Song of Solitude

Every school year we are assigned to read at least one classic. Many times, only the teacher fully understands its essence, and thus gets why it is considered a literary canon. Meanwhile, students only wonder what makes it so special, since we don't understand most of the symbolism and depth. There's One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriela García Marquez, for example, which is read or at least known by almost every Colombian. While many people don't understand this novel's profoundness and literary strength, it is undeniable that it has become a canon in Spanish literature. And while reading Song of Solomon I couldn't help but be reminded of this Colombian-novel, because, even though they treat completely different subjects (the former dealing with Colombian struggles, while the latter with American ones), there are several items and techniques that make them surprisingly similar.

One Hundred Years of Solitude narrates Colombia's violent history throughout the years, its causes being issues such as political disagreements. This is done through the characters' lives, thus making it a story instead of a dense history lesson. Song of Solomon does pretty much the same thing: It portrays the racial inequality through the characters' eyes, thus making it all the more real.

Both of these novels also deal with gender inequality, exhibiting women's role as inferior. In One Hundred Years of Solitude there's a prostitute (Pilar Ternera) who is just an item to men while she is a very caring woman who wants someone to love her back. Similarly, in Song of Solomon, Milkman is with Hagar purely out of pleasure but feels absolutely no appreciation for her. Although she loves him, he doesn't. So she also has sex with him to receive his love, but to Milkman she is only an item that requires no commitment.

Additionally, in both of these novels the passage of time is unusual. In Song of Solomon, the story abruptly shifts from Milkman as a newborn to Milkman as a three-year old, leaving the reader baffled. Throughout the novel, time keeps on going by very quickly (from a three-year old Milkman to seven-year old one, and then to a teenage one, and then to an adult one). The same occurs in One Hundred Years of Solitude, where characters begin to age without the reader being aware of it, until suddenly they are all grown up or dead.

Since time goes by so quickly, it is evident that new generations will surge, and in both of these novels the authors take advantage of this to give hidden meanings to the characters' names and to repeat these names in order to make their objective clearer. In Song of Solomon there are three Malcolm Dead's and all three of them are very similar to each other (the main common traits are greed and selfishness). In One Hundred Years of Solitude there ends up being twenty-two Aureliano's (keep in mind that this larger number is due to the fact that it takes place in a greater lapse of time) and all of them have the characteristic of being violent.

Both of these novels treat completely different topics. However, they represent society through similar means, and this makes both the purpose and the outcome quite similar. Making two works that are so unknown to each other, essentially the same.

Modifying Modifiers

Dangling modifiers are something we're supposed to learn about in Middle School... I'm guessing, because I didn't. So before beginning the assignment, I actually had a mini-debate with myself over whether to begin reading this article or start off by looking up the term's definition. I settled for the latter. And good thing I did, because looking up the definition would have been a waste of time, since I actually knew what it was.

As I read the article I could only question why Corbett goes through the trouble of doing all of this. But then I realized that not only did I know what a dangling modifier is (in case you don't know click here, or read the article, which does a great job at explaining it), but I've also played Corbett's role and had the task of finding dangling modifiers. Where? Well, the famous SAT, of course.

The SAT's Writing section always has sentences with dangling modifiers. The test-taker is in charge of locating these errors and correcting them. But it's pretty hard as it is, even if you have only one sentence to look out for per question. So I can't even begin to imagine the trouble Corbett goes through to find all these hidden errors in random texts. He might be used to it for having done so for a long time, or he might be only starting out. But either way, he's undeniably a prescriptivist.

Crushing the Façade

Most characters in books are usually simple and flat. By this I mean that they can easily be described in a few words. Hermione Granger is an intelligent girl, Dick Hickock is a cold-blooded pedophile, Blaire Waldorf is a spoiled rich girl, etc. There might be a bit more to them, but not much. That's basically it. Never before had I been faced with a character as complex as Macon Dead.

