Searching For The Way Of Survival

Black feminist literature, as the product of feminism and the Black Liberation movement in America, began to rise in the early seventies of the 20^th century. A group of black women writers have played an important role in the literary circles with distinctive and remarkable features. Toni Morrison(1931⁾ranks among the most highly regarded and widely read fiction writers and cultural critics in the history of African American literature. She has been compared to the classic white authors: William Faulkner, James Joyce, Thomas Hardy, and others. Throughout her fictions she uses narrative forms to restate black historical experience and express the classic of African American culture.Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison's third novel in an increasingly varied and rich body of work, is a remarkable narrative, and it is perhaps one of the most challenging texts that Toni Morrison has yet produced. Since its publication in 1977, Song of Solomon has enthusiastically received and widely reviewed. It was the subject of much critical attention and ranked among the most frequent taught of Morrison's novels before the publication of Beloved in 1987. It is a complex novel with an unresolved ending which has been understood from several different perspectives, such as a biblical allegory, a detective novel, and a young man's search for his roots.My paper consists of five parts, with three chapters coming between the introduction and the conclusion. These three chapters elaborately unfold the. transformation of the protagonist Milkman from a passive irresponsible ignorance to an active, authentic participation in the process of searching for the black culture. Chapter One examines Milkman's mental alienation and isolation in his natal community. The Dead family exemplifies the patriarchal nuclear family that has traditionally been a stable and critical feature not only of American society but also of Western civilization in general. Born in a sheltered privileged life, Milkman grows up to be an egotistical young man. He lacks compassion, wallows in self-pity; he lives aimlessly and considers life boring and meaningless. Because of the different values of his father Macon Dead and his mother Ruth, he feels suffocated in such a family atmosphere. Thus he begins to find a way for himself to escape from his parents' "fetter". Knowing Guitar explores a total different world to Milkman. Because of his sharp perspective, Guitar tells Milkman a lot of truth about life, race and society. His comment shocks Milkman's sleeping conscience. However, having grown up in poverty, after his father being killed by the whites, Guitar harbors a lifelong hatred for white people and believes that this way could eliminate all evil in the world. He is a committed member of the Seven Days, a group dedicated to killing the white people blindly in the name of loving the Blacks. Milkman who has a self-centered personality shows indifference to Guitar's revenge at the beginning and gradually is aware of the cruelty and violence of this way and feels fear about it. Another person in the novel who influences Milkman a lot is his aunt Pilate, Macon's younger sister. Born without a navel, Pilate is physically and psychologically unlike the novel's other characters, and provides a marked contrast to her brother Macon Dead. While Macon's love of property and money determines the nature and quality of his relationships, Pilate completely disregards status, occupation, and affirms spiritual values such as compassion, respect, loyalty, and generosity. However, Milkman despises his aunt Pilate when seeing her the first time and his ignorance of the Black culture shows that he cannot understand the Black culture heritage that Pilate stands for.Chapter Two focuses on Milkman's south quest and self-introspection during his journey. When Milkman first arrives in the South, he finds himself incompatible with the Black people there. But gradually the Danville people's esteem to Milkman's father arouses his pride and vanity, and their talks about his grandfather encourage him to discuss his family history. For the first time, Milkman gains a sense of family pride and at last understands the "link" between the black people in the North and South, between the people and the land, between the black community identity and their folk culture and history. During the hunting of Shalimar, Milkman undergoes death and life again. After that, he finds himself integrating into the community as a changed person with new status. He begins to love the land and the people living on it. Moreover, his love with the land leads to his final stage of the quest: the discovery that one could fly without even leaving the ground. Till now, the quest for gold becomes the searching for root. Milkman finds his family history, which initiates him into black folk's culture and allows him to redefine what it means to be a black man. He finds his family name, which is very important to the identity of the Blacks, and knows the secret of the Flying African. The return of family history is accompanied by the return of humanity. He begins to understand his parents whose "anaconda" love almost makes him suffocate. And he confesses his wrong treatment to Hagar and is responsible for her death. The change is shown later in the mutual understanding and respect between the relationship of Milkman and Sweet.Chapter Three discusses Milkman's deeper understanding of the ways that his father Macon Dead, his friend Guitar and his aunt Pilate have chosen. While pointing out the drawbacks of their ways, he transcends over the tradition and finds the way of survival for himself. After understanding his father, Milkman knows that his father Macon Dead is not a bad man, what he does is just to reestablish the paradise which was lost in his childhood, but as the time changes, his capitulation to white middle-class values ultimately fails to recreate the relationship of his family of origin. Guitar, by another means, tells Milkman unconsciously the devilishness and guilt of racialism in the name of love. His rage finds its most perfect outlet in the violent struggle of the Seven Days, but he is doomed in the context because of his refusal to "read" various kinds of historical values. His preoccupation with the "material" at the end of the novel complicates any notion of his life as a "pure" political life. Morrison points out that while Guitar's rage is justifiable, his murder of white people neither combat racism nor help the African-American community. Pilate, though having a strong will and independent spirit, is just a weak defender of African culture. The bones, the song and her earring signify the "memory" of Pilate's own childhood; however, they also symbolize the remove from the past of her family. She can reproduce her original family no more successfully than Macon can. She wants in dreams for messages from her dead father, but misreads it until corrected by her male descendant—Milkman. After refusing the three ways that people around him have chosen, Milkman flies to his friend Guitar, but he does not die at the hands of the hateful friend: he survives with his new knowledge. He has found the way of survival for himself and symbolically for all African Americans.In a word, Song of Solomon is a remarkable black literary work. Morrison not only preserves the traditional Afro-American folktales, folk wisdom, and general cultural beliefs, but also suggests that to adapt to the contemporary times, it needs to infuse the traditional beliefs with "new information" and only through integrating the two successfully can the African Americans protect and develop the Black culture better. The innovation of my paper exists in its attempt to present an overall and objective point of view to demonstrate the real meaning of the open-ending novel—that is, to inform the Afro-American readers of "how to behave in this new world" through the initiation of Milkman, thereby providing readers a new perspective for the comprehension of Song of Solomon.