Female Love In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

In the opening chapter of the 1977 novel Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, the author presents a distant relationship between Macon Dead and his estranged sister, Pilate. Macon is shown staring into the window of his sister’s house, watching Pilate, her daughter Reba, and granddaughter Hagar. By simply observing them from the outside of their house, he demonstrates the complex relationship between himself and the family members he is watching. Morrison conveys this conflicted relationship through his use of setting, musical motif, and symbolism behind “Dead”.

In Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, characters in the books have interesting and unusual names. But all of these names mean more than what they may seem on the surface. Some of them are based off of biblical stories, some are based on stories explained in the book itself, but they all have something in common: these names all tell a story about the character whose name it is. Milkman’s name reflects his childish characteristics. Pilate and Hagar’s biblical names are linked to not only biblical stories but also paint pictures about their actions in the story. In Song of Solomon, character names reveal or are representative of important characteristics about people in the book in differing ways.

Selfishness and greed would have to be a common trait for humans. Milkman, in Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, happens to demonstrate both of these traits. Milkman is selfish and would never stop to help others. He goes on a journey in search for gold, which this journey helps milkman to not only change his view of life, but also to find out a few things about his family. Greed lead Milkman to this journey and finding out about his family’s history. The original plan for this journey was for milkman to stumble over some gold, which later transforms his personality from self-important and mean to caring and thoughtful.

At the same time as Milkman has less air for breathing at home, he gets to know his cousin Hagar and is introduced to her as a brother. Although Reba corrects her mother Pilate by saying, “That ain’t her brother, Mama. They cousins”, Pilate counters, “I mean what’s the difference in the way you act toward ‘em? Don’t you have to act the same way to both?” (Morrison 54). This first encounter sets the basis of Hagar’s and Milkman’s relationship. Pilate makes clear that family is family no matter the degree of kinship. Accordingly, Pilate tries to predetermine how Hagar should regard her cousin and this conversely reveals the incestuous nature of Milkman and Hagar’s coming relationship. Notwithstanding, Morrison writes that “From the first time he saw her, when he was twelve and she was seventeen, he was

Besides the children of Macon Dead, there are other biblical allusions in the names of people. One of these is Hagar, Pilate's son and Milkman's cousin. Though the biblical Hagar is not well known, her character in the Bible reflects, in some ways, the character in Morrison's novel. In the bible, Hagar is Sarah's handmaiden. When she bares the son

As the life drains out of Pilate, she sighs and says, “I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ’em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more” (Morrison 336). In the novel, Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, love is continually connected to the identity one upholds upon them. The protagonist of the novel, Milkman, is born into a wealthy privileged life that causes him to become a self absorbed man.

Toni Morrison, in the Song of Solomon, utilizes the formation of the individual identity for Guitar and Pilate to represent the difficulty of defining black identity during a time of drastic change. At the time period leading up to the civil rights movement, a divide arises within the black community: a Southern set of beliefs that revolve around forgiveness and care pitted against a Northern set of beliefs that revolve around progressive ideas and vindictiveness. Pilate and Guitar are presented as foils; they represent, through the formation of their own identity, how even though two individuals grow up dealing with very similar circumstances, they still go on to become different persons due to the immediate environment in which they grow

3. Excluding Milkman, discuss the various attitudes on race from the perspectives of three other male characters in the novel.

In addition to bravery, independence is also a trait shared by many female characters. For example, Ruth risks her own safety to travel alone at night to her father’s cemetery, just so that she can connect with the dead one she loved. Ruth and Macon’s daughter Corinthians developed a relationship with Porter, a tenant of her father’s property. Following her own will and relying on her independent judgment, Corinthians led her hair loose and went to bed with him, swearing that she would not “collect her hair into a ball at her nape” for anything in the world (202). The exertions of bravery and independence from the female characters might not be as drastic and thorough as Jake’s converting wasteland into farm and Milkman’s heroic quest to the South, due to the confinements black females faced in in the 20th century America, they nevertheless reveal the frequency and intensity of women declaring independence in Song of Solomon. Since Wang argues that Pilate differentiates herself from the female cast due to her androgynous nature that integrates masculine and feminine qualities, the critic implies that other female characters display only “feminine” attributes. However, Wang reaches such conclusion by assigning gender to neutral traits like bravery and independence, establishing a premise according to the stereotypical gender codification that invalidates the critic’s conclusion about the Lacanian androgyny in

“The need of a love-relationship is the fundamental thing [in life].” (Guntrip 45) Love - possibly one of the most universally known yet personally exclusive emotion felt by man. In merely one word, “love” is used to express the love between a person and an object, a parental figure and his/her dependent, two people in a platonic relationship, and even the bond between two lovers. Love can also come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and even magnitudes. Throughout her novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison shows a very peculiar sense of love through Sethe’s relationship with Beloved as well as her relationship with Paul D. Although certain accounts may seem as if the love died

Hagar finally gives up trying to kill Milkman. When Guitar got back from Virginia he finds Hagar waiting for him at his house. He told her to go sit while he looked for a car so that he can drive her home.while he is looking for the car he starts getting mad because of the fact that Hagar is deeply in love with Milkman. Guitar tells Hagar that everything he has loved left him. And it is hard for him to love anything because he is used to it going away and he told Hagar that he only loved one woman but Hagar isn’t even listening to him. Guitar drove Hagar back to Pilate, and Reba and Pilate started treating Hagar with sympathy, doing everything she needed. Hagar thinks that Milkman doesn’t like her anymore because she is ugly and she asked Pilate

Toni Morrison’s novel, A Mercy, uses multiple point of views in order to show the growth of several female characters. These characters include: Sorrow, Daughter Jane, Lina, Florens, and Rebekka, who is also known as the “Mistress”. Morrison brings up the idea of overcoming male dependence, and becoming strong independent women. It parallels with the idea of both slavery and freedom, and it proves how common those concepts were in this New World that Morrison writes about. In all of history, women have been belittled by men and seen as weak or powerless, but this novel shows the great length women go in order to find this freedom and to survive in a patriarchal society. With the many perspectives, it is as though when women are able to find

Although many people assume feminism to be a form of anti-male mentality, Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved proves that is not the case. In the middle of slavery, inequality, racism and severe societal discourse, the central focus is on women. Other complex, well-developed male characters relate to issues of equality and racism in their trials and tribulations. In several instances, both the males and females of this story work together and find comfort in each other while dealing with their struggles. Through the feminist critical approach, the women of Beloved are better understood.

This simple narrative is a summary of the Song of Solomon (Song 3:6-11; 4:1-7; 5:1-2; 7:10; 8:6-7, New King James Version). When the work is viewed from this angle, it demonstrates the beauty of sexuality within the context of human marriage (Estes

The two daughters of Macon and Ruth are the major characters Morrison uses to illustrate this side of the coin. While, in the very beginning, First Corinthians and Magdalene called Lena live their lives similarly to their mother, Macon, “took us there so they could see us, envy us, envy him.” They spent the beginning of their lives as merely the playthings and dress‐up dolls of their parents, mainly Macon. Even as children they were being objectified by the men in their lives. Morrison purposefully leaves them out of the story in the beginning and develops Milkman, their brother, and the main story around the male sibling, showing how, even though Milkman is just like his father, its so easy to accept the male as the protagonist while he has many faults and shortcomings. But, as the story goes on they grow older, and Corinthians gets a college education, they begin to break the mold of what their high class parents intended for them.