Yolanda Wilson-Harris

WEB REVIEW

Leah Guillory’s review mainly focuses on Milkman’s journey.  Leah uses other literary resources to connect and substantiate his plight.  However, I think Milkman is not the only character on a journey.  Ms. Morrison has cleverly developed a narrative that allows the readers to view parallel journeys, sometimes the characters’ merge in their relationships, and sometimes they are on a solo track.  However, I think the Maya Angelou’s “I Will Rise’, might be better used for a character who was oppressed.  Milkman seemed to be meandering through his life, versus oppressed.  His lack of history and self-actualization did impact his success.  However, most of that was self-imposed. Ruth, on the other hand, seemed to be the oppressed and did rise through the narrative.  She was physically and socially oppressed, living in a man’s world, despite the African-American male having his own limitation, he was still more powerful than Ruth.   Milkman did develop his manhood through the narrative and did gain a sense of self through his self-discovery.   

Gary Pegoda’s review of assimilation caught my attention, because of my desire to discuss the concept of the American dream in the African-American culture.   To assimilate or not, has been a cultural divide amongst the great thinkers in the African-American culture.  Progress could not have been made if Douglass or Equiano had not assimilated with the Caucasian culture.  When we look generations and centuries later, we see the same argument with Booker T. Washington and W. E. DuBois  exist.  One might venture to say that our President has some of the same constraints.    However, my father and I were discussing how Booker T. Washington would not have been able to reach and affect so many other African-American lives if he had not been able to attract and encourage Caucasians to contribute to the educational institution and the furtherance of his dreams for future generations.

Kurt Bouillion’s discussion of the Declaration of Independence leads to a very important discussion.  How  such an important document could be written in the midst of the founders, who owned slaves, be relevant to all of humanity.  The document was written while African-Americans and women were not afforded the privilege of being considered people, still being considered property.  I do agree that each historian was talking about a different aspect of our freedom and the values that the African-Americans still place and regard in the American dream, despite the obvious detrimental impact of slavery and the furtherance of the Jim Crow South.  A careful analysis of how they are linked is important.   Such a comparison could decrease the value and the emphasis that each historian was trying to highlight and to shape the time period in which they wrote and lived.

 The American Dream is often associated with the tangibles that citizenry are able to obtain and utilize the uplifting of the quality of their lives.  Dr. King’s ‘Dream’ was not referring to the tangibles, but the intangibles, that have not been afforded to African-Americans.  Langston Hughes was also discussing the nature of a dream and the intangibles that manifest into negative tangibles when a dream is deferred.

The True Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is a narrative that defies genre identification - the narrative includes:  realism, magical realism, wilderness gothic, folklore, and the reader  is also exposed to some elements of the slave narrative.    Even though racism is explicitly and implicitly displayed throughout the narrative, Ms. Morrison’s characters are not allowed to simply use institutional racism as their only antagonist. However, the reader does understand and witness the characters living, succeeding, and failing within the boundaries established by the racially- tense time period. Toni Morrison has elevated her characters’ plights and tells the story of surviving and rising above your familial trappings and ancestral misgivings.

The narrative explores the depth and dynamics of the Dead family.  The narrative delves within the complexities of an African-American family trying to realize their American dream while many members of the family are on a journey of self-exploration, self-actualization, and the acquisition of their individual concept of the American dream.  While this narrative is written by an African-American, the tragedies, short comings, and longings could be associated with any American family.  By constructing her narrative through the lenses of African-Americans, Ms. Morrison  gives the narrative another dimension.

The racial and minority dimensions are evident with the beginning of the narrative.  The characters are watching a man commit suicide at a hospital where no African-American baby has yet to be born.  It is significant that Macon ‘Milkman’ is going to be the first baby born there.  The hospital scene foreshadows that his character will ultimately be the focus. While a dramatic and life-endangering incident is occurring, the nurses and doctors assume the crowd of people were outside the hospital  because of their desire to be ‘racially uplifted’ or promoting civil rights.  The reader gets another early glimpse of how African-Americans are not able to exercise their freedom.  Pre-slavery values and limitations continue to place tension on the communication expectations between the two races. Each race of people tends to use previous framework and expectations when establishing ‘the hows’ of communicating.     When  Guitar’s grandmother, an elder in the community,  was disrespectfully addressed  by the nurse, the Grandmother lowered her eyes.  The two communities are still at odds with each other.  Even though the African-American are technically ‘free’ the African-Americans cannot name their streets ‘Not Doctor Street’ or have privileges in the hospital, which is later discovered in the narrative when exploring the relationship of Ruth’s father and the woman who invited  Ruth to a social event.  (obj. 1 and 4)

It was also interesting that an African-American, obviously depressed with his life, would commit suicide  at a ‘Whites Only’ hospital and attempt to ‘fly away’, showing the interdependence of the races.  It also demonstrates the African-American folklore continuing in this generation and the importance of African-Americans flying away as a means for escape for some and for others a way of achievement.   Ms. Morrison uses the scene at the hospital to set the tone of the community and to demonstrate that the community is still divided – at war with itself and others. 

