Milkman Of The Gold Pilate example essay topic

Quest For Gold In Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, the relationships between whites and blacks are a main theme. Throughout the whole novel Morrison adds her own opinions toward the race problems that the characters of Not Doctor Street experience. Poverty is another big issue in the novel and many of the main characters struggle financially. Money becomes a means of escape for many of the characters, especially Milkman and Guitar. For both men their quests for gold leaves them empty handed, but their personalities changed. Milkman's quest was to be independent, especially since he was still living with his parents.

Milkman however, was not poor. His family was considered one of the most financially comfortable black families in town. He was the spoiled son and it was galling but easy to work for his father, easy to waited on hand and foot by his mother and sisters, far easier than striking out on his own. So his idea of freedom was not really one of working to support himself, but simply having easy money given to him, and not having to give anything to anyone in return.

It was his father Macon Jr. who informed Milkman of the possibility of Pilate having millions of dollars in gold wrapped in a green tarp that was suspended from her ceiling. The hidden gold was in Milkman's opinion his only ticket out of Not Doctor Street, his way of having his own possessions, being free from his parents lending hand. For Guitar it was a way to escape and fund his Seven Days mission. Though gold was the initial desire, Milkman was able to forget about his quest for money, because his quest for his family history eventually brought him more wealth and happiness than the gold ever would have. When Milkman gives up in his search for gold, he puts himself on a path to discovering his own self, who Milkman was apart from his family.

This discovery is what allows him to "fly" or fall from the cliff at the end of the novel. Guitar however was not able to forget the gold; he believes Milkman has betrayed him so he sets off to follow and to murder his best friend. Poverty led many people like Guitar to join the Seven Days, a racial group that avenges injustices committed against African-Americans by murdering innocent whites. Why if racism and injustice towards blacks rather than economic injustice motivated the group, are all of its member's poor? Initially Milkman wanted so much to find meaning in his life, and to gain his independence. Well into his twenties he finds himself still living with his parents, and doesn't see much of a future to look forward to.

The fact the Milkman is constantly wishing to get out on his own, and find easy money proves how ignorant he is to what is actually occurring all around him. With his given money Milkman does not realize the struggle many of his fellow African Americans are going through each day. He doesn't see the struggle, or he just doesn't seem to worry himself with anyone other than himself. He wants to live on his own, away from his family, but he doesn't wish to work hard to gain independence, he would rather sit and sulk in self-pity than to stand and make it on his own. As a member of a wealthy African American family, Milkman has it easier than most to succeed, he just doesn't put forth the effort. Milkman sees no hope in independence, or a future on his own, that is until Macon Jr. tells Milkman of the gold Pilate is hiding in her shack.

The hidden gold will give him the independence and feeling of importance he both needs and desires. For Guitar the gold would make him able to buy the explosives needed to blow up the church and kill four innocent white girls for the Seven Days group. When the gold in the green tarp proves to be a bunch of rocks and a human skeleton, the police return the tarp to Pilate, who tells Macon Jr. that she never took the gold, but instead came back to the cave three years after she and Macon Jr. parted to collect the bones of the dead white man. Pilate claimed that it was Macon Dead I who ordered her to come back to the cave. She claimed that he told her that she could not "fly on off and leave a body".

Once Milkman hears the gold is still in the cave he sets off in search of it, heading to Pennsylvania. This was the first time Milkman had left his home on his own, and he had never felt so alive. "The airplane ride exhilarated him, encouraged illusion and a feeling of invulnerability. High above the clouds... it was not possible to believe that he had ever made a mistake, or could... This one time he wanted to go solo.

In the air, away from real life, he felt free, but on the ground... the wings of all those other people's nightmares flapped in his face and constrained him" (Morrison 220). Milkman tells Guitar that any gold he finds he will split with him. However, Guitar believes that Milkman will try to cheat him. On his search in PA he never finds the gold; however he finds out a lot about his family history, and meets a few friends of the family as well.

Reverend Cooper informs Milkman of many things, how the Butlers were responsible for the death of the first Macon Dead I (Milkman's grandfather), he introduces him to Circe (his father's midwife) and shows him how Milkman's father had a close relationship with Milkman's father. Circe tells Milkman how Macon Dead I's bones had come up out of his grave in the rain and were placed in the same cave where Macon Jr. and Pilate stayed. Milkman gets the directions to the cave by telling Circe he wishes to get the bones of his ancestor and bury them. He finds no gold in the cave, and decides to follow Pilate's own footsteps to Virginia in search for the Gold. In Virginia he is taken on a hunting trip after impressing locals with his fighting skills, on the hunt he tires and starts to think of how he has often taken for granted his privileged status, and that has led him to mistreat those who genuinely loved him such as Hagar. This is one of the first signs of Milkman beginning to change and mature.

