Flight

When we began reading Song of Solomon, Ms. Maxey mentioned the idea of flight as a means to escape, and this motif has been repeated many times throughout the book as several of the characters have found themselves in a situation where they might be happier up in the clouds than on Earth. In chapter eight when Milkman speaks to Guitar about the peacock being stuck as a flightless bird Morrison draws a powerful comparison between Milkman and the bird, "Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down” (179). I bring up this quote because I think it captures the gist of what flight means in this novel. For Milkman, flight is being able to let go of his material possessions and his social baggage in order to escape. Although one could argue that in Milkman's bubble there isn't much he needs to escape from, I think that flight can also represent Milkman freeing himself from immaturity as he stops placing such a large emphasis on the "shit that weighs [him] down" which is his money and social skills.

Names

In Song of Solomon, there are many characters with very odd names. Though Toni Morrison would not have named her characters Mr. Dead, Guitar, or Milkman without a purpose. I always have a habit of looking for meaning within the names that authors of fiction choose because a name seems to say a lot about a person or at least it says a lot about the image of a person. In Macon Dead's case, his name seems to represent oppression. Macon Dead's name came about when a drunk white man wrote his name down incorrectly, so it gives the idea that Macon's name or identity is determined by his white oppressor. What is very interesting though is that after Macon's true name is revealed to Milkman, Milkman begins to view his family in a whole other way. Just a change in a name seemed to open Milkman's eyes and make him behave kinder than normal especially to those who knew his grandfather. I think the change in the name caused Milkman to see a different side in his grandfather. He thought that his new name was a much more fitting name than the one given him by some random white man of authority.

Response to Toni Morrison's quote

“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!”

Toni Morrison's quote dismisses the idea of "writing for" a specific racial group by claiming that good writing can be understood by anyone and that writers should not have to explain themselves in order to get their points across. This quote gives insight as to why Toni Morrison was inspired to write in the first place. It seems that she grew frustrated seeing other black writers try to explain what life is like and not simply writing in order to write. She also was frustrated that the image of black people in literature was not "the way [she]  knew those people to be." Her allusion to Emily Dickinson is important, because Dickinson stands as the model for good writing in the eyes of Morrison. I agree with Morrison that when people write novels or stories, they should focus on their own ideas before contemplating the ideas of their audience. While centering your words around your audience can be a beneficial way to write when trying to be persuasive or relatable, when you restrict or alter your word choice in order to fit the audience's preference, the ideas backing the writing has been lost. Writing should be universal, so tailoring a work to a specific group will only lessen the strength of the piece. 

Loving and Hating Poetry

There are tons of people in the world that love poetry. These people love it so much that they have created poetry societies, awards specifically for poems, and museums dedicated solely to the art form. Although many people, including some very intelligent people, seem to categorize poetry as unimportant, abstract, and possibly a little boring. I think that the reason why our opinions on poetry are so black and white is because people either choose to be patient with poetry or not. To really appreciate a poem you have to read it through several times to get all the juice out of it. A novel, on the other hand, can be read through once and the reader can come away from it feeling as though they have a connection to the book and have gotten to know the characters really well over the course of the week. Poetry can be easily forgotten sometimes, because readers can begin and finish reading minutes. The speedy poem reader may not have gotten very much from the read and dismissed it as something too abstract to make sense of. The people who don't give it the time classify it as unimportant, maybe claiming that no big idea of importance can come from only a few strings of words. Poetry asks a lot of the reader, because there's not much filler for the mind to process what is happening or for the reader to "read" while his or her mind is focussed elsewhere. Poetry demands the reader's time, attention, and their own thoughts to fill in the cracks. Those who aren't patient enough to meet the demands, dislike poetry, and those who are patient, enjoy it very much.

Milkman's Short Leg - SoS

In chapter three, the reader learns that Milkman has one leg that is shorter than the other. This deformity does not exclude him from activities, although he is known to move a little differently from others. As we learned in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, an author does not add a disability to a character unless it has a deeper, symbolic meaning or other reason to do so. In the case of Milkman, there could be many reasons why the author pays close attention to the length of his legs. For one, it helps to illustrate Milkman's relationship with his. Given that Milkman shares a name with his father, it is easy to try and compare the two, but Morrison uses Milkman's shorter leg to show contrast, "because of the leg, he could never emulate him" (63). Milkman's deformity also leaves room for lines like "The deformity was mostly in his mind" which may suggest themes of racism with the idea that those who see African Americans as less capable than Whites have simply made up the notion in their minds (62). Lastly, this bit of information about Milkman's deformity develops Milkman's character as a charismatic young man. While some kids might be bullied for a funny walk, Milkman was embraced for it. They even mentioned that although Milkman's dance move looked a little different than the normal way the dance move is done, the other kids thought it was cool and wanted to emulate it. Even this small bit of information about the main character gives the reader a lot to analyze and learn about the novel.

Favorite Sentences - SoS

In our most recent paper, Ms. Maxey asked us to pick one single sentence out of the first three chapters that we believe is the most important. Before writing, I sifted through the pages wanting to write about other sentences that I felt deserved more attention, but aren't necessarioy important to the plot or character development. For example, I love this sentence: "If she had been younger and had more juice, the glitter in her eyes would have washed down onto her cheeks" (21). This sentence brings a vivid picture to my mind. I love the imagery of "glitter" in her eyes and showing the glitter "washing down" brings up a very familiar sight. I read this sentence over and over many times trying to figure out why it seemed so beautiful to me. I am still unsure. Another sentence that I appreciated was the spiel on darkness. "You think dark is just one color, but it ain't...May as well be a rainbow" (41). I had never thought of "dark" being another color than black, nor have I really thought about the color of darkness at all. Although this shows that the character searches for the truth in people and things, and is able to see greatness in something as boring and simple as the color of "dark."