Toni Morrison Song of Solomon

Character and the Definition of Justice in Song of Solomon
In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, there are great many characters each struggling to find a balance in life. From Milkman to Macon Dead II to Guitar to Ruth to Pilate and many others, there is a sense that these characters are one part hurting, one part strong, one part reluctant to fly, one part clinging to selfish desires, and one part searching for a way out. The acts of vengeance, revenge, and attempts to correct wrongs appear throughout the novel to show how the characters harbor grievances, how they seek to get back at perceived slights, and how they learn to redress mistakes made in the past. The main characters, Milkman and Pilate, make up the heart of the novel as each reflects the underlying theme of the novel—the need to be able to stand tall and fly. Yet, Milkman does not really learn to fly until Pilate, the one family member he fully understands, is taken away from him: that is when he finally is motivated to leap into action and fly at Guitar, who took her life from him. This paper will show how characters seek to avenge, revenge or correct for crimes and damage done in Morrison’s Song of Solomon by implementing their own unique strategies that emanate from their own personalities and perceptions of reality.
Starting with Macon Dead II, there is a grudge that he holds against Pilate, as she was the one who refused to allow him to take the gold in the cave after he killed the white man. She warned him that taking the gold would get them both in trouble with the law and make in a murderer and thief. He always held it against her as his ambition was to get ahead in life and move up in the world and the gold they found in the cave was the perfect opportunity to do so. Nonetheless, he manages to advance upwardly on his own thanks to his involvement in real estate and he marries the daughter of a doctor and does well—but he never forgets about the gold. And when he hears that Pilate, who practices voodoo, has a heavy bag hanging from the ceiling in her home that is supposed to be her “inheritance,” he believes it to be the gold from the cave and that she must have gone back to the cave to get it. He sends Milkman and Guitar to steal the bag from Pilate—and in the act, the two are arrested, but it turns out the bag is only filled with human bones (her father’s). Macon Dead II tried to get back at Pilate for her talking him out of getting rich early in life—but it fails.
Macon also has another reason to be angry with Pilate: she is responsible for the existence of Milkman in the first place. Macon had not been kind to his wife Ruth and so Pilate made a love potion that would make Macon conceive a child with Ruth, which is how Milkman came along. When Macon finds out about how he was tricked into conceiving with his wife, he tries to stop the pregnancy, but Pilate turns to voodoo to thwart him. Macon resents Pilate for all of this. He is a very selfish character who wants only to please himself and he views Pilate and most others as beneath him. He is always thinking about past wrongs and how he alone is significant, but really inside he is suffering and cannot cope with his own family history. He believes he is of an upper class now and that Pilate is beneath him because she is a bootlegger and practitioner of witch-craft, but the reality is that Macon’s status cannot save his son when the latter gets arrested for the attempted theft: Pilate, the victim in all this, is the one who saves them by acting like a worn-out old black woman who doesn’t know any better. The police agree to let them all go—and the lesson here is that it is Pilate who really knows what it means to love someone and to correct old wrongs—not by vengeance or revenge or getting back but rather by forgetting, by loving, by humbling oneself even if it means acting like a fool and being humiliated and receiving the scorn of everyone who has to see it. She forgives those who try to get back at her or rob her—but she also has a sense of justice, of helping those in need. She did not trick Macon into conceiving to hurt him but rather to help Ruth, who was afraid, alone, without a child and without love. She did it to help her sister-in-law—but, of course, Macon did not understand and was simply bitter about it all. This same bitterness is passed on to Milkman whose disillusionment at learning he will never be able to fly makes him apathetic towards everything. But Macon will in time learn that indeed he can fly and that love is the thing that makes it all possible—which is where the novel ends.
Prior to that stunning conclusion, however, Milkman has to journey as a character: he wants to know more about his family history, and part of the reason for his isolation and lack of compassion for others stems from the fact that he simply does not know who he is or where he came from—or why he cannot fly like the birds. The symbol of the suicide from early in the book—the man who tried to fly but fell—seems to be deeply impressed upon as Milkman loses all interest in life when he finds out that he will never be able to fly. The cold crushing reality of this news hits him like a brick and takes all the wind out of his sails. He becomes ambivalent towards everything, finding no connection between himself and the rest of the black community. He wants only to feed off of what others produce, which is why Ruth still breastfeeds him and why he callously takes the love of Hagar, which she offers him for free. It is also why he goes south to find the gold left in the cave: he thinks it too will be sufficient to make life bearable—but he is operating under the same delusion as his father, whom he also resents because the man is self-centered and mean.
Guitar has a similar problem: he is determined to kill white people because he finds them responsible for the death of his own father. He wants to hold the entire race accountable and that is why he is involved with Seven Days and why actually does go around killing whites. It is his way of righting a wrong, of avenging his father and, he feels, his entire race. But it is not an expedient solution and Morrison does not view Guitar’s killings as appropriate, though is rage and anger appear to be justified for the suffering he has seen and felt. Yet, this anger consumes Guitar and he follows Milkman south, suspecting Milkman of having the gold that the two were seeking from Pilate.
