Hardships In Black People's Initiation

Toni Morrison is the first black woman writer who wins the Novel Prize for literature in American literary history. Song of Solomon, her third novel, is the only one of her up-to-now publications with a black male protagonist. Through the depiction of the initiation process of several characters, Morrison reveals the living situation of blacks in the white mainstream culture. From a cultural orphan with inauthentic name to a successor of traditional black culture and from the loss of humanity to the awakening of it, Milkman finds out his identity and goes to maturity. But Macon, because of pursuing power gained from property, goes to nihility; Pilate goes to death and Guitar becomes a cold-hearted murderer. Through the traditional genre of Bildungsroman, Song of Solomon provides a panorama of black people's initiation, in which readers can vicariously sense the hardships the characters have experienced and learn necessary qualities a whole human being needs.