Marisela N. Caylor

December 1, 2012

“Who Am I?” Identity, Myth, and Tradition in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon

“Myths are stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are.”

                                                                                Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“Milkman stood before his mirror and glanced, in the low light of the wall lamp, at his reflection. He was, as usual, unimpressed with what he saw. He had a fine enough face. Eyes women complimented him on, a firm jaw line, splendid teeth. Taken apart, it looked all right. Even better than all right. But it lacked coherence, a coming together of the features into a total self. It was all very tentative, the way he looked, like a man peeping around a corner someplace he is not supposed to be, trying to make up his mind whether to go forward or to turn back.”

                                                                      Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

In Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon, the protagonist Macon “Milkman” Dead embarks on an unwilling journey in search of his identity and learns about his past through a powerful myth. Morrison weaves the myth of the Flying Africans into the novel and creates a contemporary story of the hero’s journey. The myth establishes to a sense of tradition and ancestry that appeals to a modern audience. Wendy Walters’s essay, “One of Dese Mornings, Bright and Fair,/Take My Wings and Cleave De Air”: The Legend of the Flying Africans and Diasporic Consciousness” describes Morrison’s use of the myth in the novel as “the ultimate aim of producing a transformative or even revolutionary cultural form” (5). Morrison adapts the myth to fit her own story and forces the protagonist, Milkman Dead to participate in his ancestor’s past. The unwilling hero in Song of Solomon is Milkman Dead, a black man living in a modern world surrounded by a capitalistic father, severely depressed mother, and two stoic sisters. Milkman’s perception of life is tainted and unknowing due to his father’s reluctance to share his past with his delusional son. His father, Macon Dead creates a complex for the boy in which he becomes insensitive to the world around him. Macon Dead exists for his greedy ambitions and does not care about his family’s state of mind. Milkman does not know how to love or appreciate any kind of affection in his life due to his father’s repressive demeanor towards his family. The key to Milkman’s sense of self lies in his ability to find out more about his family history, which lies in his aunt, Pilate Dead. Pilate holds the key to Milkman’s past, present, and future. Pilate becomes an integral part of Milkman’s discovery of his ancestry in the Deep South. Milkman’s father, Macon Dead keeps his past and his only living relative from his son as a way to segregate himself from who he used to be. By withholding the Dead family ancestry, Macon creates a void within his son, Milkman who feels useless and impotent in his father’s grip. Pilate Dead becomes his guide to the past and surrogate mother when he needs her the most. The purpose of this essay is to establish the importance of Morrison’s retelling of the Flying Africans myth and how the myth establishes the structure of a reluctant hero’s journey. Another important element that will be examined is how Milkman’s ignorance of his family’s past affects him as a person and how his family affects his own lack of identity.

The Dead Family

Morrison’s use of the Dead family surname correctly describes the mindset and appearance of Milkman’s demented and peculiar family. The Dead name serves as the family’s identity, at least within Milkman’s nuclear family. This name establishes a familial tie to the past in how Macon Dead I, the patriarch of the family first got his name after the slaves were freed. Macon Dead, Milkman’s father recalls the perverse process that became his family name in Solomon:

His own parents, in some mood of perverseness or resignation, had agreed to abide by a naming done to them by somebody who couldn’t have cared less. Agreed to take and pass on to all their issue this heavy name scrawled in perfect thoughtlessness by a drunken Yankee in the Union Army. A literal slip of the pen handed to his father on a piece of paper in which he handed on to his only son, and his son likewise handed on to his; Macon Dead who begat a second Macon Dead…(18).

Morrison could have established the naming of the Dead family as a Freudian slip in which Milkman Dead loves to use the line in Solomon as “being born  Dead” ( 89).  This sad statement describes the mantra of the family that Milkman belongs to. Morrison realizes that in order for Milkman to move onto being someone great, he must shed the selfishness that has been built into him by his father. Throughout his life, Milkman, his mother, Ruth, and his sisters, First Corinthians and Magdalene called Lena have lived a sheltered life under a ruthless dictator of a father. The family is seen as a powerful, middle-class family in a city full of poor blacks. Unfortunately, Macon Dead is opportunistic and greedy and ends up alienating his entire family, especially his only son, Milkman. The story behind Macon’s greed does not serve its purpose until he finally opens up to his son on how his father was shot and killed by white men who wanted his farm, Lincoln’s Heaven, for their own. This event affects Macon deeply and that is why he never wants to be a victim, he wants to “own things. And let the things you own own other things. Then you’ll own yourself and other people too” (Morrison 55). This statement becomes a revelation for Milkman when he discovers that his life is going nowhere other than being his father’s rent collector and employee. Milkman becomes a slave to his father’s greedy ventures and will never escape unless he discovers his past. His past will lead him to his future. His need for escape develops into an obsession with flight and Milkman becomes whole once he finds out what he was missing all his life, a family history. While on his journey to the South to look for his father’s misplaced fortune, Milkman finds himself instead and finally becomes a “free” man.

