Song of Solomon, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s lyrically written third novel begins with a captivating scene: a man on a roof threatening to “fly,” a woman standing on the ground, singing and another woman entering labor. The child born of that labor is Macon “Milkman” Dead III; Song of Solomon is the story of his lifetime journey towards an understanding to his own identity and ancestry.
The Deads are typical examples of Morrison’s view of the patriarchal nuclear family and Milkman grows up burdened with the materialistic values of his father and the weight of a racist society. He is a spoiled and self-centered man, driven only by his immediate sensual needs; he pursues money and sexual gratification at all costs.
Much of the novel centers around Milkman’s quest for a lost bag of gold allegedly taken from a man who was involved in his grandfather’s murder. This search for gold takes Milkman, and his friend, Guitar, a young, black militant, from Michigan to the town of Shalimar, Virginia, a town named for Milkman’s grandfather, Solomon, who, according to legend, escaped slavery by literally flying back to Africa on the wind, launching himself from a cotton field and leaving behind his wife and twenty-one children.
Often seen as a myth of male maturation, Song of Solomon also contains the subtext of Milkman’s sister, Pilate’s rite de passage. Her history embodies the process by which she acquires the very values that will sustain, not only Milkman but the entire black community.
The Essay on King Solomon God Man Proverbs
There are many famous individuals through the history who made great impact on our lives. We can go on and on to list them all but for my topic I would like to choose one of the wisest person who ever lived is king Solomon. During his era the Israel kingdom achieved a lot of success in trading, expansion and fair judgment. Also Solomon regarded as an author of high skill and remarkable output. The ...
Pilate definitely introduces a quality of enchantment to the book and the circumstances of her birth make her a character of almost mythic proportion. She delivered herself at birth and was born without a navel, something that isolates her from society. Her resulting self-sufficiency and ostracization, however, are the very things that prevent her from being destroyed by the decaying values that threaten her brother’s life.
Milkman’s belief that his quest south holds the key to his liberation is correct, however it is not the gold that saves him but something deeper, something rooted in the communal and mythical values of his ancestry.
In telling the story of Milkman’s quest, Morrison expertly weaves together elements of myth, magic and folklore. The significant silences and the stunning absences in Song of Solomon (and Morrison’s other novels) are both profoundly political and stylistically crucial.
Morrison, herself, describes her work as containing “holes and spaces so the reader can come into it,” testament to her belief that the reader is a participant in the creation of her work. “My writing expects, demands participatory reading, and I think that is what literature is supposed to do. It’s not just about telling the story; it’s about involving the reader…we come together to make this book, to feel the experience.”
As always, Morrison constructs her novel in a circular, diffuse pattern (rather than linear), arranged thematically rather than chronologically. Plot development, in Morrison’s novels, centers around a complex compilation of multiple points of view, varieties of interpretations, repetition and reiteration. There is no concrete series of events that can be termed, “beginning, middle and end.”
In this book, as in all her others, Morrison refuses to adopt novelistic conventions regarding closure and resolution and instead wisely chooses to employ the recurrent and pervasive use of paradox.
Song of Solomon is Morrison’s only novel featuring a male protagonist. Morrison said, “I chose the man to make that journey because I thought he had more to learn than a woman would have.”
The Essay on Song Of Solomon Whats In A Name
Toni Morrisons award-winning novel Song of Solomon is full of very interesting, deep symbolism. Macon Dead III, nicknamed Milkman, is a very symbolic character throughout the novel. His character is not only symbolic, for so is his name. Also, Milkmans paternal aunt, Pilate, has an extremely significant and symbolic role in the novel. To her father, she represents the child who killed her own ...
Milkman certainly embodies qualities that all men seek, qualities that are decidedly masculine. Yet it is Milkman’s reconciliation with the women, and thus the feminine, in his life that gives him the strength to fulfill his quest.
In the telling of Milkman’s compelling and beautiful story, Morrison weaves a many-hued tapestry of class and race, ancestry and identity. The language employed is, of course, flawless: liquid, earthy and poetic. The characters are eccentric but real, the detail vivid and convincing. The result is a novel that is emotionally intense, provocative and inspiring.
Song of Solomon is usually considered Toni Morrison’s masterpiece. It is certainly in the top echelon of literary works produced by any American author in any period of history.
In this novel of personal quest, Milkman eventually assumes his own destiny, a destiny that suits him perfectly and one that allows him to experience that which all men, at their deepest level, consciously and continuously, seek.
