Black Heritage in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon

Toni Morrison's The Song of Solomon has spawned decades of discourse on African-American myths, community and family. The focus of the discourse is usually Macon "Milkman" Dead, the main character. His role in the text has been examined by many critics who have reached many conclusions. One theme found in the text, however, has not been fairly addressed; the value of the black heritage. Throughout the text, Morrison emphasizes that the family and history-roots--are essential for an enlightened existence. Through the lives of the characters Milkman and Guitar, their tragedies and frustrations, Morrison drives home the importance of knowing and connecting with one's roots.

The text showcases scenarios in two classes of African Americans during the 1930s to the 1960s. They are the poor and the middle class. These two classes are represented by Milkman (middle class) and Guitar (poor). On one hand, there are the middle class black who struggled to earned a living in a world where they are unwanted. According to critic Jane Elizabeth Dougherty, in her article "Overview of Song of Solomon", she explains Milkman's dilemma. "He is separated from the black community by his class, and hindered from advancing in the larger world by his race" (par. 2). The character's money keeps him at a distance from others, but society keeps him away from his fellow middle class members. Milkman's sister First Corinthians found this to be true when she went looking for a job, and a way out of the house. "After graduation, she returned to a work world in which colored girls, regardless of their background, were in demand for one and only one kind of work" (189). She was too educated to want to be seen as a maid, but her skin color prevented her from anything else. Dougherty explains that the separation between middle class and poor blacks comes because the middle class blacks, the Macon Deads, make their money from the exploitation of the black community. She says, "[middle class blacks] mostly worked in and earned their living from the black community" (par. 5). Macon Dead's business dealings and the money that Milkman lavishes himself with, is what isolates the family. This isolation spawns a dysfunction in all of the family members, (a topic for a future paper) especially Milkman that he only overcomes with a journey south to find his pot of gold, his roots.

Guitar, on the other hand, was well entrenched in the black community. He knew his family and where they came from. He was a part of the northern migration; he knew both worlds-the north and the south-- and could fully appreciate them. This appreciation turns into a need to protect, which is then perverted into joining The Days. He describes the group as

"a few men willing to take risks...when a Negro child, Negro woman, or Negro man is killed by whites, and nothing is done about it...the society selects a similar victim at random, and they execute him or her in a similar manner if they can" (154).

Guitar has his family, but feels helpless to protect them. The society helps with that protection, but there is a catch. He has to give up his love, and attachments. The protection has to spread itself to cover the entire race. He says to Milkman, "What I'm doing ain't about hating white people. It's about loving us. About loving you. My whole life is love" (159). He is not allowed to dwell on the cares for just his family. It is this disconnection from his roots that eventually makes him mentally unstable enough to rationalize the killing of his best friend, who is as close as a brother. Milkman was thought to have taken the gold for himself. In Guitar's eyes, Milkman stole from the race; he had to be killed, despite the fact that he was black.

Both characters are separated form their heritage, causing major dysfunction. Guitar never recovers. Milkman, however, does, by finding the true history of his family. He starts on a metaphoric search for gold. Before he goes, he is, according to critic A. Leslie Harris in her article "Myth as Structure in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, he is:

thrityish, resentful of, yet dependent on his father, wants to leave home, but lacks the resolution to do so. His home, Southside, is both reassuringly familiar, and confining, like Milkman's own comfortable but loitering and wasted life. His recognition that he is just drifting and lacks both internal and external coherence in his life directs him toward his third stage of development--a quest (par.5).

Harris more than adequately defines Milkman's position before he goes south (a temporary reverse migration). He is stifled, in a stagnant existence. He has to find a way out and that way is a "quest" for gold.

Milkman's discoveries along his journey lift him up from his stagnant life. Not all are external. Some are the details he put together in his own head. In sorting through the mess of his heritage, he begins to use a skill that he never knew he had-reason. This newfound tool is used to dissect his own life, and he doesn't like what he discovers. In the woods during the hunt, for example, he was all alone with his thoughts, "there was nothing here to help him-not his money, his car, his father's reputation...in fact, they hampered him" (277). There, with nothing to save him from himself, he discovered was responsible for his life. He also began to understand his misguided best friend's reasoning. His fault in the mental break of his cousin-lover was also revealed to him under that gum tree. He began to see just how awful he really was to people.

Both men needed their roots. Guitar shrugged his off, while Milkman found and embraced his. Both cases ended in the flight/death scene in the end, but Milkman was alive in spirit, Guitar was the dead one.

Bibliography

Dougherty, Jane Elizabeth. "Overview of Song of Solomon". Novels for Students
2000.

Harris, A. Leslie. "Myth as Structure in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon".

MELUS 7.3 (1980): 69-76.

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: Vintage International, 1977,2004