Throughout the novel, Morrison incorporates a deep and rich past that is revealed in snippets which makes the reader aware that not everyone is who they seem. Milkman’s mother, Ruth is revealed to be a deeply depressed and unloved woman who prolongs breastfeeding Milkman into early childhood. Ruth’s secret is discovered by Freddie, one of her husband’s employees and Freddie is the one who gives Milkman his nickname. Milkman’s name signals his delayed adulthood and his lack of identity. He is never called by his real name, only Milkman. Milkman’s mother, Ruth Foster Dead was the only daughter of one of the first black doctors in the city and a prominent citizen. Their caste within the city was attractive to a young Macon Dead who was anxious to “own things and people”. Their marriage is strained from the beginning because Macon becomes jealous of Ruth’s love and devotion towards her father. Even in death, Macon decides Ruth had an unnatural relationship with her father which leads to a strained marriage and a strained childhood for their children, especially Milkman. The burden of the parent’s relationship serves as a catalyst for Milkman’s search for his own identity within an eccentric yet repressed family. Milkman’s view of the world is tainted and having to live with both his parents begins to weigh on him. He is drowning in his parent’s dysfunctional relationship. His escape is inevitable and Morrison does a good job of setting up Milkman for his journey. In the novel, Morrison alienates Milkman during his childhood which is one of the hallmarks of the hero’s journey. He must find out about his family’s past before he can become his own man. In a sense, Milkman is a “forced participant” in his father’s business ventures and he cannot break away from his father’s stronghold. Milkman’s curiosity leads him to his father’s only sister, Pilate. Pilate becomes one of Milkman’s guides to help find an identity outside his own family. His childhood friend and adulthood enemy, Guitar becomes another guide for Milkman throughout his journey that leads him to his estranged aunt’s naturalistic way of life.

Morrison introduces Milkman to his surrogate mother to guide him through his journey of soul-searching at age twelve. Morrison explains: “But if the future did not arrive, the present did extend itself and the uncomfortable little boy in the Packard went to school and at twelve met the boy who not only could liberate him, but could take him to the woman who had as much do with his futures as she had his past” (36). Guitar introduces Milkman to Pilate. Pilate would completely change Milkman’s life forever and becomes someone who helps him find his true self like she did. Pilate Dead is the polar opposite of her brother, Macon Dead and she becomes Milkman’s spiritual guide through his journey of the past. When Macon Dead discovers Milkman spending time at Pilate’s wine house, he is not pleased. He warns Milkman to stay away from her and not to trust her. Macon’s sense of familial connections is severed after his misfortune with his own family and he forces Milkman to work for him at an early age. Macon forces his ideals upon his son rather than having Milkman spend time with his aunt, a family connection. To Macon Dead, the only familial connection he has is with his property and capital. His family means nothing to him and this becomes an undesirable trait Milkman inherits at an early age. As he gets older, Milkman begins to search for an identity and to make a “name” for himself, outside the Dead family name.

