Song of Solomon Passages on Ownership and Possession Alex Chan

Ownership and possession is the common reoccurring trait that all the characters share in one way or another. One of the more obscure characters, on page 216, by the name of Magdalena tells Milkman about the time their father took her and her sister to the ice house and, “when he talked to the men, he kept glancing at us, us and the car. The car and us. You see, he took us there so they could see us, envy us, envy him.” (Morrison 216) She also said about the Macon Dead Jr., “first he displayed us then he splayed us.” Besides the car, Magdalena and Corinthians were considered objects that represented
The Second piece of evidence of ownership and possession comes from Circe the maid who worked in the Butler’s house. Circe states about the butler’s house, “They loved it. Stole for it, lied for it, killed for it. But I’m the only one left.” Ownership is shown to be a source of trouble because it makes a person need to maintain their status at the cost of other people’s lives. Circe also continues to mention how the loss of ownership was really the source of death for the last member of the butler line. “Do you know why she killed herself? She couldn’t stand to see the place go to ruin. She couldn’t live without servants an money and what it could buy. Every cent was gone and the taxes took whatever came in. She had to let the upstairs maids go, then the cook, then the dog trainer, then the yardman, then the chauffer, then the car, then the women who washed… The thought of having no help, no money-well, she couldn’t take that.”(Morrison 247) Toni Morrison tries to show that money will lead to nothing and that wealth is something that weighs someone down to the point where they are no longer capable of living without money.
-----Alex Chan

Updated groups

Here are the groups again after a few moves:

Naming:
Emmelynn
Kristina G.
Josabel
Francisco
Brenda
Neilanie

Flying:
Sara
Katherine
Victoria
Anthony
Bianca

Material life (with maybe overlap to ownership/possession/letting go)
Jessica
Ryan
Marina

Ownership/Possession/Letting Go (with maybe overlap to material life)
Lissette
Alex
Jonathan R.

Religion/Allusions
Ricky R.

Stories:
Janine
Joshua N.
Alberto
Miguel
Jaspir
Areli

Pilate:
Tegan

Naming in the "Song of Solomon"

Throughout the book, names are symbols of liberation and oppression. Take Milkman, for example, who was named because he was seen being breastfed by his mother at an abnormal age. He is known as Milkman for the remainder of the novel, and the fact that his nickname describes him better than his real name (Macon) shows that written names are questionable. Rather, names are given through oral tradition; take, for example, Mains Avenue. After Dr. Foster's death, the street is known as "Not Doctor Street." It is in this way that names are a symbol for oppression, because the names hold some of these people back from knowing who they truly are.

However, names are also representative of liberation, because when Milkman finds out his grandfather's true name he begins to feel proud of his family history.

Pilate, who is Macon Dead Jr.'s sister, was named by placing a pin randomly in a Bible, and the name that was put by the pin was the name that the child would get. The pin happened to land on Pilate, from Pontius Pilate, who oversaw the execution of Jesus. Although the name had a negative connotation, Pilate herself was exactly the opposite. Her name is a homonym for "pilot", which is related to flying and freedom.

Pilate carries alot of value in her name; she carries her name in a snuffbox in her ear because she knows that is provides inspiration and sustenance for her and her children. Just as Pilate caries her name around as her identity, Milkman also carries around his story after his transformation as part of his identity.

--Deshna Majmudar

Research for Song of Solomon

Before next Tuesday’s class, please post your research findings to a blog created for this course. Here’s how you can post your research to the blog:

 

·         Send it to me in an email and I will post it. It will be easier for me to post if you put your work into the body of the email (i.e. avoid attachments).

·         Go to the course home page, and use the link on the “Assignments” page to send an email directly to the blog. Again, don’t use attachments—put your work into the body of the email.

·         Go to the blog and use the “Comment” feature to post your work. (This is the least desirable method because no one will see it until I manually move your work from the comment into an actual blog posting.

 

What is the “research”? It can be a list of specific scenes in the book (with page numbers of course), a list of ideas about the subject area. In truth it can take any form that will be useful to you (and others) if you were to write a paper on this subject. Remember though that you don’t have to write a paper on this subject.

 

"Research" for Morrison's Song of Solomon

Here are the interest groups that were formed on Thursday:

Naming:
Emmelynn
Kristina G.
Josabel
Francisco
Brenda

Flying:
Sara
Katherine
Victoria
Anthony

Material life (with maybe overlap to ownership/possession/letting go)
Jessica
Ryan
Marina

Ownership/Possession/Letting Go (with maybe overlap to material life)
Lissette
Alex
Jonathan R.

Religion/Allusions
Ricky R.

Stories:
Janine
Joshua N.
Alberto
Miguel
Jaspir
Areli

Pilate:
Tegan
Bianca

Each interest group (working together or independently) will be looking for ways of discussing and illustrating these ideas using Morrison's Song of Solomon. For example, the group looking at "flying" might want to identify key passages in the novel where people are literally or figuratively flying, or where flying is invoked as a figure of speech or metaphor for something else. This group might also want to consider some of the possible ways of thinking about flying suggested by these key passages and furthermore whether those ways of thinking agree with one another or contradict one another.