty of his beloved, who, he contends, rivals the beauty of nature. Her teeth are like a flock of ewes “newly shorn”; her breasts are like “twin fawns of a gazelle grazing among the lilies.” She is an orchard “full of choice fruits” that he longs to enter. And her fragrance is like that of precious spices, including saffron, cinnamon, frankincense, and myrrh. The smell of such spices permeates Song of Solomon. Song of Songs is also known for its ambiguous language, which has earned it a reputation as one of the most problematic biblical texts. Originally written in Hebrew, it presents a continuing challenge for biblical scholars seeking to translate the ancient text for modern readers. For example, one of its most controversial passages in many translations concerns a statement by the Shulamite woman, who describes herself as “black, but comely” (beautiful). Black scholars point out that instead of the subordinate conjunction “but,” the original Hebrew text uses the coordinate conjunction “and,” which profoundly changes the meaning of the phrase. “I am black, but beautiful” essentially means “Even though I am black, still I am beautiful,” which implies that the speaker is defending her “inferior” racial status. Conversely, “I am black and beautiful” is an assertive statement that reflects positive human traits and values. Over the years, scholars have offered various intriguing interpretations of these love songs. While some believe that the relationship between the two lovers signifies the relationship between God and humans, others believe it symbolizes the relationship between Christ and the church. Consequently, we can speculate that in Morrison’s Song of Solomon, “Song” signifies the relationship between African Americans and their African ancestors. We can also speculate that the character of Pilate, repeatedly referred to as the “singing woman,” is based on the biblical character of the Shulamite woman. Scholars also argue that the term “lovers” can be translated as “friends” or “companions.” Citing a passage in one edition in which the bride expresses a desire that her lover were “as my brother,” they point out that the lovers, figuratively, are siblings. They also note that Song of Songs fulfills two functions: It conveys the lovers’ emotions and critiques these emotions’ meaning and value. Thus we can begin to draw significant parallels between the

108 lovers in the Bible and the friends—Guitar and Milkman—in Morrison’s novel. Readers especially familiar with 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles, which focus on the history of King Solomon and his relationship with the queen of Sheba, will discover numerous other connections between the novel and these biblical texts. For example, in the novel, Pilate is depicted as a sheltering cedar tree, the same type of tree used to build Solomon’s temples. Both Sheba, the “queen of the South,” and Pilate, the “queen” of Southside, challenge the wisdom of the men—Solomon and Macon, respectively— who have established themselves as rulers of their respective kingdoms. Solomon and Macon suffer from a loss of spiritual faith: Both place excessive emphasis on property and material wealth, and both are noted for their sexual philandering. In fact, although sections of the Bible and Song of Solomon focus on the exploits and accomplishments of these two men, it is the two women—Sheba and Pilate—who wield the true power. Historians note that Sheba’s material wealth and power far surpassed Solomon’s, just as Pilate’s spiritual wealth and power exceed Macon’s. The Myth of the Flying Africans. The myth of Solomon/Sugarman, “the Flying African,” is based on a Yoruba folktale that originated among African storytellers and was brought to the United States by free Africans sold as slaves. The story, which centers on a witch doctor or conjure man who empowers enslaved Africans to fly back to Africa, became popular among slaves on the isolated Sea Islands off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina; for them, the story symbolized a means of escaping the cruelties of slavery. Originally titled “All God’s Chillun Had Wings,” the story was first recorded in Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes, a book produced in the early 1900s by the Federal Writers’ Project, an organization committed to, among its other projects, documenting the stories of African Americans that had been passed down to them by their ancestors, many of whom had been slaves. The story also appeared in The Book of Negro Folklore, a collection of folktales compiled by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, two African-American writers best known for their works published during New York’s famous Harlem Renaissance (1915-35). A revised, contemporary version of the