Unlike Milkman and Macon Dead, Pilate Dead is proud of her name and identity which she carries with her in a brass box earring. She does not run from her past like her brother, Macon. Pilate embraces her past journeys and savors what she has learned throughout her travels.  This ideal is what Milkman is missing and is suffocated by an unknowing sense of family connections. His birth and rebirth was helped along by Pilate, who becomes the missing puzzle piece in this family’s saga. Pilate is Morrison’s creation of an “earthly mother” for Milkman and she sets Pilate’s own birth as a mystery as well. In Dorothy H. Lee’s essay, “Song of Solomon: To Ride The Air” explains Pilate: “Her lack of navel reinforces this sense of divinity, testifying to her miraculous birth and suggesting even the original earth mother…she offers knowledge (apples) and rebirth (eggs) (65). Milkman finds freedom and wisdom at Pilate’s place and begins a long term affair with Pilate’s granddaughter, Hagar. Hagar is Milkman’s cousin and becomes another toxic relationship the he must tolerate.  Milkman’s strong connection of family and especially, Pilate can be seen through his affair with Hagar. However, his treatment of Hagar is harsh and unloving. Milkman’s harsh treatment of others becomes a struggle for Milkman throughout his entire life. He cares for no one, not even himself. Milkman’s childhood and his father’s mistreatment of his family has become a strain on Milkman’s personality. He is selfish and uncaring. After Macon and Pilate Dead share their tales of their ancestors does Milkman begins to see a light within his sad, pathetic existence. Morrison explains his wish: “For Milkman it was the door click. He wanted to feel the heavy white door on Not Doctor Street close behind him and know that he might be hearing the catch settle into its groove for the last time” (163). His need to get away from his dysfunctional family grows more prominent day after day. Ruth and Macon use Milkman to tell their side of the story about their ill marriage. Unfortunately, he is so jaded and oblivious to any type of adult relationship, he does not care about any dysfunction in their marriage. He just knows he wants to get out of their home. Milkman is awakened at the age of twenty one when he finally has had enough of his father’s mistreatment of his mother. In an immature move, Milkman finally stands up for his mother without knowing the consequences of his actions. Day after day, he suppresses his need for flight until his father’s greed set him up for escape. Milkman begins to prepare for his journey to find his identity and family tradition.

Flight and The Flying Africans

            Myths have been used for centuries to teach us about our pasts and have become a backbone to guide us through our lives. In The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell describes myths as “stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance” (4). In Song of Solomon, Morrison integrates the myth of The Flying Africans as an important element in the search for identity by the protagonist, Milkman Dead. Flight is also an important element Morrison weaves into the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Milkman’s birth is greeted with grandeur and flight imagery as a man jumps from the hospital’s cupola into the air. The scene is complete with a song from his aunt, Pilate as she sees the man jump from the roof. Morrison writes: “When the dead doctor’s daughter saw Mr. Smith emerge as promptly as he had promised from behind the cupola, his wide blue silk wings curved around his chest, she dropped her covered peck basket, spilling red velvet rose petals” (5). The red rose petals are painstakingly cut by his sisters and signal their entire worthless existence. However, the scene foretells that Milkman would be different. Milkman would fly and escape his troubled life just like the man, Robert Smith had escaped. As Robert Smith flies through the air, Pilate witnesses the flight and breaks out into song:

O Sugarman done fly away

Sugarman done gone

Sugarman cut across the sky

Sugarman gone home…           (Morrison 6)

Pilate’s song will play an important part in Milkman’s “rebirth” and becomes a theme for his entire life. His constant search for “home” will eventually lead to flight at the end of the novel.

Milkman’s obsession with flight is constant throughout the novel as he discovers that “Mr. Smith’s blue silk wings must have left their mark because when the little boy discovered, at age four, the same thing Mr. Smith had learned earlier—that only birds and airplanes could fly—he lost all interest in himself”( Morrison 9). Milkman’s obsession with flight as an escape is quickly realized to be untrue and leaves Milkman a ghost, simply walking through life with no ambition or motivation to live. In A. Leslie Harris’s essay “Myth as Structure in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon,” she states that: “Western man has always looked to childhood as the mythic time, when the individual is closest to himself” (70). Perhaps, Morrison signals Milkman’s childhood as an indication of his “rebirth” at the end of the novel. His lack of merriment and understanding gives way to a flight “home” and towards enlightenment. Milkman’s need for escape is an early wish and as he discovers that he cannot fly, he pummels into a deep depression that will only be lifted when flight is possible. As Milkman grows older, his need for flight becomes more and more prominent. As a child, he daydreams of flying while taking a ride in the family car, Milkman rides while kneeling on the seat looking backwards out the window: “…he could only see the winged woman careening off the nose of the car” and his feeling of riding backwards as “uneasy” and “like flying blind, and not knowing where he was going—just where he had been—troubled him” (32). Morrison describes this as Milkman’s lack of future due to his lack of a past. On the ride to Honore, Milkman pleads his father to stops so he can urinate and Milkman has this uneasy feeling once again.  This feeling is one of “concentration on things behind him” as “though there were no future to be had” (Morrison 35). Milkman’s continuous obsession of a lack of past or future is instilled in him from an early age. Later in the novel, after learning about his own great-grandfathers transcendence, Milkman becomes more motivated to fly on his own, back home, wherever that may be. Throughout the novel, Morrison sprinkles flight imagery and begins to weave the myth of flight. The Flying African myth becomes the backbone of the novel and allows the readers, along with Milkman to believe in the concept of flight. Morrison’s readers begin to believe that flight is not possible until they hear about Milkman’s past and his journey south. A. Leslie Harris states that Morrison “blends the natural with the supernatural and the historically factual with the fantastic” (70). This blending of the “supernatural with the natural” plays an important role in Milkman’s discovery of his past (A.L. Harris 70). Without the myth, flight is not possible but in Morrison’s careful hands, the myth becomes reality. The importance of the myth of The Flying Africans to a modern audience exposes readers to a story they otherwise would never had heard. As an oral tradition of telling stories becomes obsolete, Morrison’s use brings new life to an untold story to African Americans who may have never heard it at all.

