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

Transformation of Milkman in Toni Morrisons birdcall of SolomonIn Toni Morrisons Song of Solomon, the character of Milkman gradually learns to respect and to listen to women. This essay will regard Milkmans transformation from boy to man. In the first part of the novel, he emulates his father, by being deaf to womens wisdom and womens needs, and casually disrespecting the women he should most respect. He chooses to stray 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 engagement for equality with men and then with women, he begins to find his inheritance, which is knowing what it is to fly, non gold. At the end, he acts with kindness and reciprocity with Pilate, learning from her wisdom and pass judgment his responsibilities to women at last. By accepting his true inheritance from women, he becomes a man, who loves and respects women, who knows he 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. tear down when he is 31, he still needs both his father and his aunt to get him off the scrapes he gets into. Milkman considers himself Macon, Jr., calling himself by that name, and believing that he can non act independently (120). The first lesson his father teaches him is that ownership is everything, and that womens knowledge (specifically, Pilates knowledge) is not useful in this world (55). He is blind to the Pilates wisdom. When Pilate tell Rebas devotee 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 hope for her wanes. Milkmans experience 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 blouse and smiles (92), just as his mother did (13). Milkmans desire for his mothers milk disappears before she lucre milking him, and when Freddie discovers the situation 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.