Toya T. Mares

The Rise of Conscientization: Literary Analysis Journal

on Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon

Introduction

As an extension of the mid-term assignment, this Minority Literature Research Journal will further explore the cultural issue of Aimé Césaire’s theory of bovarisme (a form of false consciousness) as a development leading into W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness, ultimately resulting in Paulo Freire’s theory of conscientization (critical consciousness) and the myriad ways this complexity presents an on-going problem within the Black body as it continues to struggle with the “minority dilemma”; further, I will utilize the text, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, for contextual evidence of this phenomenon as evidenced through the “minority voice.”

During the process of re-orienting myself with Milkman’s story, I began to realize that through the text, I was witnessing a multiplicity of consciousness embedded and threaded throughout Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Particularly, bovarisme (false consciousness), double consciousness, and conscientization: each overlapping one another and yet, each materializing distinctly in and of itself. Therefore, I will demonstrate, through Milkman and his journey to self-discovery, how his life, as represented by the Black body, is initially firmly situated in Césaire’s bovarisme (false consciousness) which has emerged as a direct result of initially being cut-off from his ancestral heritage as his family sought to fully assimilate into a distinctly white Americanized way of life. Then, moving into Du Bois’ double consciousness as Milkman realizes that he must choose between the world that his father has prepared for him and the world in which Pilate, Guitar and his many acquaintances inhabit. But, with the realization of the true costs of such a decision, Milkman begins to experience an awakening which Paulo Freire called conscientization (critical consciousness). And it is this transcendence of the agonizing contradictions inherent in double consciousness that allows Milkman to let go and fly free in the end. But, in order to understand how this all plays out within the literature, it is first important to have a working definition of each.

Beginning with Aimé Césaire’s concept of bovarisme, I sought to get a deeper understanding of its origins. Césaire spoke of bovarisme and its damaging effect on the psyche of his fellow Martinicians (he is from the country of Martinique) in an interview with renowned Haitian poet, Rene Depestre. In this 1967 interview, included in an updated edition of Discourse on Colonialism (1955), Césaire describes the beginnings of a collective “awareness of the solidarity among Blacks… from different parts of the world…Africans… Guianans, Haitians, North Americans, Antilleans, etc.” (88). This is important because it demonstrates Césaire’s attempt to bridge the colonizing experience of the Black body in its entirety, a worldwide collective and as an extension to this thought, making the bovaristic phenomenon collective also. He further spoke of the devastating effect of the “politics of assimilation unrestrainedly” due to the overwhelming belief of inferiority of all that is ‘African’(88). Césaire believed there was a systematic, imperialist-sponsored agenda to squelch the barbarian within, thus the colonizing forces denounced the utter vulgarities of African culture while simultaneously cultivating a singular means of uplift, French (or European) culture.

 In consideration of this knowledge, I first found the French philosopher Jules de Gaultier.  de Gaultier coined the term ‘bovarisme’ in his 1902 publication, Le Bovarysme. Although I could not find an English translation of the work, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought provided a reference to it and a working definition which states that bovarisme is “the tendency to see oneself as other than one is, and to bend one’s vision of other persons and things to suit this willed metamorphosis” (167). In other words, there is a false notion of one’s reality which is further exacerbated by the distortion of one’s environment. de Gaultier was adamant that bovarisme could manifest itself both positively and negatively; but, in deference to the multitude of experiences and the ongoing scholarship of his colleagues in the field, he acknowledges that collective bovarisme was indeed a negative manifestation, in addition to which it is stated, “[t]he bovarysm of collectivities was, for Gaultier, most visible in the interface of conqueror and conquered, in what one might call the psychology of colonialism” (168).  This phenomenon of collective bovarisme, as a manifestation resulting from the impact of colonialism on the conquered, would come to be studied further by others.

