What are the seven days in Song of Solomon?
The Seven Days are a society of seven black men who, whenever a black man, woman, or child is murdered by a white person, reciprocate the murder by taking the life of a white person, killing him/her in a similar manner.
How did milkman die?
After realizing his quest for his identity is complete, Milkman decides to leap and “fly” through the air. In the final scene of Song of Solomon, Milkman triumphs in terms of finding his authentic self and achieving freedom, but ultimately dies.
What is the main theme of Song of Solomon?
Searching for identity
Why is Song of Solomon banned?
1998 – Maryland – Complaints to St Mary’s County schools referred to the novel as “filth,” “trash,” and “repulsive” and lead to challenges. A faculty committee recommended the book be retained, but the superintendent removed the book from the approved text list.
Who is sweet in Song of Solomon?
Sweet is the mystic lady of the night who lives in a cheery cabin in Shalimar. She takes Milkman in and shows him such sweetness and comfort that he truly feels he has died and gone to heaven. She bathes him, cleans and presses his clothes, sleeps with him, and cooks up delicious food.
What does milkman find in the cave?
When Milkman reaches the cave, all he finds inside are some boards and a tin cup. Milkman goes back to the highway and hitchhikes to the Danville bus station with a man named Fred Garnett.
Where does milkman go to hide from Hagar?
Guitar’s place
Who is Pilate Song of Solomon?
Born without a navel and alienated from others, Pilate is a survivor of the same racism that has embittered Macon Jr. and Milkman. Pilate is nevertheless loving and selfless. Her one regret when dying is that she could not have loved more people.
What is the setting of Song of Solomon?
Michigan
Why does Hagar die?
However, when Hagar returns home from shopping, rain-soaked, exhausted, and disoriented, and realizes that her efforts have been in vain, she succumbs to tears. Burning with fever, she becomes delirious and eventually dies — of a broken heart.
Why does milkman hit his father?
And though Milkman strikes his father, supposedly to defend his mother, he privately realizes that his action was entirely self-serving. He did it to prove his manhood, not because he loves Ruth. Milkman even takes advantage of Guitar, his best friend.
Why is Ruth jealous of death?
Ruth is jealous of death because when her father died, she felt he purposely chose death because it was “a more provocative companion” than she was. Ruth felt “personal failure” and “rejection.”
What is Lincoln’s Heaven?
Jake is Macon and Pilate’s father and Milkman’s grandfather who, for sixteen years, toiled to create Lincoln’s Heaven, a paradise of agriculture, nature, and family. Jake was once a slave in Virginia, but left with his wife, Sing, on a wagon train going north.
What is the Song of Solomon talking about?
The Song of Solomon is a series of lyrical poems organized as a lengthy dialogue between a young woman and her lover. She searches for her lover, comparing him to a wandering shepherd, and the chorus encourages her to follow the flocks to his tent. The lovers lie on a couch together.
Did guitar kill milkman?
When he regains consciousness, Milkman senses that Hagar is dead and realizes that Pilate’s behavior against him was prompted by grief. When she stands up, she is shot in the back of her head by a rifle fired by Guitar, and she dies in Milkman’s arms as he sings Solomon’s song to her.
Why does Macon Dead Hate Ruth?
Macon is the jealous, unhappy patriarch of the Dead family. He is perpetually suspicious of his wife, Ruth, since he suspects her of having an incestuous relationship with her own father, Doctor Foster.
What does gold represent in Song of Solomon?
Gold. The symbol of gold represents the false lure of wealth that is in some ways the antithesis of the land, community, and personal identity. Morrison uses the desire for capitalistic wealth as a catalyst for the novel’s plot. In an effort to get gold, Milkman and Guitar steal Pilate’s sack.
Who is First Corinthians in Song of Solomon?
First Corinthians Dead Ruth and Macon’s youngest daughter. A well-educated young woman, Corinthians adopts her father’s materialistic values; eventually, however, she escapes her empty life when she finds a job, takes a lover, and leaves home.
What is in Pilate’s earring?
Represented in the novel as the eccentric sister of Macon Dead II, who like her daughter Reba and her granddaughter Hagar has no navel, Pilate wears an earring made of a little box that contains her name and makes bootleg wine for a living.
What does the white peacock symbolize in Song of Solomon?
The bull’s interference with Freddie’s birth represents white people’s devastating interference with the African-American world. Likewise, the white peacock that causes Guitar and Milkman to become infatuated with the pursuit of wealth represents the corrupting influence of greed.
Who are the characters in Song of Solomon?
Milkman Dead
Who is guitar in Song of Solomon?
Guitar is Milkman’s close friend. He is an intelligent, brave man who has a strong loyalty toward his friends. Guitar’s family comes from Florida, where his father worked in a sawmill. After his father was killed in a mill accident, Guitar hated the way the racist white owner placated his mother.
Is Macon dead black?
Character Analysis Macon Dead, Jr. Macon is the epitome of the black man who has acquiesced to the white capitalist system.
Is Song of Solomon magical realism?
Morrison’s extensive use of flying as a literal and not just metaphorical event pushes Song of Solomon toward the genre of magical realism. The novel’s characters accept human flight as natural. Morrison’s novel belongs to the genre of magical realism because in it human flight is both possible and natural.
How does milkman get his name?
When Freddie, the janitor, observes one of Ruth’s breast-feeding sessions, he dubs her son “Milkman,” a name that stays with him for the rest of his life. He inherited his name from his illiterate father, Macon Dead I, whose own name came about when a drunk Union soldier incorrectly filled out an identity card.
Why does milkman want the gold?
For much of his life, Milkman believes that flight is a form of escape. After growing tired of Hagar, he wants to escape their relationship, and in large part, he wants Pilate’s gold so that he can escape his town and his economic dependence on his father and travel elsewhere.
What milkman means?
Milkman Dead As his nickname suggests, Milkman literally feeds off of what others produce. But his eventual discovery of his family history gives his life purpose. Although he remains flawed, this newfound purpose makes him compassionate and caring.
What does the watermark symbolize in Song of Solomon?
Symbolic of the darkness and death that eats away at the Dead household, the watermark reminds Ruth of her father’s death, and is the product of having left her seaweed and driftwood centerpiece to rot and decay on the dining room table at the time of his death.
Why did Guitar kill the milkman?
Milkman does not know that he is being followed by Guitar, who wants to murder Milkman because he believes that Milkman has cheated him out of his share of the gold. After surviving an assassination attempt at Guitar’s hands, Milkman returns home to Michigan to tell Macon Jr. and Pilate about his discoveries.
What does Macon dead do for work?
Macon owns a real estate business and lives as a successful black man, an anomaly in his community. However, his success and his emotional turmoil take a toll on everyone around him, especially his family. In 1936, there were very few among them who lived as well as Macon Dead.