The myth of The Flying Africans within Solomon sheds new light to an ancient story that was told to slaves and ex-slaves for hundreds of years. Whether The Flying Africans is just a myth or truth, the story tells of one’s appreciation of culture and tradition. It becomes a myth of hope and redemption. Morrison’s inclusion of the myth in her novel, signals a more important theme at work other than just a boy who wants to fly. Morrison reinterprets the myth in her own way and incorporates the need for escape and transformation much like the slaves within the myth to her protagonist, Milkman Dead. Flying may seem like a romantic notion within the novel by critics; however, flight is anything but romantic. The myth of The Flying Africans lies deeply within the oral traditions that were prominent among the black slaves brought over from Africa. Soon, ex-slaves and their families held an oral tradition of telling stories which was important in preserving their lost culture.

   The myth of The Flying Africans as told by Virginia Hamilton in The People Could Fly recounts the tale that Africans knew magic and could fly (166). The tale describes when the Africans were taken to work in America and sailed in the ships they did not take their wings because they would be “crowded” on the ship (166). The slaves still had the power to fly, they just shed their wings. The magic was still there and their memory of flying would never be forgotten. Hamilton continues the myth by describing a slave named Toby who knew the “magic” words to produce flight and pronounced these magic words to Sarah, a female slave working the fields with a baby on her back (169). Toby had not forgotten these magic words after he sailed to America, far away from his home in Africa. The words were given to Sarah: “Kum…yali, kum buba tambe” and gave her the power of flight. Sarah flew away from the harsh fieldwork with her baby and flew back “home” to Africa. The other slaves, the overseer, and the Driver saw Sarah rise from the field and did not believe what they saw. The next day, a young slave was working in the hot fields, fainted, and was whipped by the Driver (Hamilton 170). Toby told the young man the magic words and he began to fly away. Several of the slaves saw this, as did the Overseer and the Driver and there was a fuss among them. Then Toby “sighed” the magic words, once more and was lifted among the clouds and flew back home (Hamilton 171). The other slaves begged for Toby to take them with him but he did not because there must be witnesses to this glorious flight that must tell their people, and so on.

This tragic story is remarkable and hopeful. Morrison’s use of this myth describes how the “magic” words were discovered by Milkman and he used this knowledge to set himself free. The African American tradition lies within the myths and stories that Milkman was missing his entire life. A myth like The Flying Africans or even his family’s own Song of Solomon should have been shared with Milkman to preserve his family’s rich history. Once he learned of his great-grandfather, Solomon’s flight, he was liberated himself. The “magic” words were never forgotten by the slaves from Africa and became a cherished tradition for their ancestors. In the novel, Morrison reinforces this tradition by giving Milkman the tools and knowledge to journey to and recount his past, so he may fly “home” once he learns the truth about his past. Morrison’s use of The Flying Africans in a modern novel is believable and that seems to be her intention. She set out to write a novel that incorporated a traditional story intertwined within a modern tale. Despite much criticism over the years about the use of myth in Solomon, the novel continues to educate generations of readers in the tradition of a myth like The People Could Fly. Morrison forces her readers to see Milkman’s journey as a mix of “natural and supernatural” but does this in a believable way (Harris 70). Morrison’s careful handling of the myth and Milkman’s discovery of his family member’s actual flight becomes believable, once we learn of Milkman’s thirst for familial ties. Milkman is quenched by the discovery of family history and tradition but he is not satisfied with this until he is able to be free from his father’s reign. Once his journey is set, he begins to see a way out after learning of a possible treasure within Pilate’s house. The gold is Milkman’s only way out. His journey for freedom eventually ends in the South, a distinct difference from his ancestor’s journey from South to North. Milkman is an unconventional hero and a journey from North to South is most fitting way for him to find his own freedom and his “gold.”