A noted colleague in the field, Jean Price-Mars would eventually expand upon this notion of collective bovarisme. In fact, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought further notates, “The term bovarysm was first adapted to the mentality of a specific colonized population in 1928 by the Haitian ethnographer Jean Price-Mars” (168). The ‘colonized population’ to which Price-Mars referred was the Haitian population and the unique situation that his countrymen faced. It was Price-Mars’ belief that there

… was a disconcerting paradox that… Haitians persisted in trying to imitate the former French metropolis… even though the Haitian heritage included the stunningly original and moving history of the Haitian revolution… (168)

 Léon Dénius Pamphile concurs with Price-Mars in his article, Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of Tragedy and Hope, “that this misperception had led Haitians to believe that they were ‘colored French’ and bound them to servile imitation of French ideas, literature, and customs” thus Price-Mars “challenged his countrymen to accept themselves for what they are… embracing their culture and African past” (138). For Price-Mars understood the devastating effects of the colonized mind.

 Indeed, it was in his interview with Césaire that the Haitian poet, Depestre, too mentions the refusal of Haitians to accept their African heritage as he states, “[t]here is an entire Haitian pseudo-literature, created by authors who allowed themselves to be assimilated;” he remonstrates the country’s first authors following independence for “attack[ing]… the French presence in [Haiti]… but… not attack[ing] French cultural values with equal force;” it is for this reason Depestre, like Price-Mars, further contends that “[t]hey did not proceed toward a decolonization of their consciousness” (89). Depestre believed, much like those that came before, that it was vital that his countrymen critically consider the widespread dissemination of distinctly Eurocentric cultural values that had been foisted upon his people, to their detriment. And it is this belief that pervades Césaire’s thinking on the subject of bovarisme. But it is equally vital to delve further into the reasons that may underlie this affectation of consciousness.

Rooted in the spirit of uplift, wherein the mission entails raising the barbarian up from vulgarity to civility, there is a campaign of Eurocentric-centered xenophobic indoctrination and socialization with regard to the Black body. In effect, this ‘white-washing’ of the Black body leads to an innate desire to imitate whiteness. As a result of this generational ethnic oppression, mental and physical enslavement and material depravation, the Black body may surmise that the only logical means of rising above this interminable condition is to cease ‘being’ and ‘become’ – that is, to cease ‘being’ Black and all that this derogatory condition entails and to ‘become’ White and all that this positive condition affords. In support of this disheartening reality, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought, additionally notates Price-Mars’ reference to French sociologist and social psychologist, Gabriel de Tarde’s theory of imitativeness wherein Tard

“revealed that the charge of… ‘bovarystic’ imitativeness was used against colonized peoples in two different, but equally constraining ways. On the one hand, the imitative rather than inventive response of the colonized to the colonizer’s culture was taken as a sign of a subordinate nature… On the other hand, cultures that were considered… to be ‘impermeable’…, resisting assimilation to Western imperialist social reason, were encoded as ‘primitive.’” (168)

On either side of the equation, the result of this delusional decree is devastating and the desire to imitate whiteness at the cost of the loss of the self equally tragic. For it must be understood that the colonized either comes to hate oneself when viewed as ‘primitive’ or both hate oneself (because the taint of barbarism is never completely washed away due to the fact that the blackness associated with the primitive state is always already present) due to this determination of inferiority and wholly embraces a Eurocentric sense of identity which in the presence of the embodiment of Eurocentrism denies acceptance of the ‘other’ on this very same basis.

It is this rich body of knowledge to which Césaire so eloquently refers in his interview with Depestre as he recalls the pride one of his countrymen took in the knowledge that he had so successfully assimilated into French culture that there was no evidence of him being “a man of color” in his writing, to which Césaire emphatically contends, “[o]ur struggle was a struggle against alienation… [they] were ashamed of being Negroes” and he later goes on to say, “[Black people] lived in an  atmosphere of rejection, and… developed an inferiority complex;” and it is in this space that the Black body develops this false notion of bovarisme for a want of acceptance (89, 91). But, at what cost? The loss of the self for the gain of an illusory acceptance? And, acceptance into what? A community which rewards xenophobia to the point of physical and mental self-flagellation, and ultimately death, death of the self? It is this struggle that the author Toni Morrison, the minority voice, exposes in her novel Song of Solomon through Milkman’s experiences.