109 story, “People Who Could Fly,” appears in Julius Lester’s Black Folktales, published in 1969. With its powerful imagery of overcoming and transcending the societal limits of race, sex, and class, flying is a central, symbolic element that reverberates throughout the novel. Song of Solomon alludes to numerous flights that highlight historical events or symbolize pivotal points in the characters’ development. In feminist literature, flight is also a major theme that often includes images of broken-winged birds and crashing planes, symbolizing women’s thwarted attempts to transcend their limited boundaries. In most cases, their efforts are thwarted by men and by their own lack of faith in their abilities. Although Song of Solomon features a male protagonist, it also focuses on the experiences of its female characters. Thus it is decidedly a “womanist”—the African-American equivalent of “feminist”—novel. PLOT AND SETTING IN THE NOVEL Song of Solomon takes an unconventional approach to conventional elements such as plot and setting. Morrison is renowned for her powerful metaphors and her use of detail to establish a tone or mood. For example, in Chapter 1, to establish the fact that Southside residents tend to rely on local gossip for their news rather than on newspapers, which often ignore events affecting the black community, the narrator tells us that “word-of-mouth news just lumbered along.” To illustrate the crushing poverty of Southside residents, we see women “getting ready to go see what tails or entrails the butcher might be giving away.” And in Chapter 11, to establish the feeling of a small, rural community, the narrator introduces us to the women of Shalimar, Virginia, who “walked as if they were going somewhere, but they carried nothing in their hands.” Plot. While the story of Song of Solomon involves numerous fictional and historical events, the plot focuses on Milkman’s quest for his inheritance, which he believes to be Pilate’s elusive bag of gold. The novel begins and ends with scenes of flight. It moves from the present to the past, from the North to the South, from innocence to experience, from ignorance to wisdom. Like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Song of Solomon focuses on the individual’s

110 need to achieve self-knowledge, identity, and visibility as a complex, real human being. Morrison, by beginning the novel in medias res (in the middle of things), challenges readers to reconstruct the events leading up to the opening scene by piecing together fragments of stories and snippets of conversation supplied by various characters. Because Milkman cannot be confined by the boundaries of the community, movement is outward rather than circular, from Milkman’s personal perspective, to the black community, to the community at large. We can imagine Milkman’s life as a ripple in a pond and his experiences as creating an ever-widening series of concentric waves that touch the lives of those around him. In this way, we are given a universal view of human development through the experiences of the individual, for we realize that by following Milkman’s growth and development, we are also witnessing the growth and development of the human psyche. Milkman’s life can be seen as a microcosm of one element of black experience. By reading his story, we can imagine what it’s like to be a young black male living in a white male-dominated society. Along the way, we learn that although society creates seemingly insurmountable obstacles (such as racism), it is up to us to overcome those obstacles and create full, meaningful lives for ourselves, using our inherent skills and talents. We also learn that how we view ourselves and our lives is more important than how others view us, and that seeing ourselves as a part of a larger community of people and recognizing that we have the right to choose our response to situations empower us to transcend boundaries. In effect, readers, like Milkman, learn that obstacles are not insurmountable barriers but can be viewed as hurdles on the path to success. Setting. In terms of both time and place, setting plays a key role in Song of Solomon. Although the novel spans approximately a hundred years, documenting three generations of the Dead family’s history, it focuses on Milkman’s life from birth to age 32. The novel begins in 1931 and ends around 1963. Thus it encompasses two major movements in African-American history: the Harlem Renaissance (1917–35) and the Civil Rights movement (1955–70s). The year 1931 marks the pinnacle of the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement heralded as a golden age of black art in the