The Journey South

Most of Solomon takes place in the Northern part of the United States where Milkman and his family have lived for years. Milkman’s journey to the South is parallel to his ancestors’ mass migration to the North in search of better opportunities. This juxtaposition of voyages fits the novel’s motif of the supernatural. Milkman’s lack of maturity begins to hinder his adulthood and “need” to move on with his own life, not his father’s life. In Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison by Trudier Harris, she describes Morrison’s use of Milkman’s myth as “Morrison debunking one myth and creating another” (96). Harris states the move for Milkman to go south “reverses the pattern” and describes how the slaves escape from the South as a search for the “land of milk and honey” (96). Milkman’s journey South is reversed in search of gold and fortune. Milkman’s trip from Michigan to Virginia begins with an “exhilarating” plane ride where he experiences a type of flight, just not the flying he wants. Milkman describes the airplane flight as a “feeling of vulnerability,” a feeling he is completely aware of and grown accustomed to. His description continues: “High above the clouds, heavy yet light, caught in the stillness of speed (“Cruise,” the pilot said), sitting in intricate metal become glistening bird, it was not possible to believe he had ever made a mistake, or could” (Morrison 220). Milkman’s flight reassures him of his future and he begins to feel he made the right decision to look for the gold and his family’s past. Morrison’s cleverness in only revealing snippets about Milkman and his family becomes an important theme in Part II of Solomon. In Part II of the novel, readers are confused about Milkman and whether he is a likeable character or a tragic one. Morrison’s genius lies in this confusion because only when Milkman is knee deep in another culture do readers realize how tragic, sad, and depressed Milkman Dead really is.

Once Milkman arrives in Danville, we find his transformation coming to fruition. He travels into the small town on a mission dressed like a city slicker and focused only on the gold. Trudier Harris describes Milkman’s state of mind, once in Danville: “His emotions, clothing, accessories, and manners are all signs of the distance between him and the people whose help he needs” (97). Milkman’s selfishness and compassion for anyone else’s feelings or opinions are oblivious to him, thus leaving him in a vulnerable state. He quickly discovers that this behavior is not “accepted” in the South and his oblivious to everyone else’s opinions becomes important to him when he meets his father’s old acquaintances. When Milkman travels from Pittsburgh to Danville, he begins to wonder why his father ever loved this part of the country and even watched the “countryside” with the “boredom” of a city dweller (Morrison 226). His “city” attire calls more attention to Milkman and he begins to feel even more vulnerable and uncomfortable. Morrison writes: “ And rather than call more attention to himself in this tiny farming town than his beige three-piece suit, his button-down light-blue shirt and black string tie, and his beautiful Florsheim shoes had already brought…”(227). Milkman is “heavily decorated” at his point and will not be able to fly until he sheds what is truly bringing him down in life.

Milkman is in search of Circe, Macon and Pilate’s savior from their childhood and the key to finding his gold and freedom. Circe is important to his family’s history because she worked for The Butler family who was the family that robbed Macon Dead of his farm, Lincoln’s Heaven. Circe also kept the children hidden and cared for them when their father was killed. Once in Danville, Milkman is told to look to Reverend Cooper for assistance in finding Circe and the novel begins to take a turn into a dark and gothic journey. His family’s past is filled with tragic stories and misfortunes and Morrison develops an “eerier” narrative once Circe is in Milkman’s path (A.L. Harris 74). A.L. Harris calls Circe “a guardian of the past” and her presence allows Milkman to see “the power and destructiveness of his heritage” (74). The glimpse of Circe and the past she is guarding becomes essential to Milkman’s quest for identity. Along with the “ghosts” in Danville, Milkman’s friend/enemy, Guitar has followed him to Virginia in search of the gold for his own use for the Seven Days. Milkman is surrounded by people who want to take his life or want his life for their own. His parents, Hagar, and longtime friend, Guitar all want a stake in Milkman’s life. However, he is not willing to let it go without a fight.