          Morrison provides a mirror to display many aspects of Milkman’s consciousness for the reader. That mirror is often the dialogue that takes place between Milkman and others. In this particular instance, it is a conversation with his best friend, Guitar. Guitar gives an excellent example of the collective bovarisme that he believes runs rampant within the Black community through a metaphorical reference to tea. Having asked for a cup of tea, Milkman is subjected to what Guitar calls a “geography lesson” commencing with the interjection – “Bet you thought tea grew in little bags… Like Louisiana cotton… All over India… Bushes with little bitsy white tea bags blossoming. Right?” (127). Guitar strives to give Milkman a comparative glance at the world as he himself understands it. He knows that whether it occurs here in the United States or on the other side of the world, in India, it is the bent back of the Black body that provides the labor for this luxury that Milkman has requested. Continuing on with his ‘lesson’ Guitar explains, “… I live in the North now. So the first question come to mind is north of what?... north exists because the South does… does that mean North is different from South?…” (127). Moving the conversation or ‘lesson’ in this way, Guitar provides context for what will come next.

Guitar wants Milkman to try to take a step back so that he can get a broader view of the world around him and not merely of his own personal experience. Once Guitar has opened the lens wide, he tunnels back down as he continues on by stating that,

 … there is some slight difference worth noticing, Northerners, for example – born and bred ones, that is – are picky about their food. Well, not about the food. They actually don’t give a shit about the food. What they’re picky about is the trappings. You know what I mean? The pots and shit. Now, they’re real funny about pots. But tea? They don’t know Earl Grey from old man Lipton’s instant. (127-128)

Guitar stresses what he believes to be the preferential treatment that ‘trappings’ are given over the substance that is contained within because he knows the reason for this is due largely in part to the need for the Black body to imitate what it sees as it strives for acceptance. As such is the case, all rationale is lost in the process. The quality of the tea should override the desire to have the tea in a particular kind of pot but he notes that they often do not know the difference between the teas mentioned; they only know that is should be served in a ‘nice’ pot because this is what they have witnessed in their interactions with whites.

The Black body was not privy to those intimate educational moments when such a thing as the quality of tea would have been explained; therefore, one is merely imitating what one sees. In fact, Guitar continues on derisively, “Old man Lipton dye him up some shredded New York Times and put it in a cute little white bag and northern Negroes run amok. Can’t contain themselves… How they love them little white bags” (128). Those ‘little white bags’ represent the embodiment of Césaire’s collective bovarisme: the Black body’s failed attempt to ingratiate itself into a culture to which it was neither invited nor accepted in lieu of creating something of quality and substance within its own. This is the reason Guitar declares they do not know the difference between the teas or many other aspects of so-called ‘polite’ white society to which the Black body seemed to so desperately desire to imitate. Rather than learn to appreciate the many cultural contributions that they themselves possess and have to offer to the collective in the name of social uplift, they consciously choose to discard their own cultural heritage in the hopes of donning another’s, all the while failing to realize that they too have substantive cultural traditions to offer at the table of cultural exchange.

Much of the reason for Milkman’s illusion about his and his family’s life that Guitar tries to articulate in the story about the white tea bags stem from the disconnectedness that Milkman experiences in the family’s home. For most of the story, Milkman has no real knowledge of his family’s past, save the snippets that he gets from his mother and father, and eventually from his aunt, Pilate. Macon Dead, Milkman’s father, has, for reasons unknown to Milkman at the time, chosen to live his life with no familial attachments, other than his wife and children.  Much like so many European immigrants that have come to America leaving their past lives behind, Macon Dead came to Michigan leaving his past behind him, at least until his sister, Pilate, shows up and even then he only tolerates her for a short time before banning her from his home and life. Much like those European immigrants, Macon Dead builds a prosperous life for himself, although this he does within the confines of the Black community. But, many within the community despise his efforts primarily because they believe that he is not much different from the white businessmen that make their living from capitalist exploitation that is always at the expense of the Black body. This is the legacy that Macon Dead is grooming his son, Milkman, to inherent, a life with no sense of community, a sheltered existence which is detached from the lived realities of so many others who live in fear of white violence, a lust for material attainment that has no regard for the Black body in its quest to imitate whiteness. This is the delusional reality to which Guitar so astutely refers in his tale of the little white tea bags.

