Song of Solomon

Toni Morrison's third novel, Song of Solomon (1977) was immediately acclaimed as one of beauty and power, mythical and magical in proportion and theme. Its protagonist, Macon Dead III, the first black baby born at Mercy Hospital (called No Mercy by the Michigan town's black population), is born on the day that the insurance man attempts to fly from its steeple. He and his family are portrayed in the novel's first section. Known as Milkman Dead because of his mother's excessive and prolonged nursing, he grows up in a house with a passive mother, a greedy, abusive, and materialistic father, and silent, frustrated sisters. His grandfather, Macon Dead I, was murdered by whites for his property, leaving his son and daughter, Macon and Pilate. They are hunted by the white men who killed their father, and they, in turn, are later forced to kill a white man. This incident sets their values and life goals, for Macon believes the man was hiding money while Pilate rejects material goods. Macon Dead II later scorns his sister and becomes a wealthy property owner at the sacrifice of his family's happiness and psychological health. He abandons his wife spiritually and physically after the birth of Milkman, who is only born through the intervention and magic of Pilate.

The novel's second part involves Milkman's search for gold that he believes was hidden in a cave in Virginia by his aunt and his father in their youth; however, this becomes a search for himself and his family history. Part 2 also focuses on Milkman's aunt, a character embracing mythology and magic, whom Milkman sees despite being forbidden to do so by his father. Pilate Dead is a natural woman, “born wild” and without a navel, and she has values that directly oppose her brother's—she is moral, responsible, loving, generous, and unpretentious. Also a direct contrast to her sister-in-law Ruth, who is dominated first by her father and then by her husband, Pilate lives free of all materialistic conveniences (i.e., running water and electricity) and she is a bootlegger. She lives with her daughter and granddaughter, Hagar, who develops a destructive and obsessive love for Milkman.

At first Milkman is a selfish, pleasure-seeking young man; however, with Pilate and his childhood friend Guitar Bains as examples, he is guided to achieve self-knowledge and self-sufficiency. Arriving in the South in search of his father's treasure, Milkman is enthralled and overcome by the folklore and myth surrounding his family's history, especially the legend of his paternal great-grandfather (Shalimar or Solomon), who, according to a song Pilate sang to Milkman when he was young, flew like a black eagle back to Africa to escape slavery. When Milkman and Pilate later return to their ancestral home, they are tracked and hunted by Guitar Bains, who has become part of a group that takes revenge for the unjust murder of blacks by whites and who believes Milkman is going to retrieve gold and not share with him. Guitar shoots Pilate when aiming for Milkman, and Milkman notes that she can fly without leaving the ground. He then acknowledges Guitar's presence and leaps into the air, modeling the ability to fly.

Women are the main sources of knowledge in Milkman's world, with Pilate his primary guide and source of understanding. Song of Solomon has consistently been praised by critics for its inventiveness and variety of language and its handling of folklore, allegory, magic, fantasy, song, and legend. It won the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977 and firmly established Morrison as a major American writer.

Bibliography

• Jacqueline de Weever, “Toni Morrison's Use of Fairy Tale, Folk Tale, and Myth in Song of Solomon,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 44 (1980): 131–144.
• Charles Scruggs, “The Nature of Desire in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon,” Arizona Quarterly 38 (1982): 311–335.
• Susan Blake, “Toni Morrison,” in DLB, vol. 33, Afro-American Fiction Writers after 1955, eds. Thadious M. Davis and Trudier Harris, 1984, pp. 187–199.
• Wilfred D. Samuels and Cleora Hudson Weems, Toni Morrison, 1990.
• Ja Mo Kang, “Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon: Milkman's Limited Moral Development,” Journal of English Language and Literature (Seoul, Korea) 41.1 (1995): 125–147

—Betty Taylor-Thompson

Toni Morrison's third novel, Song of Solomon, established her as a major American writer. The story of a Black man's search for his identity through a discovery of his family history, it became a bestseller and drew praise from readers and critics when it was published in 1977. The novel has been especially admired for the beauty of its language and its grounding of universal themes in the particularity of the African-American experience, as well as for its use of folklore.

Song of Solomon is based on an African-American folktale about slaves who can fly back to Africa when they choose. Morrison fictionalizes this folktale through the character of Solomon, the great-grandfather of the story's protagonist, Milkman Dead. Through his discovery of the story of Solomon and his ability to fly, Milkman learns to take pride in his ancestry and to value his connections to family and community. Song of Solomon won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1977. It is now widely taught, and appeared again on best-seller lists when it was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for inclusion in her book club. Beloved by readers for more than twenty years, it is still considered one of Morrison's best books.

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Song of Solomon
First edition cover
Author	Toni Morrison
Country	U.S.A.
Language	English
Genre(s)	African American literature
Publisher	Alfred Knopf
Publication date	1978
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages	337
ISBN	0-452-26011-6
OCLC Number	15366961
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 19
LC Classification	PS3563.O8749 S6 1987

For other uses, see Song of Solomon (disambiguation).