             Macon Dead is one of the success stories in the African-American community, but not respected by others in their community, ‘A nigger in business is a terrible thing to see.  A terrible, terrible thing to see.’    Macon Dead, Jr,’s pursuit of the American Dream for himself and his family is even unattractive to his family.   His pursuits are metaphorically represented by the water stain on the dining room table.  His desire to own more property and elevate his status is present, but like the water stain,  his ruthlessness with his family is covered up with the family structures and expectations, the dinners, the rides in the ‘hearse’, his businesslike appearances, coupled with his wife’s unsuccessful, mandatory social engagements.  It further demonstrates the challenges that African-Americans face when achieving the ‘dream’,  is assimilation a successful mechanism or does an African-American have to create his own construct to achieve success.  (obj. 3) In Song of Solomon, Macon is trying to re-create or outrun his family narrative.  He is trying to prove that he can achieve the American dream despite the failing of previous generations or without the aid of previous generations (Ruth’s father).   

Initially the reader is not impressed with the manner in which he pursues the American dream, because it seems to be at any cost.  He is tyrannical about the pennies and dollars he collects, at the expense of the elderly and the impoverished.  He extends no sympathy and is not respected amongst the community.   The pursuit of the American Dream is important, but somehow in this narrative is not attractive within  the African-American community when pursued with the same ferociousness that white Americans have used.  (obj. 3)

The Dead family is highly structured, with a strong dominance by the father –not limited to the use of his physical force.  Despite his father’s physical and financial strength and family trappings, Milkman is unable to translate or transfer any sense of power.  From the beginning, he has so many questions and such self-doubt, even to the extent of not understanding his own name and belonging.  He does not have a sense of familial or cultural importance. 

Ms. Morrison does not allow her readers to simply focus on Milkman, the   protagonist, the readers get to know the women in Milkman’s life and view their struggles and demons.  There are two categories of females in the narrative.     Ms. Morrison develops some of her women as ‘double minority’ victims, and some of the women are not.   Initially, the readers cringe with the social trappings and shackles that Ruth has to bear.   On the other hand, we have Pilate and her girls who are living more of a naturalistic, free-style life.  They live off the land and dare the community to challenge them.  Pilate is some cases a ‘force of nature’, with living like a ‘cave-women’ – no electricity or running water, house without the typical amenities.  While at the same time, being somewhat of a Renaissance woman, being the town bootlegger.  Ruth is imprisoned to the trappings of her husbands’ and fathers’ social climbing. (obj. 2)   Pilate does not allow herself or her family to respect or recognize the typical community or cultural expectations.  However, when necessary she can easily ‘respond’ to the expectations of the Caucasian  race. 

Ruth  is plagued with being ‘voiceless and choiceless’.  She has no voice in her family and no respect from any of her children.  She further depends on Pilate, who she cannot understand and really fears, to help save her pregnancy and then later with Milkman and his relationship with Hagar.     Pilate, while not being attractive to the normal community on the other hand, lives her life on her own terms, she defies her brother and his demands, and she lives outside the normal.   She is seen in many cases as maternal, taking care and giving insight to others.  Hagar and Reba are other examples of ‘voiceless and choiceless’.  They live, most of the time unhappily, under the strangeness of their mother – hungry for love and foodless. They are always in love with men who disappoint and tend to live their life through the prism of ‘love’, without the tenants of the love relationship.  Reba always buying her love and Hagar attracting  suitors through her overly sexual, visceral  womanly devices. (obj. 2)

Song of Solomon is a multi-faceted, dimensional narrative.  Ms. Morrison allows her readers to have individualistic judgments of her characters, while the narrative continues to grow and extend those boundaries.  She further allows the American dream to have its own story within the story, different pathways are taken and different viewpoints are garnered.  In the midst of a modern tale, the African-American folklore brings richness and depth to the characters’ plight and ultimately their resolution. 

RESEARCH PLAN

          I plan to look at the American dream from an African-American perspective.  I want to delineate the definition of the American dream, its deferment, and how is manifested within the community.  But, I also want to look at the argument for assimilation and how generationally that changes and the impact how African-Americans benefit.  I then want to look at the ethnic divide that achieving the American dream causes and how the Caucasian does not understand the difference for African-Americans and the divide that continues to breach.