Transformation of Milkman in Toni Morrisons Song of Solomon :: Song Solomon essays Toni Morrison Papers

Transformation of Milkman in Toni Morrisons Song of SolomonIn Toni Morrisons Song of Solomon, the caliber of Milkman gradually learns to respect and to listen to women. This essay will examine Milkmans fault from boy to man. In the commencement ceremony part of the novel, he emulates his father, by creation deaf to womens wisdom and womens needs, and casually disrespecting the women he should most respect. He chooses to trudge from his fathers example and leaves town to obtain his inheritance and to become a self-defined man. From Circe, a witch figure, he is inspired to be reciprocal, and through his struggle for equating with men and then with women, he begins to find his inheritance, which is knowing what it is to fly, not gold. At the end, he roleplays with kindness and reciprocity with Pilate, learning from her wisdom and accepting his responsibilities to women at last. By accepting his true inheritance from women, he becomes a man, who dears and prize women, who knows h e can fly but also knows his responsibilities. In the first part of the novel, Milkman is his fathers son, a child taught to ignore the wisdom of women. Even when he is 31, he still needs both his father and his aunt to tug him off the scrapes he gets into. Milkman considers himself Macon, Jr., calling himself by that name, and believing that he cannot act independently (120). The first lesson his father teaches him is that ownership is everything, and that womens knowledge (specifically, Pilates knowledge) is not useable in this world (55). He is blind to the Pilates wisdom. When Pilate tell Rebas lover that womens love is to be respected, he learns nothing (94). In the same episode, he begins his incestuous affair with Hagar, leaving her 14 years later when his desire for her wanes. Milkmans take in with Hagar is analogous to his experience with his mother, and serves to stretch his carefree boyhood out for thrifty-one years (98). Hagar calls him into a room, unbuttons her blo use and smiles (92), good as his mother did (13). Milkmans desire for his mothers milk disappears before she stops milking him, and when Freddie discovers the role and notes the inappropriateness, she is left without this comfort. Similarly, Milkman ends the affair with Hagar when he loses the desire for her and recognizes that this affair with his cousin is not socially approved, leaving Hagar coldly and consciously, with money and a letter of gratitude.