In reality, Milkman is beginning to seek out his own identity: he does look for the gold but does not find it and gives up the idea when he gets to Virginia and is invited to take part in wildcat hunt. He begins to understand the community and feel like he belongs for the first time in his life. He listens to nature and feels one with his surroundings. Even when he is attacked by Guitar, he does not hold it against his former friend, but simply tries to explain that the gold never existed, which Guitar does not believe. Milkman stays in Virginia for a while before heading back home to Michigan to find Pilate as he learns that the bones in her bag are her father’s. Milkman feels that the bones should be buried in Virginia, and this is a sign of his awakened sense of identity and belonging. He finally understands his family history and, as a result, his place in the world.
Of course, when he gets back to Michigan and sees Pilate, she delivers him a blow on his head in revenge for his cold treatment of Hagar, who has loved him and been spurned by him. Milkman was inhuman towards her before partly because he himself had no reason to feel alive. However, now he understands things differently, he sees for the first time, and he appreciates everything: he now has the meaning in his life that he lacked growing up—and after talking to Pilate about it the two set off for Virginia to bury the bones. Milkman even talks to Macon Dead II about what he has experienced in Virginia and it prompts Macon to want to return home as well, though the reader is left with the impression that Macon never will because he is too tied up with his own self-interest in Michigan.
However, Pilate and Milkman set off to make things right for the bones of Macon Dead, Sr., by putting him finally in a resting place in the ground. Guitar is still there trying to get revenge on Milkman, though, for what he believes is Milkman’s lie about the gold. He sees Milkman and Pilate together and immediately thinks they have fooled him. Guitar relies upon the only instrument of retaliation that he has ever known—violence—and shoots at Milkman but hits Pilate instead. Guitar’s revenge is straight out of his Seven Days playbook: it is loud, angry and murderous and only serves to hurt his own people. With Pilate gone so soon as Milkman was suddenly coming alive with gratitude for the knowledge of his family history, Milkman takes flight at Guitar—soaring the bird he believed he never could be. He is now motivated to right a wrong, and though his violent flight towards Guitar is reflective of the violence that Guitar has shown, it is also justified because Guitar will not stop until the battle is finally ended. Milkman’s leap towards Guitar, which is where the novel ends, is significant because it shows that Milkman is finally motivated to act, to engage with life and to show the kind of passion needed to make a person a human being. If Pilate sought to right wrongs through love, and the random act of witch-craft to help things along, Milkman will right wrongs by insisting upon honor—for instance with the burial of Macon’s bones and with the flight towards Guitar to do battle for once and for all.
This is ultimately what it means to achieve justice: to reconnect with one’s beginnings, the earth, one’s home, one’s family, one’s community. Justice is the righting of a wrong—and the removal of the Macons from their home can be considered the root of all their wrongs, symbolized by Solomon who attempted to fly away and only ended up losing his children in the process. This is what has happened to the Macons and by returning to Virginia with Pilate and the bag of bones which they intend to bury, a kind of justice is finally being achieved. It is the justice that addresses the underlying issue of the novel—the separation of a family from its roots and the need to let those roots grow through the power of love and honor.
My personal thoughts about this ending are that it shows Milkman as finally coming to life in a beautiful and masculine way. Whereas before he was just limp and disinterested in life—a user and selfish taker—he is now a determined and motivated man, who will right the wrongful death of Pilate by finally fighting Guitar like a man and settling their business. Milkman has the right on his side; Guitar is mistaken and is operating out of malice and a perceived slight—just like Macon was operating when he sought to steal the gold from Pilate.
Another thought is that the gold in the story really represents all the troubles and distractions and false promises of the world. It is the big temptation that makes those who fall for it think that there is an easy way out or an easy solution to being in this life. They pursue the gold with all of their hearts as though it could somehow satisfy what the heart desires. But it is just barren metal and it is never even really found. It is an illusion—an evil trick that keeps the characters stuck in their own mindsets of self-love. Only once Milkman finally rejects the gold can he really begin to see the world around him and appreciate where he comes from. He realizes that what the heart needs and desires is love—just as Hagar has shown. She expresses the heart’s desire early in the book (in fact, all throughout, never giving up on winning Milkman). But Milkman cannot see it because he is too blinded by his own impotence, his own disillusionment, and his own greed. It is not gold that makes one fly, however; it is love. Love is what gives people wings—and love is what motivates Milkman to finally spring into action at the end of the novel.
I think that a universal meaning of this text can really be found by connecting the beginning and end scenes, as both deal with the idea of flight and the need for humans to want to feel like they can fly up to something higher than themselves. This is a universal need and reminds me of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave—the idea that we are all just cave dwellers but that if we look behind us, we will see that outside is the real world, the sun, the source of light and life way above. Climbing upwards towards this source is the real aim of those who are awake to truth and beauty. I think that this idea connects well with the feeling of wanting to be able to fly. Being self-consumed is no way to live because one ends up being like Macon Dead II or Guitar. Being open to life and to others is really what it means to fly and to live and love.
In conclusion, what I learned from reading this text is that one’s heritage is really an important thing to try to get to know because it tells us where we have come from. It is a way to connect with the past and give meaning to the present. It is also a way to become more understanding and less self-centered. By seeing how others lived and how their lives led directly to your own, a sense of gratitude and appreciation should develop in one’s heart, just as it does for Milkman even though he has never even really thought much of life till then.

Bibliography
Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. NY: Alfred Knopf, 1977.