Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is a story of heritage, pride, shame and discovery. Set in the 1960s in the era of the Civil Rights movement, Song of Solomon follows two African American families as they make their way toward the American Dream. The first family consists of a woman named Pilot, her daughter Reba, and granddaughter Hagar. They are lower class and there is no father figure, something for which African American families have always been criticized. The second family consists of Macon Dead II, his wife Ruth and children, Lena First Corinthians, and Macon Dead III, or Milkman. They are middle class, and have appeared to achieve the American Dream.
As the story progresses, it is easy to notice a theme. Each of these families is falling apart, but clings onto a concept of family identity. And even though the two families are so different, they each struggle to find their happiness. They are fighting for a happy existence in a country dominated by an oppressive society that is structured for them to fall. Though Pilate’s family is the matriarchal, poor, fatherless home that has typically been blamed for the problems of African American children, the Dead family struggles too, with their son, Milkman eventually killing himself, according to one interpretation of the novel.
However, the plot line that struck me the most was that of Pilate’s granddaughter, Hagar. Throughout the novel, she identifies her desire for sex and romance, demonstrating that women, and in particular Black women, have just as much of a sexual drive as anyone else. Hagar and Milkman become intimate, and develop a sexual relationship. Milkman then leaves Hagar to go on a journey where he finds his family history, and ultimately jumps from a cliff, finally whole from his discovery of his past, and thus freeing himself from the oppression of the society in which he has lived. Though this journey to self-discovery is beautiful and full of much-needed criticism of race politics in U.S. society, it is yet another example of a male quest where a man goes to find himself, and the women are left to pine after him.
Hagar certainly does pine after Milkman when he leaves her. Throughout the novel, the characters sing a song called “Sugarman,” wherein they croon “Sugarman done fly away.” One of the characters, upon hearing the song questions who Sugarman has left behind. In so doing, Morrison is drawing the reader’s attention to the women who are forgotten or left for bigger and better adventures, never expected to want any story of their own. Hagar is one such forgotten woman, and she does not take it well. Having been fed fairy tale romance her whole life, she yearns for one of her own, and is convinced that Milkman is her Prince Charming. One night she goes out in a frenzy and buys all of the beauty supplies she can think of: stockings, lace garments, and makeup, and hastily assembles herself. The white powder and nightwear, thrown on in such a hurry, is torn and clumped, turning her into a gruesome caricature of the prevailing standard of beauty: a rich, white woman. Hagar dies that night, showing that it is impossible for a Black woman to find a place for herself in such a narrowly-defined standard of beauty and romance. She too is a victim of the oppressive society in which she lives.
Overall, this book is a fantastic commentary on racial oppression in the 1960s that is still disappointingly relevant to U.S. society today. Morrison’s critique of the American Dream shows that we live in a social structure that only makes room for the dominant class. In particular, she shows how destructive our standards of beauty are, especially given how exclusive they are to wealthy white women. Unless we are willing to accept that only one type of person has the capacity to be beautiful, this text should be a lesson and a warning that we have to change the way we think, so that we can learn to appreciate the beauty in everyone, and not just the dominant group.
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