Names in Song of Solomon

Through the novel Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison names are given a lot of attention. The main character Milkman's official name is Macon Dead after his father who was named after his father. However, Milkman's grandfather was named by a drunk, white Union soldier who mistakes his responses to questions about where he lives and his family as his name - Macon Dead. In the novel, most people do not go by their given name, but rather by nicknames. Each person's given name tells a story. Milkman was named after he was seen being breastfed at a older age than is normal. Guitar was named because as a child he always wanted to learn to play the guitar. In the 1800s when slavery was legal, many plantation owner gave the slaves on their land names. However, many had different names they went by in their own communities. Being renamed was an act of rebellion against the oppression they faced. Learning the name of his grandfather, marked a shift in Milkman. Names are tied very closely to roots. Many people today have names that they share with older relatives. By learning his grandfather's true name, Milkman seems to almost be liberated. His father is so caught up in wanting to be white, he accepts his name that originated from a white man and never questions it. Milkman learning about his roots and his family's names allows him to escape from his father's influence and his father's internalized racism.

Flight in Song of Solomon

It seems as though everyone's childhood fantasy is to fly. Whether it's emulating Marry Poppins by jumping of steps with an umbrella or pretending to be their favorite flying super hero, children love the idea of flight. As we get older, we never truly abandon this fantasy. Instead, it seems to morph into something more practical. We search for feelings that make it seem as though we are flying. In Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, the main character Milkman Dead is no different. His life seems to be centered about flight, which is somewhat ironic as for the first part of the novel he had never left his hometown before. His mother went into labor as a man tried to attempt flight and failed. As a child he is heartbroken when he learns he cannot fly in the literal sense. However, readers see in the novel that Milkman's desire to fly is really a desire to escape. He feels trapped and restricted by his family and his town. Milkman does manage to escape both, but his flight from his hometown mimics that of Solomon. Milkman hears the story of Solomon who flew away from slavery. However, he had a wife and twenty one children he left behind. His wife is unable to cope without her husband and goes insane. Back in his hometown, the woman who loves Milkman dies of a broken heart. Morrison draws attention to the miracle of flight but also the emotional pain that surrounds it. One cannot escape without leaving something or someone behind and hurt.

Poetry

Poetry may be one of the most difficult literary words to define. In modern literature, the definition of poetry is somewhat fluid. There are no specific parameters set forth for poetry. It does not need to rhyme, have a certain number of lines, or use meter. Poetry simply must make its audience feel something. The problem with defining poetry is trying to distinguish the difference between a poem and prose. When you think about it, prose should also make its readers feel something. For me, the difference is the intensity. Prose is a marathon while a poem is a 100-meter sprint. You feel like you’re going to be sick after both of them, but how you reach that feeling is very different for the two races. Poetry is the same way. In prose, readers take their time getting acquainted with emotions that work evokes in them. It takes time and patience. In poetry, readers are affronted by emotion. I think the reason people avoid poetry is they are scared of it. They are scared partly because poetry can be hard to read sometimes. It requires some extra effort to understand the meaning of a work. I think the fear also comes from the emotion. Sometimes people just want to avoid their emotions, and poetry will not let you do that. It’s pretty much the whole point of poetry.

Toni Morrison and Universal Writing

“I felt that nobody wrote about those black people the way I knew those people to be. And I was aware of that fact, that it was rare. Aware that there was an enormous amount of apology going on, even in the best writing. But more important than that, there was so much explanation…the black writers always explained something to somebody else. And I didn’t want to explain anything to anybody else! …If I could understand Emily Dickinson—you know, she wasn’t writing for a black audience or a white audience; she was writing whatever she wrote! I think if you do that, if you hone in on what you write, it will be universal…not the other way around!”

Historically, writing has been highly charged with tensions surrounding race and gender.  Women in the 19^th century were confined to only reading the Bible or “more feminine works of literature” such as poetry. Slaves were forbidden to learn how to read or write in many of the colonies. Beyond the physical act of reading and writing, all literature by its very nature approaches race and gender in some form – even if not intended so by the author. Every time one opens a novel or begins an essay, he or she is reading a story or an idea written by an author who consciously and subconsciously is guided by the experiences he or she has had and the biases he or she has been socialized into having. What I find interesting about Toni Morrison is that she approaches race and gender in her writing not from an emotional viewpoint but from an inquisitive one. In an interview with the Paris review, Morrison responded to the question of whether she wrote to discover her feelings towards a subject with, “No, I know how I feel… A book is ‘this may be what I believe, but suppose I am wrong . . . what could it be?’ Or, ‘I don’t know what it is, but I am interested in finding out what it might mean to me, as well as to other people,’” (Morrison, “Toni Morrison, The Art of Fiction No. 134”).  I think this is what makes Morrison’s work universal. It invites all people to read her work. It is educational but also not rigid in its lesson. Her work provokes thought and self-exploration. She forces readers to recognize their own beliefs and question why a story makes them feel they way they do. Are they uncomfortable? Sad? Confused? Angry? Readers all experience some form of emotion when they read, at least when reading good literature. So, as readers, it is our responsibility to acknowledge these emotions and explore what they mean about how we view ourselves in the context of our sole selves paired with in the greater context of society. 

