A Lacanian Interpretation Of Milkman In Song Of Solomon

Toni Morrison, one of the most famous novelists in contemporary American literature, is the first African American female writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in1993. Rooted in African American’s history and reality, Morrison’s works explore the spirits and fates of the blacks. She is a productive writer. Her third novel Song of Solomon, which is her only novel that has a male protagonist, is about the growth of a black young man Milkman.In light of Jacques Lacan’s subject theory, this thesis makes an analysis of Milkman’s psychological growth, which is the process of the formation of his subject. Through the three stages:the "Real Order", the "Imaginary Order" and the "Symbolic Order", a clear clue of his psychological growth is presented. From a selfish, coldness black young man with a whitened heart to an inheritor of African tradition and culture, Milkman defines his identity as a member of black community, and he finally forms his subject and finishes his growth, both in physical and psychological sense. By the novel, Morrison gives African American people a direction that only ground in American reality and inherit African tradition and culture, can they realize the real development and obtain freedom.