Initially, Macon Dead is portrayed as greedy man who only cares about his wealth, and everything else - including his family - is irrelevant. The narrator even explains in a detached tone that "he still wished he had strangled [his wife] back in 1921." (63) This fits so perfectly the image the reader has of Macon Dead that it comes as no surprise.

However, when Macon Dead beats his wife after she tells a short anecdote, the audience is most certainly taken aback. And afterwards, when Milkman hits his father to defend his mom, the reader supports him - or at least I did. However, I was in no way expecting what comes next: After Milkman retires to his room, his dad comes in and opens up in an extremely unexpected way. He ends up confiding in his son the hardships of his marital life and confessing that he has a feeling that Ruth and her father had a sexual relationship. It is then that I realized that there is a lot more to Macon Dead than the greed he shows to the rest of the world. It might be his greed what created these new feelings or it might have been these feelings that created a façade and masked him with greed.

However, I guess we shall never know whether Ruth actually had something going on with her dad. Macon began suspecting so after she refused to support him and convince her father to lend him money. Yet, this might as well have been a harsh and erroneous conclusion. But then again, Morrison has already implied such behaviors when the narrator tells about how Ruth forced her dad to give her a goodnight peck every night (although he felt uncomfortable) and how she breast-fed Milkman prior to him surpassing infancy - and thus he earned the nickname. I guess we'll never know the absolute truth... if there even is one.

An Underlying Purpose

There are contests being held all around the world, all the time. There are small ones, like whoever behaves best gets to be the line leader, and huge ones like the lottery. But all these have in common one thing: there's a winner. Reba, in Song of Solomon, would win both of these contests and any one in between. She's that type of person, the lucky one.

However, there is one thing that makes winning a bit difficult: her skin color. Because of her dark skin, Reba once almost didn't win the prize she deserved at Sears: a diamond. "The only reason they gave it to her was because of them cameras," (46) and since the winner was an African-American, Sears decided to give a second place prize, and only published the pictures of this runner-up.. of course, he was white.

Once again, Morrison is exemplifying racism in society. She demonstrates it by referring to the  when Macon Dead says "[Whites] kill a nigger and comb their [dog's] hair at the same time." This sentence on its own proves how paradoxical whites can be: murderers and loving owners at the same time. However, notice how in both of these positions whites have the upper-hand. Just like they did in society.

I believe there is a reason why Morrison decides to make Reba a lucky person. Maybe, she is a personification of luck and Malcolm Dead is greed. Ruth could also be added to this list of personifications, personifying childishness since she breast-fed her son until he was a grown child and she still loved having her father kiss her goodnight, even when it made him uncomfortable.

There must also be a purpose behind Morrison's allusions to American History characters. Malcolm Dead fondly reminisces his childhood, and as he does he names his childhood farm animals: "President Lincoln; [the] foal, Mary Todd; Ulysses S. Grant, their cow; General Lee, their hog." (52) Morrison cant have chosen these names just because she liked it, there has to be a deeper reason, and I still need to find out why.

In addition, there are some topics that Morrison leaves unanswered, probably to appeal to the reader's curiousity. For example, early in the novel, Hagar admits that "some of [her] days were hungry ones." (48) The reader and the other characters present in the scene automatically assumes she has been hungry for food, until Pilate says, "Reba, she doesn't mean food." (49) However, Morrison does not explain what she has actually been hungry for. It remains a secret. But a secret that the audience will hopefully soon discover.

The Living Dead

If you are reading this, you are alive... and so is everyone else who is living right now. Whoever lived already and has ceased to do so, is dead. But there is an exception to this: the Dead family. I don't mean a family that no longer lives, but simply one whose last name is Dead.

In my previous blog I had posed the question of why Tony Morris decides to give her main characters this last name. It becomes pretty much obvious when the family is in the car and it is said that "the Packard had no real lived life at all." (33) Although the Deads own the car and drive it every once in a while, their lives don't count as "real lived lives." So then they are just lives. Thus, the Deads become, both literally and metaphorically, the living Dead.