The search for gold leads to a search for identity in Solomon. Morrison’s protagonist because acutely aware of his transformation when he finds the cave where his father and Pilate hid when they were children. His search for the gold proves unsuccessful and he begins to “feel” emotions as he leaves the cave. The results are raw, real feelings. Milkman is out in nature and this begins to unnerve him but set his instincts into full gear. Milkman is finally unsure and scared. These “feelings” finally help Milkman shed his selfish way of viewing the world. He is acute to his senses and begins to transform into a new person. Morrison writes: “Milkman began to shake with hunger. Real hunger, not the less than full feeling he was accustomed to, the nervous desire to taste something good. Real hunger.” (253). All throughout his search in the South, Milkman is being “hunted” like prey by Guitar. Milkman is acutely aware of his senses and begins to feel that he is being hunted. His hunger is an awakening. Morrison describes this “hunger” as something tangible, something missing, a hunger that must be fulfilled. Critic A. Leslie Harris describes the similarity between the hunter, Guitar and his prey, Milkman as “not so much Milkman’s opposite but his double, an extension of the very negations that Milkman has practiced” (74). No matter how much Milkman believes he is better and different than everyone else, his characterization is so similar all the other characters in Solomon. They are all unloved, uncaring, jaded, and deeply depressed. Milkman is the only one who is willing to escape this familial trait of The Dead family and escape like his great-grandfather, Solomon. He strives to be like Pilate, the only member of his family who seems truly happy and accepts her place in life.

Milkman begins to realize the only person who really had life figured out and happy is his aunt, Pilate. He begins to see her journey as his own and to conquer happiness and self-awareness, he must reenact Pilate’s journey. Morrison writes that Milkman “followed in her tracks” and this brings Milkman to Shalimar, Virginia. Milkman is tested once in Shalimar at Solomon’s General Store when he becomes unaware of his offensive remarks to the local men outside the store. His disregard for manners, feelings, and opinions is incoherent and he is quickly schooled in the “way” of the South. The men outside the store are weary of this “city” stranger and become suspicious of his arrival in Shalimar. After he learns of Guitar’s arrival in Shalimar, Milkman is upset and uncaring. He is beginning to slowly unravel and becomes weary of his search for identity. As Milkman observes the townspeople, he sees Pilate’s resemblance in each one of them. He observes the women and longs to “curl up in a cot in that one’s arms, or that one, or that” (Morrison 263). He sees Pilate in each of these women and fanaticizes what a younger Pilate must have looked like here in Shalimar. He craves love, warmth, and affection from these “real” women, these “real” people of Shalimar. As he sits idly watching the townsfolk, Milkman hears a song some children nearby are singing and becomes interested in the “ring-around-the-rosy or Little Sally Walker game” they are playing (Morrison 264). This is where Morrison’s use of The Flying Africans myth becomes more prominent within the novel. The song contains familiar words from the myth. The song goes:

Jay the only son of Solomon

Come booba yalle, come booba tambee

Whirl about and touch the sun

Come booba yalle, come booba tambee…

Milkman is intrigued yet saddened by the song and quickly recalls how in childhood he “never played like that as a child. As soon as he got up off his knees at the window sill, grieving because he could not fly, and went off to school, his velvet suit separated him from the other children” (Morrison 264). He recalls his alienation as a child and remembers his immediate alienation from the other children due to his caste in life. The song evokes a “feeling” within Milkman of comfort and wonder he never knew as a child. The song is reminiscent of The Flying Africans myth and the “magic” words “Come booba yalle” are similar in both versions of the myth. Once he remembers his alienation, he snaps out of his depressed state and begins to inquire about a woman to one of the local men near the General Store. He is quickly challenged and coerced into a fight after offending the local men of Shalimar. Once all is forgiven, Milkman is invited to go hunting with some of the men. This becomes an important part of his journey as he is “shed” of his city clothes and put into Army fatigues for the hunt. Milkman is moving past the alienation he feels at home and his eyes begin to open to the “magic” of the South, where his ancestors were from. The stripping of his clothes is a metaphorical way of stripping his false identity. Once he hunts with the other men, he is becomes one of them and one with nature.  He is becoming his own man.