Song of Solomon is a 1977 novel by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison. It follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, an African-American male living in Michigan, from birth to adulthood.

This book won the National Books Critics Award, was chosen for Oprah Winfrey's popular book club, and was cited by the Swedish Academy in awarding Morrison the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature.^[1] Barack Obama has listed it as one of his favorite books of all time.^[2]

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Themes 3 Footnotes 4 External links

Plot summary

The main character, Macon "Milkman" Dead III, derives his nickname from the fact that he was breastfed for far too long. One of Milkman's father's tenants, Freddie, happens to see him through the window being breastfed by his mother. Milkman is so tall by now his feet are "touching the floor." He quickly gains a reputation for being a "Momma's boy" in direct contrast to his (future) best friend, Guitar, who is mother and fatherless.

Milkman has two sisters, "First Corinthians" and "Magdelene called Lena." The daughters of the family are named by putting a pin in the Bible, while the eldest son is named after his father. The first Macon Dead's name was the result of an administrative error when Milkman's grandfather had to register subsequent to the end of slavery.

Milkman's mother (Ruth Foster Dead) is the daughter of the town's only black doctor; she makes her husband feel inadequate, and it is clear she idolized her father, Doctor Foster, to the point of obsession. After her father dies, her husband claims to have found her in bed with the dead body, sucking his fingers. Ruth later tells Milkman that she was kneeling at her father's bedside kissing the only part of him that remained unaffected by the illness from which he died. These conflicting stories expose the problems between his parents and show Milkman that "truth" is difficult or impossible to obtain. Macon (Jr.) is often violently aggressive towards her out of frustration when she acts helpless, because he has worked hard to get to where he is, whereas Ruth has always been "daddy's little girl." On one occasion, Milkman punches his father after he strikes Milkman's mother, exposing the growing rift between father and son.

In contrast, Macon Dead Jr.'s sister, Pilate, is seen as nurturing—an Earth Mother character. Born without a navel, she is a somewhat mystical character. It is strongly implied that she is Divine—a female Christ (her name is ironic). Macon (Jr.) has not spoken to his sister for years and does not think highly of her. She, like Macon, has had to fend for herself from an early age after their father's murder, but she has dealt with her past in a different way than Macon, who has embraced money as his saving grace. She has one daughter, Reba, and a granddaughter named Hagar. Hagar falls desperately and obsessively in love with Milkman, and is unable to cope with his rejection, attempting to kill him at least six times. Guitar, Milkman's erstwhile best friend, tries to kill Milkman more than once after incorrectly suspecting he has cheated him out of hidden gold, a fortune he planned on using to help his Seven Days group fund their revenge killings in response to killings of blacks.

In searching for the gold near the old family farm, Milkman meets Circe, who tells of his family history which leads him to the town of Shalimar. There he learns his great-grandfather Solomon was said to have escaped slavery by flying back to Africa, leaving behind twenty-one children and his wife Ryna, who goes crazy with loss. Returning home, he learns that Hagar has died of a broken heart. He accompanies Pilate back to Shalimar, where she is accidentally shot and killed by Guitar, who had intended to kill Milkman.

The novel ends on a poignant and ambiguous note: after resolving to confront Guitar, Milkman learns to fly like The Flying African of African folklore, on a note that mirrors the initial flight of the novel, the insurance agent Robert Smith's suicide flight. Milkman realizes, with the novel's closing line, that "if you surrendered to the air, you could ride it."

Themes

The main theme in the novel is Milkman's quest for identity as a black man in the 20th-century United States, as he slowly tries to piece together the history of his ancestors. He does this by taking a journey into his father and aunt's past, searching for origins.

The novel is written in the third person, but the narrative weaves in and out of different character viewpoints, beliefs, and psychologies. The reader is given insight into Macon and Pilate's early lives together, as well as an understanding of their personal history and the effects of slavery on the Dead family, including Milkman. The search for identity, the effects of geographical displacement on African Americans, and the effects of distorted love all play out as important themes in the novel. Another major theme is the idea that the individual must find freedom from not only society, but also one's own arrogance.

Footnotes

1. ^ Swedish Academy (1993-10-07). "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993". Press release. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/press.html. Retrieved 2009-6-1. 
2. ^ Wenner, Jann (2008-07-10). "A Conversation With Barack Obama". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/21472234/page/3. Retrieved 2009-6-1. 

External links

• Essays and General Info about Song of Solomon

v • d • e Works by Toni Morrison Novels: The Bluest Eye (1970) • Sula (1973) • Song of Solomon (1977) • Tar Baby (1981) • Beloved (1987) • Jazz (1992) • Paradise (1999) • Love (2003) • A Mercy (2008) Short stories: "Recitatif" (1983 short story) Plays: Dreaming Emmett (1986 play) Non-fiction: The Black Book (1974) • Playing in the Dark (1993) • Remember:The Journey to School Integration (2004) Other: Margaret Garner (2005 libretto)

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