Song of Solomon: Ruth and Macon's Marriage

Ruth just want to get out of poverty and to have a happy family. She doesn’t want to lose her opportunity to get out of the too small dilapidated apartment of which her family is forced to live in do to their lack of finances.

Firstly, Ruth is a mature woman who can make decisions on her own. Ruth tries to get an abortion, “I think Ruth is thinking bout getting rid of that child”. Ruth is an independent mature lady, she makes a decision to get an abortion which was unlikely for Ruth to other family members. Ruth’s family has been struggling with money and relationship with each other, bringing

     Ruth’s dream is to improve her family’s lifestyle and move into a house where she can raise Travis and the new baby. To realize her dreams she should not put everyone else’s wants and needs in front of hers all of the time. She should express her feelings more often so that her family will listen and help her to reach her goals. The play supports this view by showing how Ruth often neglects her feelings and pays great attention to her family’s feelings, wants, and needs.

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”.

a mass of segregation in America in those following years. Jim Crow laws separated blacks and whites in public areas. Song of Solomon by Tori Morrison demonstrated the diverse lives black communities live, with multiple symbolisms of racial prejudice and segregation. Lower or extending a monthly rent, Emmitt Till being murdered as well as lower and higher selfish incomes are racial prejudices and segregation Morrison describes. Song of Solomon is based between 1930s and 1960s. Morrison’s main protagonists are predominantly black. Macon Dead II is a wealthy black businessman who takes money from the poor black community. He is a landlord to the black lower

There was only one good thing that Ruth took away from her father; She needed to be strict with her children about their education, but still loving at the same time. This parenting style became a part of Ruth, and shaped her identity of how to act as a mother and a member of society. Tateh was a terrible and hypocritical father, but he did help shape Ruth’s identity by showing her all of his flaws.

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon focuses on Milkman’s life from the time he is born until when he reaches adulthood. Milkman, also known as Macon Dead III, has a mother who loves him so much she gives him breast milk until is 12 years old. Pilate Dead, his aunt, also nourishes him with love as he grows up. In contrast, Milkman lacks compassion and does not reciprocate the family members’ kindness and generosity. Both Milkman and Pilate have physical abnormalities that shape their character and affect their life somehow.

Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, is about a man named Macon Dead. Throughout this novel, however, he is known by all except his father as Milkman because his mother breastfed him until he was in his teens. The novel centers on Milkman's attempt to find himself. His family is a wealthy black family living in a poor black neighborhood, where Milkman's father prohibits Milkman from interacting with most of them, including his aunt. However, he ends up visiting her, and while there, he learns a little about his family's mysterious past and decides to look deeper into it. Throughout his journey into his past, one may notice a large amount of biblical allusions.

As a child Ruth suffered extreme measures of disapproval from her father, Fishel Shilsky. Playing a tyrannical figure in her life, her father mistreated his wife and three kids regularly. He was the despot of the household that made every day living hell for everyone. She says, “I dreaded him and was relieved anytime he left the house...and even now I don’t want to be around anyone who is domineering or

The African American families in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon present abnormality and dysfunction. Normalcy, seen in common nuclear families, is absent. The protagonist, Milkman, is shaped by his dysfunctional relationships with parental figures.

It can be said that Song of Solomon is bildungsroman which is defined by The Encyclopedia Britannica as “a class of novel that deals with the [coming-of-age or] formative years of an individual”. Furthermore, in a bildungsroman, a main protagonist usually undergoes some transformation after seeking truth or philosophical enlightenment. In Morrison’s novel, the plot follows the main protagonist Milkman as he matures within his community while developing relationships with others and discovering his individual identity. In an essay titled Call and Response, Marilyn Sanders Mobley notes that “What Song of Solomon does ultimately is suggest that a viable sense of African American identity comes from responding to alternative constructions of

Of all the interactions between Ruth and her husband that stick out to her the most, the one that tops all is the murder of her father. The fact that Macon “took away his medicine” stands out to Ruth and that is what forms her opinion of him. Macon’s horrifying impact on Ruth’s life defines his character as an antagonist in her life and the broader story. Contrasting Macon’s impact on Ruth is Pilate. Despite Pilate’s mysterious past, her positive interactions with Ruth define her greatly respected character. As soon as Pilate meets Ruth, she helps her become pregnant. Throughout that process, Pilate causes Ruth to feel “like a chemist doing some big important scientific experiment,” allowing Ruth to feel as if she is making a positive impact on the world for the first time (125). Not only does this interaction cause Pilate’s character to be shown very positively, it also displays how Ruth being able to influence Milkman before he was even born caused her to think more highly of

   Song of Solomon tells the story of Dead's unwitting search for identity. Milkman appears to be destined for a life of self-alienation and isolation because of his commitment to the materialism and the linear conception of time that are part of the legacy he receives from his father, Macon Dead. However, during a trip to his ancestral home, “Milkman comes to understand his place in a cultural and familial community and to appreciate the value of conceiving of time as a cyclical process”(Smith 58).

Secondly, during the play Ruth is shown as a housewife who takes care of their son Travis, and is always cooking and cleaning for Walter. A prime example of Ruth is just being a lady who serves her man is when Walter is having George over and he tells her “ Why don’t you offer this man some refreshment. They don’t know how to entertain people in this house, man” (Hansberry 1488). Since Walter works all day driving around, he feels empowered to belittle his wife, and view her as a servant. Thus setting the expectation that women are just supporting roles to their husbands, and are meant to cater to the needs of the husband. Moreover, Ruth is relied on to get Walter and Travis ready for work and school. “Will someone listen to me today!” (Hansberry 1481). Ruth is therefore the caregiver for the family; she is heavily depended on to support her family, while her husband complains about getting the money to open up a liquor store with his friends or about driving his “white” boss around everywhere and being jealous because he isn't successful.

When someone looks up at a bird they see something soaring through the sky free from the world’s troubles. Through out man’s history they have been trying to find a way to be as free as birds and learn to fly. Unfortunately it has been an unsuccessful feat for man to accomplish. Although man has never really been able to fly on their own, they are able to fly with the help from a little machinery and ingenuity. Macon Dead Jr, or milkman, the nickname he adopted because he nursed from his mother, the protagonist of Song Of Solomon by Toni Morrison, had been trying to fly all of his life. But until he discovers his family’s history and his self-identity he unable to discover the secret that has