Post 6- Chapters 11-15 (258- 337 End) Song of Solomon- Toni Morrison
Milkman is greeted on his journey by a message from Guitar that “your day is here”. Wondering why the message contained hints of the Seven Days, he now knows that Guitar is after him and hostile. Struck by curiosity, Milkman listens to kids singing a song about Jay, the only son of Solomon in which he is reminded of his disappointing childhood. After a little fight in a local bar, Milkman makes friends with some men who invite him on a hunting trip where they take him to Ryna’s Gulch at nighttime. The sound of wind through Ryna’s Gulch cause legend that a woman is crying deep in the canyon. Trekking through the woods , Milkman gets exhausted and rests. Right at this moment, Milkman’s deep self- evaluating thoughts are cut short when Guitar appears to choke him with a wire. Succumbing to the feeling of dying, Milkman surprisingly shoots his rifle and scares Guitar off and finds the group of hunters as Milkman realizes he escapes death again (like so many times before). Next, Milkman finds out his grandmother, Sing, was an Indian, and he goes to seek out more information from Sing’s sister Susan Byrd in the area. Susan Byrd gives him misleading and dead end information about Sing that disappoints Milkman. On his way back to town, he comes across Guitar who accuses Milkman of stealing the gold, mistaking Milkman’s helping load a crate for him shipping the gold to Virginia.
Returning to Shalimar, Milkman has realized how his parents’ life experiences have shaped the people they are today and he misses his family. Getting lost in thought, Milkman hears the children’s song again and memorizes it. Only then does he realize it tells an interesting and familiar story- Solomon flew across the sky, leaving a woman Ryna to cry, and that Jay was raised by Heddy in a “red man’s house”. It isn’t long before he realizes the song is about his grandfather, Macon Dead I, known as Jake, and great-grandfather, Solomon. Driven to learn more about his ancestry, Milkman returns to Susan Byrd, who reveals the rest of his family history to piece the puzzle together. It turns out that Sing left with Jake, a descendant of flying African Solomon, who with Ryna had 21 children, their last one named Jake. Upon flying away from Virginia, he tried to take Jake with him but he dropped him and Jake fell into the yard of Indian woman Heddy. This is where Sing and Jake met and later led to them running off. Finally understanding all the events leading up to his birth, Milkman leaves profoundly influenced and ready to return home.
Upon returning to Michigan, Milkman seeks out Pilate to tell her all about his discoveries yet unaware of Hagar’s death due to a broken heart. Upon telling Pilate that the bones she has are her father’s, he compels her to bury them properly. While things at home aren’t very different, Milkman at least has grown an appreciation for how things have come to be.
The last journey of the story is when Milkman and Pilate drive down to Virginia to bury Jake’s bones. Right as burial ceremony is completed, Pilate is shot dead by a bullet intended for Milkman from Guitar. Milkman stands up, unafraid of Guitar and leaps in his direction of the cliff with Guitar in his arms. Off of Solomon’s leap, he does the same jump as his great- grandfather.
“If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”
“O-o-o-o-o-o Solomon done fly, Solomon done gone / Solomon cut across the sky, Solomon gone home!”
As expected, Milkman’s luxurious lifestyle hinders him when he is out on his own journey through Virginia and Pennsylvania. Finding himself maturing, he changes his attitude when changing his clothes from nice suit to a military clothes symbolizing his transformation into an adult. Just as he survives the attempt of killing by Guitar, Milkman experiences a sort of emotional rebirth at this moment because it is found out that he truly can die and isn’t already “Dead”. Again cured of his limp leg, Milkman in transformed into a normal boy and finds compassion for others from her on, even feeling bad for buddy Guitar and his situation. Milkman’s compassion becomes very evident through his interaction and love with Sweet as he cares for her different from his relationship with Hagar.
Emphasis is put on the African-American oral tradition through all the stories told by different characters on Milkman’s journey and the song that leads him to discovering everything. This relates to how slaves were forbidden from reading but preserved their family history and stories through songs and oral stories. Milkman’s history is completely conveyed through a song and he turns from alienating himself from his black ancestry to embracing black culture.
In the Solomon song, both flight and abandonment are major ideas. Similarly, Solomon and Ryna’s story parallels directly to Milkman and Hagar’s story of parting and loneliness. By placing Hagar’s death in the story and showing that it was because she didn’t believe she was deserving of love highlights the common view of many ladies and the typical drive for ladies to prove themselves for a man’s love. Hagar’s death occurs sadly after she loses her own identity, chasing after Milkman’s love by trying to dress up and recreate herself to impress him. The death of Hagar displays the inevitable reality of those who depend on acceptance from others; a life in which is not owned or run by oneself but instead by others.
I am glad to see Milkman so interested in his heritage and goes through a sort of rebirth while on his journey. Returning back to his childhood dream of flight being crushed, he learns that (even though it may only be a story) his great-grandfather, Solomon, conquered the art of flight. Simply by believing in flight again, Milkman has a new sense of hope and drive to return home. Although Morrison ends the novel without telling us what happens to Milkman after his leap, the fact he flew promises that he fulfills the novel’s opening image of Robert Smith hoping to fly to the other side of the Great Lake.
It’s as if Milkman learns that flying doesn’t have to be physical. Instead, he creates flying as the ability of a human being to overcome the obstacles in one’s path and live a free life even when everyone else may be in shambles. Even though this may be a stretch, it’s as if Milkman’s limp leg being shorter than the other symbolized how he was born to be flying and already had one foot off the ground.
I was beyond happy to see Milkman after all stay longer after not finding the gold because he cared more about the treasure his ancestors left him, a story. It suggests that the knowledge of one’s family history is more important than any material or heirlooms which is a common African-American tradition because slaves could only carry their stories and songs. Pilate, always carrying around the snuff box earring with her name inside it, finally abandons her family history because she realizes it lives within Milkman and she doesn’t need to hold onto it any longer. That release of possession seemed so huge as Pilate leaves her own history carrier knowing that she has someone else who knows it and will carry it on.
Even in death, flight remains the symbol of life. Birds circle Pilate’s body after being killed to suggest that physical death is no deterrent to her existence. She will continue to live on in Milkman and others just as people say “You never lose the ones you love as long as you love the ones you lose.” No longer being afraid of death, Milkman tries his hand at flying and whether he dies or not, it doesn’t really matter. Now aware of his rich identity, Milkman will live on after death just like Pilate and Solomon in his song. I was so happy that the story rounded out and finally made sense about the title. Truly, I love this theme about how death doesn’t really mean a person is completely gone just as love and stories forever encapsulate those who share love and courage.