111 United States. It also marks the rise of the “New Negro,” an articulate, sophisticated bourgeois class of intellectual blacks immersed in cultural and aesthetic pursuits, convinced that their literary and artistic achievements would elevate their social and political status in American society by demonstrating to whites that Negroes are not inferior human beings. Ironically, the phrase “New Negro,” coined by Alain Locke (1886–1954), the first African-American Rhodes scholar, was rejected by black writers such as Langston Hughes, who believed that authentic artistic expression had its roots in the real-life experiences of “common folk.” As Hughes observed, “The ordinary Negroes hadn’t heard of the Negro Renaissance. And if they had, it hadn’t raised their wages any.” Similarly, 1963 also marks a milestone in black history. According to historian Lerone Bennett in Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, “It was a year of funerals and births, a year of endings and a year of beginnings, a year of hate, a year of love. It was a year of water hoses and high-powered rifles, of struggles in the streets and screams in the night, of homemade bombs and gasoline torches, of snarling dogs and widows in black. It was a year of passion, a year of despair, a year of desperate hope. It was . . . the 100th year of black emancipation and the first year of the Black Revolution.” In other words, it was a year of the black Civil Rights movement. Song of Solomon’s physical setting is the Midwest, which, as Morrison notes, “is neither ghetto nor plantation.” Geographically, it moves from an unnamed town in Michigan to the fictional town of Shalimar, Virginia. Numerous clues suggest that the mysterious, unnamed Michigan city is Detroit, “the Motor City,” birthplace of the famous “Motown Sound.” Culturally, the novel’s setting moves from the industrial North, heavily influenced by the materialistic values and traditions of white society, to the rural South, steeped in traditional values and nurtured by a strong sense of history. Along the way, it takes us—via the characters’ memories or actual wanderings—to a variety of U.S. cities and towns: Macon, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Danville, Pennsylvania; Shalimar, Virginia; and Jacksonville, Florida. As Milkman sets out to discover his inheritance, the setting shifts from the North (Michigan) to the South (the fictional town of Shalimar, Virginia). This shift from North to South presents a sharp

112 contrast between the contemporary black northern community and the traditional black southern community. It also reverses the traditional freedom trail of enslaved Africans since Milkman finds freedom not by escaping to the North but by returning to the South. Upon his arrival in Shalimar, Milkman becomes acutely aware of his estrangement and alienation from his cultural roots. By participating in the initiation rituals thrust upon him by the men of Shalimar, by listening to the children sing Solomon’s song, and by ridding himself of the mental shackles that bind him to the distorted sense of white, capitalist values espoused by his father, Milkman finally learns the meaning of love and the value of history and tradition.

REVIEW QUESTIONS AND ESSAY TOPICS (1). Song of Solomon includes numerous references or allusions to historical events, institutions, people, and documents—for example, the role of blacks in the military, the Freedmen’s Bureau, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the murder of Emmett Louis Till. Select one of these references or allusions and explore it further. Is it recorded in your history textbook? If so, how is it presented? If not, why do you think it was excluded? Why is it significant to United States history? To world history? (2). In Song of Solomon, Morrison alludes to many fairy tales, including “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Hansel and Gretel.” Read one of these fairy tales and then write an essay exploring how the fairy tale relates to the themes presented in Morrison’s novel. (3). Morrison uses various types of language in Song of Solomon. Select one—for example, the language of domination, the language of humor, or black vernacular—and trace its use in the novel. (4). Throughout Song of Solomon, various characters experience dreams or visions that help them unravel the mysteries sur-

113 rounding their lives. Select one of the following dreams or visions and analyze its meaning and impact on the character’s life: Milkman’s vision of his mother being smothered by her tulips; Freddie’s vision of his mother being killed by a white bull; Pilate’s vision of her father guiding her through the woods; or Lena and Corinthians’ visions of themselves as princesses riding in a regal chariot. (5). The importance of names is a prevalent theme in the novel. Explore the significance of some of the people’s and places’ names. Which characters have more than one name? Why? (6). Explore Morrison’s use of the cedar tree as a key symbol in the novel. (7). What roles do ghosts, magic, and voodoo play in Song of Solomon? Are the ghosts real or imagined? How do they impact the lives of the characters with whom they come in contact? (8). How does the disintegration of Milkman and Guitar’s friendship reflect the disintegration of Macon and Pilate’s relationship? Why is Guitar a threat to Milkman’s personal growth? Why does Macon refer to Pilate as a “snake”? Why is Pilate a threat to Macon’s way of life? (9). Explore Morrison’s portrayal of romantic relationships in the novel by considering the relationships between Milkman and Hagar, Macon and Ruth, Milkman and Sweet, or Porter and Corinthians. What is Morrison’s primary message concerning love and sex in terms of traditional versus non-traditional unions? (10). Consider the novel’s ambiguous ending. Does Milkman die on his “flight” across Solomon’s Leap, or does he “soar” as a result of his newfound faith? Cite instances in the novel that support your conclusion. Why does Morrison leave this issue unresolved?