At first Milkman is disappointed that his search for gold has led him to a dead end, but soon realizes that his search was not in vain, and that the family history he has learned was very important to him. It is in Virginia and through the children's song about Jay the son of Solomon that Milkman realizes the song is about his grandfather Jake and his great grandfather Solomon, eager to hear more he returns to Susan Byrd. With his newfound knowledge Milkman returns home, changed by his family history, Guitar unable to forget the gold and stop his greed stays unchanged. The understanding and discovery of Milkman's family history is what brings his transformation. He now has the ability to look forward in life with hope, an ability he hadn't had since he lost his belief in the ability to fly when the insurance agent leapt from the roof in the beginning of the novel. However after hearing the children's songs and listening to his family history, Milkman's belief in the ability to fly is restored.

It is his new faith in flying that allows him to leap from the cliff at the end of the novel, "For now he knew what Shalimar knew: if you surrendered to the air, you could ride it" (Morrison, pg 337). Although Morrison does not tell the reader at the end of the novel whether or not Milkman's leap from the cliff was that of suicide, the rapid change that Milkman goes through personally, and his restored faith in flying shows that Milkman's leap was out of victory. At first I was not sure what Morrison meant by flying, I didn't believe in the ability a human has to take off and fly. Many readers of Song of Solomon question exactly what does flying mean, Thomas Leclair went to the source and asked Toni Morrison herself. Here is Leclair's answer after his interview with Toni Morrison, "Let me give you an example: the flying myth in Song of Solomon. If it means Icarus to some readers, fine; I want to take credit for that.

But my meaning is specific: it is about black people who could fly. That was always part of the folklore of my life; flying was one of our gifts. I don't care how silly it may seem. It is everywhere -- people used to talk about it, it's in the spirituals and gospels. Perhaps it was wishful thinking -- escape, death, and all that. But suppose it wasn't.

What might it mean? I tried to find out in Song of Solomon" (Le Clair 122). Milkman was inspired by the stories of his great grandfather Solomon and how he flew away. The fact that Solomon didn't accept the life he was given in slavery and flew away in liberation gave Milkman the opportunity to do the same. It was not only the stories of his past history, but his surroundings on Not Doctor Street that allowed him to change.

Milkman's transformation came from a number of people; he changed through Guitar's violence towards whites, Pilates and Hagar's ability to teach Milkman how to truly love, and Ruth's ability to raise Milkman to be a man. It was his family and friends that brought upon the change. Ashraf Rushdy claimed that a self-change is a result of those who surround and teach that individual. "Understanding self and past is always a project of community' (Rushdy 304). At the end of the novel you have a confrontation between Milkman and Guitar, it was a series of events in the novel that led to this end. Both men represent different ways of battling with the ongoing black oppression in this novel.

Guitar fights the oppression through violence. In a sense Guitar represents the action taken by Malcolm X and the Black Panthers with a violent opposition, one where you as an individual as well as a group change the oppression with any means possible. That is why he finds comfort in the Seven Days, Guitar wants to see immediate change, and through murder he sees fast radical change. Milkman however realizes the fight on oppression should not and never shall be a violent fight, but a battle with your own self to free yourself from the wrong in your own life.

He learns this lesson by viewing the mistakes he makes in his past, as well as the mistakes of the people in his community. Milkman fights the oppression much like his great grandfather does by rising above it, and by soaring over his own oppression. Since he used a non-violent stance I felt this could represent Martin Luther King Jr. who helped African Americans to rise above oppression as well. Although he doesn't bring a change of masses, Milkman himself has changed, and through time he can show others how to ride the wind. Milkman helps to show that flying does not have to be seen as a physical action, but as an ability an individual has to make a life away from oppression, in a world that oppresses many. An individual flying in the novel is seen as a victory over all the obstacles one has to hurdle in life.

It's the character of the individual that determines whether or not you surrender to the wind and fly, or if you stay on the Earth wondering why things never change.

Bibliography

LeClair, Thomas. 'The Language Must Not Sweat: A Conversation with Toni Morrison. ' Taylor-Guthrie 119-128. Rushdy, Ashraf H.A. 'Rememory': Primal Scenes and Constructions in Toni Morrison's Novels. ' Contemporary Literature 31.3 (1990): 300-323..