But, there is no need to despair of Milkman’s degenerate condition for Morrison creates round characters that evolve and grow over time and Milkman is no exception. As Milkman moves away from the protective shelter of his family’s home and into the wider community, he begins to experience inner conflict through exposure to the realities of the world in which he lives. This inner conflict, W. E. B. Du Bois called double consciousness. However, before we consider Milkman’s experiences through the lens of double consciousness, we much first have a working definition with which we can base our analysis.

In his1903 publication, The Souls of Black Folk, historian and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois described the struggle of the Black body as a double consciousness. Du Bois defined this phenomenon as “[t]his sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (Du Bois 3). This inner conflict arises as a direct consequence of a deeply human need to belong. And yet, the begging question becomes – to belong to what? – Du Bois notes that it is “a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity,” the very society that is directly responsible for this sense of alienation, foreignness, and otherness to which the Black body is burdened. But what of the other side of this double consciousness? It is a side that is wrought with sameness and difference, history and suffering, love and hate, comfort and accusation. There is a constant battle that rages within to conform to the ruling hegemony which offers opportunity, prosperity, and brotherhood to all, but the Black body, who makes it to its shores or to comply with the forced designation of this ruling class which emphatically and unequivocally states that the Black body is, in perpetuity, somehow less, somehow insignificant, somehow “other”. Thus, to strive for either is inherently defeatist as it is marked by the capricious assignation of another. This dichotomy of either or, begging for acceptance into a society to which one has not been extended an invitation or acceptance of the relegation of one to the fringes of a society to which one has just as much at stake, each with a vastly different set of consequences, that the Black body struggles against.

To further our understanding of the theoretical condition of the Black body in concrete terms, Dickson D. Bruce, Jr., in the article, W.E.B. Du Bois and the Idea of Double Consciousness, offers support to Du Bois’ argument. From its onset, Bruce reminds the reader of Du Bois’ contention – that the Black body’s struggle against “a ‘two-ness’ of being ‘an American, a Negro; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder’” (299). Bruce provides a context for this ‘two-ness’ or double consciousness firmly rooted in the field of psychology, more widely known as a ‘split personality’. In addition to this, Bruce also found that the possible origins of the phenomenon may be traced back to Transcendentalism, Emerson in particular, with his notions of the realities of the life lived in contrast to the greater pursuits of the soul (300). According to Bruce’s research, both the field of psychology and Emersonian Transcendentalism had spoken of double consciousness in many respects for more than seventy-five years but neither had examined it in consideration of the racial dilemma inherent in the presence of the Black body.

Thus, Du Bois, born shortly after Emancipation (1868, Great Barrington, Massachusetts) and a graduate of Harvard (where he studied sociology, economics and history) offered a fresh perspective on the theory of double consciousness when he expressed its applicability to the Black body. It is in this vein that Bruce further elaborates, “[f]or [Du Bois] the essence of double consciousness was its problematic character as a symptom of the difficulty that lay in the realization of any true self-consciousness, of any sense of self beyond the problematic sense conveyed in the dilemma as such” (306). Du Bois understood the burdensome reality that the Black body’s lived experience was one of objectification, barren and devoid of any true sense of personal-self in the eyes of the former master, and the on-going inner and external conflict that this state of awareness presents for the Black body deeply entrenched in this xenophobic society.