114 (11). What lessons does Milkman learn on his journey south? How do these lessons help him cope with life, deal with personal relationships, and appreciate his spiritual inheritance? (12). In Chapter 2, Guitar is described as “the boy who not only could liberate [Milkman], but could take him to the woman who had as much to do with his future as she had his past.” Cite examples from the text that illustrate how Guitar “liberates” Milkman. (13). Select one of the following symbolic elements and explore its function in the novel: the watermark on Ruth’s table, Lincoln’s Heaven, Pilate’s brass earring, Macon’s ring of keys, Mr. Smith’s “little yellow house,” or the red velvet rose petals. (14). Read one of the following coming-of-age novels. What are some of the lessons the protagonist learns, and how do they compare with the lessons Milkman learns on his odyssey of awareness? Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club Gus Lee’s China Boy J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Langston Hughes’ Not Without Laughter Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (15). Flight is a common theme in feminist literature. Write an essay in which you argue that although Song of Solomon features a male protagonist, it is a feminist (“womanist”) novel that explores the powerful links between racism and sexism. (16). Read Morrison’s Sula. Compare the relationship between Sula and Nel to that between Milkman and Guitar. (17). Read Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “The Gilded Six-Bits.” How does the symbolism of gold depicted in Hurston’s story compare with that in Song of Solomon?

115 (18). Read “The Creation” in James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones. Compare Johnson’s use of “sermonic language” with Morrison’s in the passage describing Macon Dead’s creation of Lincoln’s Heaven (Chapter 10). (19). The search for roots/the journey home is one of the major themes in African-American literature. Read Alex Haley’s Roots, Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem, or Albert Murray’s South to a Very Old Place, all of which explore this theme, and compare the author’s treatment of this theme to Morrison’s treatment in Song of Solomon. (20). Watch Julia Dash’s 1992 film Daughters of the Dust, which focuses on the heritage of the Sea Islanders in Georgia and South Carolina. Compare the film’s portrayal of early nineteenth-century black culture to Morrison’s portrayal as depicted through Jake and his family. (21). According to James Baldwin, “The paradox of education is . . . that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education . . . is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself [and] to make his own decisions.” Consider the various ways that the characters in Song of Solomon are “educated”—for example, Milkman, Pilate, Guitar, Corinthians. How does their education affect their perspective on life?

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Morrison’s Major Works Fiction The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume Books, 1970. Sula. New York: Knopf, 1973. Song of Solomon. New York: Knopf, 1977.

116 Tar Baby. New York: Knopf, 1981. Beloved. New York: Knopf, 1987. Jazz. New York: Knopf, 1992. Paradise. New York: Knopf, 1998. Drama Storyville Tar Baby Dreaming Emmett Nonfiction The Black Book. New York: Random House, 1974. (Editor.) “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation.” Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Marie Evans. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1984: 339–45. Untitled Essay. I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America. Ed. Barbara Summers. New York: Steward, Tabori, and Chang, 1989. “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature.” Modern Critical Views: Toni Morrison. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1990: 201-30. “The Mind of the Masters.” New Statesman and Society. April 24, 1992. 33–34. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. The Nobel Lecture in Literature, 1993. New York: Knopf, 1993. “On the Backs of Blacks.” Time. (Special Issue: The New Face of America.) Fall 1993. 57. Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality. New York: Pantheon, 1992. (Editor.) The Dancing Mind. Speech upon Acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. New York: Knopf, 1996.

