Toni Morrison Song of Solomon Term Paper

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Character and the Definition of Justice in Song of Solomon

In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, there are great many characters each struggling to find a balance in life. From Milkman to Macon Dead II to Guitar to Ruth to Pilate and many others, there is a sense that these characters are one part hurting, one part strong, one part reluctant to fly, one part clinging to selfish desires, and one part searching for a way out. The acts of vengeance, revenge, and attempts to correct wrongs appear throughout the novel to show how the characters harbor grievances, how they seek to get back at perceived slights, and how they learn to redress mistakes made in the past. The main characters, Milkman and Pilate, make up the heart of the novel as each reflects the underlying theme of the novel—the need to be able to stand tall and fly. Yet, Milkman does not really learn to fly until Pilate, the one family member he fully understands, is taken away from him: that is when he finally is motivated to leap into action and fly at Guitar, who took her life from him. This paper will show how characters seek to avenge, revenge or correct for crimes and damage done in Morrison’s Song of Solomon by implementing their own unique strategies that emanate from their own personalities and perceptions of reality.

Starting with Macon Dead II, there is a grudge that he holds against Pilate, as she was the one who refused to allow him to take the gold in the cave after he killed the white man. She warned him that taking the gold would get them both in trouble with the law and make in a murderer and thief. He always held it against her as his ambition was to get ahead in life and move up in the world and the gold they found in the cave was the perfect opportunity to do so. Nonetheless, he manages to advance upwardly on his own thanks to his involvement in real estate and he marries the daughter of a doctor and does well—but he never forgets about the gold. And when he hears that Pilate, who practices voodoo, has a heavy bag hanging from the ceiling in her home that is supposed to be her “inheritance,” he believes it to be the gold from the cave and that she must have gone back to the cave to get it. He sends Milkman and Guitar to steal the bag from Pilate—and in the act, the two are arrested, but it turns out the bag is only filled with human bones (her father’s). Macon Dead II tried to get back at Pilate for her talking him out of getting rich early in life—but it fails.

Macon also has another reason to be angry with Pilate: she is responsible for the existence of Milkman in the first place. Macon had not been kind to his wife Ruth and so Pilate made a love potion that would make Macon conceive a child with Ruth, which is how Milkman came along. When Macon finds out about how he was tricked into conceiving with his wife, he tries to stop the pregnancy, but Pilate turns to voodoo to thwart him. Macon resents Pilate for all of this. He is a very selfish character who wants only to please himself and he views Pilate and most others as beneath him. He is always thinking about past wrongs and how he alone is significant, but really inside he is suffering and cannot cope with his own family history. He believes he is of an upper class now and that Pilate is beneath him because she is a bootlegger and practitioner of witch-craft, but the reality is that Macon’s status cannot save his son when the latter gets arrested for the attempted theft: Pilate, the victim in all this, is the one who saves them by acting like a worn-out old black woman who doesn’t know any better.

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The police agree to let them all go—and the lesson here is that it is Pilate who really knows what it means to love someone and to correct old wrongs—not by vengeance or revenge or getting back but rather by forgetting, by loving, by humbling oneself even if it means acting like a fool and being humiliated and receiving the scorn of everyone who has to see it. She forgives those who try to get back at her or rob her—but she also has a sense of justice, of helping those in need. She did not trick Macon into conceiving to hurt him but rather to help Ruth, who was afraid, alone, without a child and without love. She did it to help her sister-in-law—but, of course, Macon did not understand and was simply bitter about it all. This same bitterness is passed on to Milkman whose disillusionment at learning he will never be able to fly makes him apathetic towards everything. But Macon will in time learn that indeed he can fly and that love is the thing that makes it all possible—which is where the novel ends.

Prior to that stunning conclusion, however, Milkman has to journey as a character: he wants to know more about his family history, and part of the reason for his isolation and lack of compassion for others stems from the fact that he simply does not know who he is or where he came from—or why he cannot fly like the birds. The symbol of the suicide from early in the book—the man who tried to fly but fell—seems to be deeply impressed upon as Milkman loses all interest in life when he finds out that he will never be able to fly. The cold crushing reality of this news hits him like a brick and takes all the wind out of his sails. He becomes ambivalent towards everything, finding no connection between himself and the rest of the black community. He wants only to feed off of what others produce, which is why Ruth still breastfeeds him and why he callously takes the love of Hagar, which she offers him for free. It is also why he goes south to find the gold left in the cave: he thinks it too will be sufficient to make life bearable—but he is operating under the same delusion as his father, whom he also resents because the man is self-centered and mean.

Guitar has a similar problem: he is determined to kill white people because he finds them responsible for the death of his own father. He wants to hold the entire race accountable and that is why he is involved with Seven Days and why actually does go around killing whites. It is his way of righting a wrong, of avenging his father and, he feels, his entire race. But it is not an expedient solution and Morrison does not view Guitar’s killings as appropriate, though is rage and anger appear to be justified for the suffering he has seen and felt. Yet, this anger consumes Guitar and he follows Milkman south, suspecting Milkman of having the gold that the two were seeking from Pilate.

In reality, Milkman is beginning to seek out his own identity: he does look for the gold but does not find it and gives up the idea when he gets to Virginia and is invited to take part in wildcat hunt. He begins to understand the community and feel like he belongs for the first time in his life. He….....

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