This burdensome reality is the beginning of understanding and as such, it is in Milkman’s mission to retrieve his father’s ‘bag of gold’ that Milkman moves from Césaire’s bovarisme to Du Bois’ double consciousness. The reader witnesses the beginnings of an altered state of consciousness when Milkman and Guitar break into Milkman’s aunt’s house to steal a bag that Macon Dead believes contains gold that she had stolen more than fifty years prior. Although the young men successfully retrieve the bag, they are stopped and searched by the police and when the bag is opened it is discovered that there is a human skeleton in it and they are taken in for questioning. This is Milkman’s first real interaction with the police and he is perplexed by the way the event unfurls. He asks his father, “What business they got stopping cars that ain’t speeding?” to which Macon Dead responds nonchalantly, “They stop anybody they want to. They saw you was colored, that’s all” (223). This is an interesting exchange because it demonstrates Milkman’s ignorance of the world around him while also showing his father’s understanding of that same world. Macon Dead goes on to tell his son, “If you’d been alone and told them your name they never would have hauled you in, never would have searched the car… They know me” (223). But Milkman challenges this when we tells his father that the police did not respond any differently until he had paid them to respond differently and even then it had not been the end of the matter because they had had to call Pilate to come and identify the bag (223). Although Milkman contests his father’s version of the events, at this point he still is not critically analyzing the underlying meaning which culminates in this particular racialized manifestation.

It would not be until the following day that Milkman would begin to understand and appreciate what had occurred the night before. When he is taking a bath the next day, he begins to feel ashamed of himself and his family, particularly his father and his aunt. The shame he feels “at seeing his father,” this larger than life figure “buckle before the policemen” is overwhelming; but, the narrator also makes the reader privy to the devastating sense of shame that Milkman experiences as he recalls how “he felt as he watched and listened to Pilate. Not just her Aunt Jemima act, but the fact that she was both adept at it and willing to do it – for him,” to which I might add that it had been necessary at all (229). This incident exposes the illusion that Milkman has been living with. It contrasts with the image Milkman has had of his father primarily because this is the first time that he has witnessed his father’s dealings with the white community. When interacting with the Black community, Macon Dead is treated with dignity and the respect, if not cool indifference. But in the zone of contact, the police station, Milkman sees his father cower before the rule of white law. Moreover, it is then revealed that Milkman was crushed by his own actions, stealing what he believed to be his aunt’s inheritance, for

[i]t was this woman, whom he would have knocked senseless, who shuffled into the police station and did a little number for the cops – opening herself up wide for their amusement, their pity, their scorn, their mockery, their disbelief, their meanness, their whimsy, their annoyance, their power, their anger, their boredom – whatever would be useful to her and to himself. (229)

This moment is the first time in the story that  Milkman  shows concern for anyone other than himself. This is also the first time that he questions the veracity and the characteristics of his own actions.

          But it is in Milkman’s later conversation with Guitar that once again Morrison provides the mirror that exposes Du Bois’ double consciousness to which the Black body is subjected. In a seemingly unrelated conversation between the two, the topic turns to Milkman’s father, Macon Dead and his Aunt Pilate. Guitar tells Milkman, “He [Macon Dead] behaves like a white man, thinks like a white man” to which he further adds,

“[m]aybe you can tell me how, after losing everything his own father worked for to some crackers, after seeing his father shot down by them, how can he keep his knees bent?... And Pilate. She’s worse. She saw it too and, first, goes back to get a cracker’s bones for some kind of crazy self-punishment, and second, leaves the cracker’s gold right where it was! Now, is that voluntary slavery or not? She slipped into those Jemima shoes cause they fit” (243-244). 

Caught between what is perceived to be two evils, definitely two extremes, one taking on the very persona that one despises so much because it has always hurts the Black community and the other, a throwback to a degenerative condition which one believed one had eradicated, Guitar illuminates the deplorable state of the Black body in conflict.

But Du Bois was unwilling to believe that this state of double consciousness should be the final determiner or the ultimate fate of the life of the Black body. He named the condition to create an alternative sense of awareness and as Bruce notes, “Du Bois did propose a kind of resolution, at least for that double consciousness of “African” and “American” selves…, ‘to merge his double self into a better and truer self,’ losing ‘neither of the older selves’” (306). Therefore, Du Bois, then as now, challenges the Black body to transcend such condemnation, despite the crushing criticism of those outside forces. This transcendence into a ‘better and truer self’ to which Du Bois refers leads us to a working definition of  Paulo Freire’s theory of conscientization or critical consciousness.