117 “Racism and Fascism.” In Defense of Mumia. Eds. S. E. Anderson and Tony Medina. New York: Writers and Readers Publishing, 1996. 51–52. Birth of a Nation’hood: Gaze, Script and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case. New York, 1997. (Editor.)

CRITICAL WORKS ABOUT MORRISON BRENNER, GERRY. “Song of Solomon: Rejecting Rank’s Monomyth and Feminism.” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison. Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988, 114–24. COSER, STELAMARIS. Bridging the Americas: The Literature of Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, and Gayl Jones. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. DIXON, MELVIN. “If You Surrender to the Air . . .” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison. Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988, 27–30. —-. “Like an Eagle in the Air: Toni Morrison.” Modern Critical Views: Toni Morrison. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1990, 115–42. FABRE, GENEVIEVE. “Genealogical Archaeology or the Quest for Legacy in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison. Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988, 105–13. GATES, HENRY LOUIS, JR., and K. A. APPIAH, eds. Toni Morrison: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad Press, 1993. GRAHAM, MARYEMMA. “Healer in the Village.” Humanities 17.1 (1996), 18–21.

118 HACKNEY, SHELDON. “‘I Come from People Who Sang All the Time’: A Conversation with Toni Morrison.” Humanities 17.1 (1996), 4–9. HARRIS, TRUDIER. Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991. HAWKINS, DENISE R. “Marvelous Morrison: Award-Winning Author Talks About the Future From Some Place in Time.” Black Issues in Higher Education 18 April 1996, 8. HUBBARD, DOLAN. “The Sermon and the Recovery of Community: Song of Solomon and Beloved.” The Sermon and the African American Literary Imagination. By Hubbard. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994, 123–44. LEE, DOROTHY H. “The Quest for Self: Triumph and Failure in the Works of Toni Morrison.” Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Marie Evans. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1984, 346–60. LESTER, ROSEMARIE K. “An Interview with Toni Morrison, Hessian Radio Network, Frankfurt, West Germany.” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison. Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988, 47–54. LUBIANO, WAHNEEMA H. “Toni Morrison.” African American Writers. Ed. Valerie Smith, et al. New York: Collier, 1993, 255–66. MASON, THEODORE O, JR. “The Novelist as Conservator: Stories and Comprehension in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.” Modern Critical Views: Toni Morrison. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York, Chelsea, 1990, 171–88. JONES, GAYL. “Motives of Folktale: Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.” Liberating Voices: Oral Tradition in African American Literature. By Jones. New York: Penguin Books, 1991, 170–77.

119 O’SHAUGHNESSY, KATHLEEN. “‘Life life life life’: The Community as Chorus in Song of Solomon.” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison. Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988, 125–34. PAGE, PHILLIP. Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison’s Novels. University of Mississippi Press, 1996. PEACH, LINDEN. Toni Morrison. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. RANDOLPH, LAURA B. “The Magic of Toni Morrison.” Ebony, July 1988, 100–106. RIGNEY, BARBARA HILL. The Voices of Toni Morrison. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991. RUSSELL, SANDI. “It’s OK to Say OK.” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison. Ed. Nellie Y. McKay. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988, 43–47. SMITH, VALERIE, ed. New Essays on Song of Solomon. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. TAYLOR-GUTHRIE, DANILLE, ed. Conversations with Toni Morrison. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994. The

Toni Morrison Newsletter, at the following address: The Toni Morrison Society, Georgia State University, Dept. of English, University Plaza, Atlanta, GA 30303-3083; www.gsu.edu/~eng/tms

TURNER, DARWIN T. “Theme, Characterization, and Style in the Works of Toni Morrison.” Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Marie Evans. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1984, 361–69. WAGNER-MARTIN, LINDA. “‘Closer to the Edge’: Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.” Teaching American Ethnic Literatures. Eds. John R. Maitino and David R. Peck. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

120 WILLIS, SUSAN. “Eruptions of Funk: Historicizing Toni Morrison.” Black Literature and Literary Theory. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 1990, 263–83.

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