Women in Song of Solomon

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon explores the complex status of women in multiple aspects of the world. With the characters of Ruth, Pilate, Reba, Hagar, First Corinthians, and Magdalene called Lena, readers witness the oppression of women within their families, the broader community, and society as a whole. Morrison approaches gender by incorporating characters that not only face sexism but also break societal expectations of females. Ruth for example is expected to be a home keeper, yet has absolutely no domestic skills. Milkman believes his mom is not happy because she is too serious. Perhaps it is his selfishness or naiveté (and maybe partly his Y-chromosome), but it does not occur to Milkman that the reason his mother is depressed could be because she is trapped in an unhappy marriage with an abusive husband and forced to cook, clean, and care for a family that treats her as though she does not exist. While Pilate is not expected to keep a home in the traditional sense like Ruth, she also faces oppression from the community. Throughout history, older, unmarried women are treated as taboo. They often are characterized as witch-like. Pilate has this same magical sense to her. She has no naval and because of this, many people are scared of her. Society is threatened by women who do not have a “dominant” force in their life. Pilate has no man that she is expected to be submissive to. This freedom scares many of the male characters in the novel. I wonder how the novel and the characters’ feelings and treatment towards Pilate would change if she were a male? Would she still be an outsider and treated poorly by the townspeople, or would her eccentricities simply be accepted as part of her character?

Modern Poetry

What defines poetry? I think most people would agree that poetry is an art form. If done correctly, it evokes in its readers a very emotional response. Poems can make you laugh, cry, and reflect. When poetry was first written many centuries ago, poets followed a set of unspoken rules to compose their works. Many had a strong rhyme scheme and conveyed a clear message. In today's digital world, the meaning of poetry is transforming. Modern poets rarely use rhyme or meter and are completely redefining the rules of acceptable poetry. With this modern poetry come some positives and negatives. These new versions allow a greater freedom for poets and some really stunning poems have been born with this new wave of poetry. However, I fear that these new rules also set up the world for some truly terrible poetry. Now, I will be the fist to admit that I have no poetic talent. I love poetry but hate writing it. I can sympathize with these terrible works because to be quite honest I've probably written a few myself. What I'm really concerned about is the reaching to define poetry. Poetry should not be a catch all term. It should not simply define everything they does not fall under a novel, essay, short story, or play. It need parameters. I love some modern poetry. Many of my friends received copies of Milk and Honey or Chasers of Light  as their holiday present from me. Yet I worry about people who consider a 140 character tweet to be a poem. It is not the length that concerns, but rather the effort put into those 140 characters. Poetry takes time and thought, and at the end of the day, poetry really just takes emotion. We are losing emotion across all aspects of our lives in the modern world, and it is imperative that poetry does not follow this pattern.

Response to Telling Is Listening: Ursula K. Le Guin on the Magic of Real Human Conversation

There is nothing more comforting than hearing a really great narrator tell a great story. I love to read and get lost in various books, but I believe that by simply reading the words on a page, we loose so much from an experience. I will admit that I am a visual learner. I have difficulty only hearing something and fully comprehending it. I need to read it as well. So while I love listening to a book on tape, I need the physical book there in front of me. However, the most magical experience is hearing an author speak the words he or she spent countless hours pouring his or her soul into. My freshman year I had the opportunity to go see Hillary Clinton on her book tour for Hard Choices. I am not claiming, on any level, that Hillary Clinton is a literary genius, but by hearing the inflections in her voice as she read and where she paused and chose not pause, the book had a new life to it. Novels, essays, and poems, when written well, evoke strong emotions in readers, but there is a reason that most people are more likely to cry while listening to these pieces of writing rather than just reading them. The human voice creates emotion. Everyday when I come home from school and tell my mother that my day was just “fine,” she can tell by how I say that one simple word how my day actually was.

We are connected by words. As Le Guin puts it, “The living response has enabled that voice to speak. Teller and listener, each fulfills the other’s expectations. The living tongue that tells the word, the living ear that hears it, bind and bond us in the communion we long for in the silence of our inner solitude,” (Telling Is Listening: Ursula K. Le Guin on the Magic of Real Human Conversation). A conversation is very much like a partnered dance. You have to stand on your own two feet and control your own body, but the two partners must also be one single mechanism moving together in sync. This weekend I went to the Annapolis Film Festival and watched the screening of Alive and Kicking, a documentary about swing dancing. One of the dancers explained that you cannot choreograph a swing dance because you never know what song you will be dancing to, whether it be at a competition or just the local hub for dancing. Instead, the leader and the follower must work together. The leader always thinking ahead about the next move and how to get his or her partner there, and the follower always reacting to the leader. A conversation is basically the same. The speaker is the leader and the listener is the follower. However, in a conversation, the roles frequently are being reversed.  Sadly in today’s world it seems as though conversations are becoming more like monologues. In a highly charged political climate, many simply state their own views and opinions and rarely listen to what others actually have to say. This immediately severs that bond of speaker and listener and effectively ends the possibility of understaning and compromise. I think its time we all stop only listening to what we want to hear and engage once again in dancing with words with all types of people. It may not be comfortable, but change never is.