This symbolism becomes even more clear when Pilate affirms that "there ain't but three Deads alive." (38) This is definitely an oxymoron, but she also means that the three only living Deads are her daughter and her granddaughter. When Rena won a diamond, she saved it and kept it hidden, while Malcom Dead would have showed it off without even enjoying it. Malcom Dead's family is lifeless, just living because they have to. While Pilates and her family are actually living, thus becoming the only three to be alive.


One of the aspects that makes Malcolm Dead so lifeless is his greed - he lives for the sole sake of wealth. For example, for him, car rides were only "a way to satisfy himself that he was indeed a successful man." (33) He probably owes this predominant trait to his father, who died because of greed, as he was more willing to lose his life than to give up his belongings and own nothing.

However, deep down, Malcolm Dead is actually a sensible human being. He is awed and mesmerized by Pilate's singing earlier in the novel, and now he is transfixed as he tells the story of his childhood. He describes everything perfectly, as he mentions every detail he treasures. The imagery is great, as he for example, describes the taste of "wild turkey the way Papa cooked it." (51) The description actually made my mouth water - no lie.

Malcolm Dead, at the end, tells his son that you should own a lot of things "and let the things you own own other things. Then you'll own yourself and other people too." (55) The fact that he uses the word "people" as if it were a basic commodity makes the sentence even more avaricious  And this is what he'll teach this son. Milkman will now become a dead Dead as well. The third Malcolm Dead, in both name and personality.

"Dead" Conflicts

Racial conflicts have been a problem for centuries already. They are still an issue, but this topic reached its peak during the first haf of the XX century, when African Americans were already free but had still not acquired full rights - or barely any, for that matter. It is during this era that Song of Solomon takes place - 1931, to be exact. This novel does not portray African Americans as beings subjugated and completely dependent on whites (like many movies and other novels do), but rather as what it probably was actually like.

The story begins on a Wednesday afternoon at Mercy Hospital... or rather, the "No Mercy Hospital," as the African American community calls it, since it refuses to treat colored patients. This hospital is located at Not Doctor Street (initially Doctor Street), which acquired this nickname because the "only colored doctor in the city had lived and died on that street." (4) This, right off, demonstrates the lack of opportunities for African Americans, since there is barely any medical aid available to them. This idea is later reenforced when Macon Dead explains that he "was worthy...[because], at twenty-five, he was already a colored man of property." (23) This proves that it was hard for an African American adult to acquire property. I am unsure of whether this was due to segregation or because most African Americans could not afford property, but I am swayed towards the belief that it was a mixture of both, the latter caused by the former.

Nevertheless, this lack of wealth is not due to ignorance, as Toni Morrison cleverly shows. At the beginning of the book a (white) nurse - full grown, an adult - tells a little African American boy to go to the Emergency Admissions, and to make herself "clearer" she spells it out: "A-D-M-I-S-I-O-N" She doesn't realize she misspelled it, but the boy definitely does, and is quick to politely inform her.

Not only does this novel exhibit the race conflict, but it also shows a gender one. Macon Dead is incredibly rude to his family. However, the only one who seems to care is his son, who believes that his home's silence is not peaceful because it is "preceded by and would...be terminated by the presence of [his dad]." (10) On the other hand, the three women in the family, Macon Dead's two daughters and his wife, succumb to this patriarchal figure with barely any sign of reluctance. "The way [Macon] mangled [his daughters'] grace, wit, and self-esteem was the single excitement of their days." (11) Even if their days are awfully boring, it is still not customary to look forward to such aggression. Macon's wife "ended [her days] wholly animated by [her husband's contempt]." (11)

It is strange how the women in Macom's family are okay with his verbal violence, but what I find even stranger is their last name: Dead. This has to have a deeper meaning. An author doesn't choose such a peculiar last name for no reason. Yet, I still have to figure out the purpose behind it.