The theory of conscientization or “critical consciousness” of the oppressed masses within a society was extensively developed by Brazilian educational theorist and social activist, Paulo Freire. Critical consciousness theorizes that to effectively work toward a more democratic and egalitarian society, one must first understand that society and its ubiquitous misconceptions that are systematically perpetuated to the detriment of the masses; and, Freire argues that one must also understand one’s own place within that society for “[a]s long as [one] live[s] in the duality in which to be is to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor,” there exists no prospect for liberation (Pedagogy of the Oppressed 48). In the words of Paulo Freire, “One can only know to the extent that one ‘problematizes’ the natural, cultural and historical reality in which s/he is immersed” (Education for Critical Consciousness, ix, Introduction). In other words, you have to understand it before you can ever begin to question it. It is this emergence of conscientization, the ability to “perceive social, political and economical contradictions” that enables one to “take action against the oppressive elements of” one’s society (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 35). Freire’s theory also serves to broaden understanding of the danger of succumbing to the “social structure” created and perpetuated by the dominant class in every community.

The critical consciousness stage is the active process of an emerging awareness of one’s own relevance and impact within one’s society: by determining to scratch beyond the surface of what seems to be, refusing to accept the status quo as dictated by others, remaining open to the possibility that one can be wrong in one’s own perception, owning the problems that so obviously are and having a willingness to work toward remedying them, all of this coupled with engagement in exploratory dialogue instead of quiet resignation or argument merely for the sake of argument – in other words, the evaluation, reflection and the call to action to challenge societal norms (Pedagogy of the Oppressed).

Much in keeping with Cesaire’s ‘struggle against alienation’ and Du Bois’ call to a ‘better and truer self’, Freire points out that it is the “people’s vocation” to strive toward humanization, “the emancipation of labor, for the overcoming of alienation,” and “for the affirmation of men and women as persons” (Oppressed 44).  As such, it becomes vital to overcome the iron fist of subjugation; but, Friere also makes clear that it is only those that are subjected to these violently oppressive forces that have reason to rectify it. There is no reason the oppressing power should alleviate the suffering of the vanquished. Therefore, the struggle against this powerful force and ultimately, the eradication of oppression, must begin with the oppressed. The onus is on the Black body to break the chains that bind. It is for this reason that one of the most important elements of the maintenance and preservation of domination has long been to obliterate any sense of ancestral history, culture and identity, including but not limited to forced name changes, refusal to acknowledge native languages, and  separation of families .

Equally, due to the uniqueness of the circumstances involving the displacement of the Black body through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the loss of its ancestral origins, it becomes paramount to hold on to the ancestral heritage that has been gained on these shores. This heritage endows the Black body with the strength and fortitude to withstand the forces that are constantly levied upon it. The history of small and large victories over oppressive forces galvanizes the Black body to perform the evaluation, reflection and the call to action to which Freire so articulately refers. And so it is for Milkman.

As Milkman discovers the truth about his family’s history, he moves toward a much deeper understanding of himself, toward conscientization. Part of this discovery occurs when Milkman goes in search of Circe so that he can find the cave in which his father believes the gold to be hidden. Many of the townspeople believe that Circe is dead; but, Milkman finds her in the house she had worked in for so many years. Circe shares with Milkman all she can remember of his father’s family. She tells him both his grandparents’ names, how they met, how in love they were, his Aunt Pilate’s birth, his grandfather’s murder, and Pilate’s return following the birth of her daughter. With the realization that he actually sat before the woman who had saved his father and his aunt’s lives, even at the risk of her own, Milkman offers to help her leave the old, abandoned, filthy mansion he found her in by trying to give her money. It is when he does this that Circe becomes “cold” towards him as she spits at him, “[y]ou think I don’t know how to walk when I want to walk?” to which a dialogue ensues, at the end of which Milkman ignorantly asks why she remains loyal despite the fact that the woman she worked for killed herself” (268). This exchange is particularly thought-provoking because it makes one wonder where Milkman’s mind can possibly be at this point. But, Circe commences to ‘schooling’ him on his willfully, self-imposed ignorance, not to mention arrogance, as she indignantly admonishes him –

“You don’t listen to people…I said she killed herself rather than do the work I’d been doing all my life!... She saw the work I did all her days and died, you hear me, died rather than live like me…If the way I lived and the work I did was so hateful to her she killed herself to keep from having to do it, and you think I stay on here because I love her, then you have about as much sense as a fart!” (268)

