Song of Solomon Topics of Interest
1. Names
a. Characters are symbolically affiliated with leaders of the civil rights movement
i. Pilate, Macon, Milkman, Guitar
ii. Malcolm X, MLK, Booker T, Washington, W. E. B. DuBois
b. Biblical allusions – starting with “Song of Solomon”, Pilate, Ruth, Hagar
c. Mythical allusions – Icarus, Odysseus, Circe, Hansel & Gretel
2. Heritage & Ancestry
a. Genetic Malady / Frailty? - can a history of racism and abuse be transmitted
genetically?
b. Folklore & Tradition – why is oral tradition so prevalent and essential to African
American cultural transmission?
c. Ancestry – how is Milkman’s search for lost ancestry a way to escape and overcome
his present family’s dysfunction?
3. Supernatural Elements
a. Flying
b. Ghosts
4. Gender Issues
a. Liberated vs. subjugated women in the story
i. Their Eyes Were Watching God – “The black woman is the mule of the
world.”
b. Abandonment
c. Twisted love / incest
d. Men championed / women scorned
e. Gender differences in the internalization of trauma – Macon vs. Pilate
5. Music
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Blues – songs of despair; women sing the blues
Spirituals / Christian hymns
Pilate as folk singer
Children’s rhymes
The irony of Guitar
6. Effectiveness of Narration
a. Female writer with a male protagonist
7. Ambiguous Ending
8. Cultural Exclusivity
a. Should literature be for everyone, universal? Do writers have an obligation to make
“their world” accessible and has Morrison done this?
b. Is the novel restricted to a specific circle of readers? Is it too “uniquely black” for
white readers to identify with?
Magic Realism: a term introduced by Alejo Carpentier in his prologue to El reino de este mundo
(1949). The Cuban novelist was searching for a concept broad enough to accommodate both the
events of everyday life and the fabulous nature of Latin American geography and history.
Carpentier, who was greatly influenced by French surrealism, saw in magic realism the capacity
to enrich our idea of what is real by incorporating all dimensions of the imagination, particularly
as expressed in magic, myth, and religion.