            Morrison packs most of the plot within Part II of the novel and we see Milkman is able to solve the “riddle” of his family’s past but is still being hunted by Guitar. Harris describes Guitar’s murder attempt in the woods as his “total commitment to death” and “is the only logical extension of Milkman’s constant attempts to fly away. Milkman’s childlike wish for flight becomes a possible reality after he figures out The Song of Solomon was about his own ancestors.  After hearing of his own great-grandfather, Solomon’s flight, he is willing to find out the true “magic words” to make this happen for himself. The Song of Solomon Milkman hears the children singing will free him at last. Morrison writes about Milkman’s elation: “He could fly! You hear me? My great granddaddy could fly! Goddam!”...The son of a bitch could fly! You hear me, Sweet? That motherfucker could fly! Could fly! He didn’t need no airplane. Didn’t need no fucking tee double you ay. He could fly his own self!” (329). Milkman’s elation signals he will be free at last! The Song of Solomon has liberated him and he has found his gold.

            Morrison builds up the suspense in the final scene of the novel in which Milkman has traveled back to the city to bring Pilate back to Shalimar for her father’s bones. The past is put to rest but there is still some unfinished business lurking about for Milkman. Morrison reunites the only two people that Milkman respected and loved Pilate and Guitar, in the final scene. This final scene is both poignant and dramatic. After learning the story his ancestor’s Song of Solomon, Milkman is an exhilarated and hopeful. He believes that his own fight is inevitable. When Guitar kills Pilate, Milkman’s undeniable love for Pilate is finally realized. Morrison describes Milkman’s realization: “Now he knew why he loved her so. Without ever leaving the ground, she could fly. “There must be another one like you,” he whispered to her. “There’s got to be at least one more woman like you.” (336).The most emotional scene in the novel is not seen until the last page and is completely ambiguous about Milkman’s future.  After Pilate’s death, Milkman is hopeful in his ability to fly. After learning Pilate flew without ever leaving the ground, he realizes he must leave the ground in order to be free. Milkman is faced with a “final” battle with Guitar to end his journey and fulfill his true destiny. His journey is not over. He realizes after letting go of his past, he can finally fly “home.” Milkman remembers what his friend/enemy told him about letting go of everything that is holding him down and flight is possible. Morrison describes Milkman’s final words: “As fleet and bright as a lodestar he wheeled toward Guitar and it did not matter which one of them would give up his ghost in the killing arms of his brother. For now he knew what Shalimar knew; if you surrendered to the air, you could ride it” (337). Critics have argued about the final scene and whether Milkman and Guitar kill each other or does Milkman actually commit suicide. The question of suicide is prevalent in examining The Flying Africans myth but is should be left to the reader’s interpretation. It is not important to know what happens in the end only that Milkman finally flies. Morrison’s reluctant hero is free of his former life and all its disappointments. Now Milkman realizes he can fly if he surrenders any fear or reluctance. He takes the leap and discovers who he really is. He is a man filled with knowledge of his family’s past and this knowledge lessens his inner constraints. Milkman never found the “literal gold” that set him on his journey but Morrison does a wonderful job in allowing Milkman to find his ancestral story. This knowledge is worth all the gold in the whole world. Milkman realizes this and becomes another part of his family’s legend and tradition. Milkman’s journey is complete in what Joseph Campbell describes in The Power of Myth as a “death and resurrection” (152). Campbell describes this journey as “leaving one condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature condition” (152). Milkman leaves with a rich knowledge of his ancestors and becomes a willing participant in his eventual “flight.” Milkman succeeds in fulfilling his destiny and if finally free. He no longer has to participate as a “forced participant” in his family’s repressed way of life. Morrison successfully recreates the myth and allows flight to be more believable and natural than supernatural. 

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph, and Bill D. Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988. Print.

Hamilton, Virginia, Leo Dillon, and Diane Dillon. The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. New York: Knopf, 1985. Print.

Harris, Leslie A. “Myth as Structure in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.” MELUS, Ethnic Women Writers I, 7.3 (Autumn 1980): 69-76. JSTOR. Web. 27 September 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/467029.

Harris, Trudier. Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison. Knoxville: U of Tennessee Press, 1991. Print.

Lee, Dorothy H. “Song of Solomon: To Ride the Air.” Black American Literature Forum, 16.2. (Summer 1982): 64-70. JSTOR. Web. 27 September 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904138.

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. Print.

Walters, Wendy A. “One of Dese Mornings, Bright and Fair,/ Take My Wings and Cleave De Air”: The Legend of the Flying Africans and Diasporic Consciousness.” MELUS, Varieties of Ethnic Criticism, 22.3. (Autumn 1997): 3-29. JSTOR. Web. 27 September 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/467652.