In this singular moment, Milkman is berated for his mental indolence. He has been so caught up in his own sheltered existence for so long that he cannot even begin to comprehend the existence that Circe has lived. He does not even bother to attempt to piece together what she is saying to him. This is precisely what Freire speaks of when he cautions against succumbing to the status quo in which so many social contradictions are always already apparent (Oppressed 35). How Milkman could ever surmise from their conversation that Circe would be ‘so loyal’ to a woman that, one, had been dead more years than she could count and, two, was so taken aback by the prospect of maintaining her own household that she would choose death rather than life, is a state of consciousness that adamantly refuses to critically consider the many harsh realities that are so often the burden of the Black body. But this encounter forces Milkman to view Circe’s life, and impending death, more critically.

          In addition to Milkman’s meeting with Circe, he also meets a distant relative, his second cousin Susan Byrd. When he finally has the opportunity to sit and talk with her, Susan Byrd will fill in many of the gaps that remained in his father’s family history and many connections will be made. Milkman learns a little about his great-grandparents, Ryna and Solomon/Shalimar and how a gulch and a town came to be named after them, each respectively. He finds out that he quite likely has many relatives in the area. And, he also learns the story of how his grandparents, Sing and Jake, met. This he is able to connect to their eventual deaths. But, more important than these individual experiences, it is collection of experiences – each one connected to each other, moving from himself backward, to his father and Pilate, his grandmother Sing and grandfather Jake, his great-grandparents, Ryna and Solomon, and Solomon’s ‘flight’ back to Africa – this discovery of all that had transpired to bring him, this one man, Milkman/Macon Dead, Jr. to this point in the here and now. There is the realization that he has a rich history, jam packed with “gossip, stories, legends, and speculations” that can neither be squelched nor simply ignored (348). This knowledge of his family’s history, the story of himself, forces Milkman to come to a new awareness of the world in which he lives. For the first time, he can truly see the interconnectedness of it all.

Conclusion         

It is this interconnectedness that leads Milkman and Pilate back to Shalimar. It is in this place that Pilate dies and Milkman flies away. Confronted with the same dilemma that the Black body so often faced in this time period, the reader comes to an intimate understanding of everything that Milkman has been battling against as he moves from one state of consciousness into another: first, bovarisme (false consciousness) – beginning with the insipidness of his life, Milkman begins to realize that the life he is living is not of his own making and not one that he would have chosen for himself; second, double consciousness – moving into the conflicting extremes of his father, Macon and his aunt, Pilate, the incomprehensibility of the community in which he lived, the veiled anger of sisters, the emptiness of his mother, Milkman comes to understand that there are conflicting realities against which the Black body struggles; and, finally conscientization – learning his family’s history, somehow it all comes together for him as he transgresses the boundaries that were so rigidly set before him. Milkman, transcending all of it, enters into a state of heightened critical awareness, conscientization. Milkman has learned to problematize his world. With this new and rich understanding, he begins to truly question what it means to live, really live and to let go and fly when he alone consciously chooses to do so. He is liberated by this emergence into critical consciousness. The ending to Milkman’s story, his flying away, is unfortunate because it is quite possible that he could have been a driving force for positive change within his own home and within the greater Black community with his new found awareness of himself and his ancestral past. But, despite the fact that I would not have chosen such an end for Milkman, it seems this is what true freedom is all about, the right to choose for one’s self. And it is this freedom to choose, whether it is how one will live or how one will die, that Toni Morrison so succinctly gives voice to.

Works Cited

Bruce, Jr., Dickson D. W.E.B. Du Bois and the Idea of Double Consciousness. American Literature, Volume 64, Number 2, June 1992. Duke University Press.

Césaire, Aimé. Discourse On Colonialism. New York, NY: Monthly Review Pr, 1972, 2000. Print.

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The Souls Of Black Folk. Bantam Classics, 1903, 2005. Print.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Freire, Paulo. Education for Critical Consciousness. London: Sheed and Ward, 1974. Print.

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