In the novel "Song of Soloman", the author, Toni Morrison, includes numerous hidden figures and meanings in every sentence of her writing. A significant symbol that is evident throughout the novel, is flowers. In class we talked about what flowers stand for to Morrison and analyzed the multiple scenes in which flowers were present in the novel. The first scene where flowers were present was the hospital when Ruth was giving birth and the fake rose petals fell and scattered all over the snow. While the petals can signify blood, due to the birth of Milkman, they also represent fake love. The rose petals are sewn together and are fake which can help display that from the very beginning to the very end of Milkman's life, he will always be surrounded by fake love. There is fake love between Ruth and Macon (II), Milkman and his dad, and Milkman and Hagar, which shows how reoccurring the presence of fake love is within the characters lives. Another scene where flowers were present was in the "dream" that Milkman had about his mother. I think that in this scene when Milkman describes how the tulips completely took over and consumed Ruth, Morrison was trying to display the confinement of Ruth's life. Ruth treated the tulips that were "smothering her, taking away her breath" as if "they were harmless butterflies" (Morrison 105). I believe that through this event, Morrison is displaying Ruth's lack of freedom because the tulips could represent everything in Ruth's life, her marriage, her husband, her father, etc., and show how she has no power and no matter what she does, these things always end up consuming her life and confining her. Another symbol within this scene is coffee. A detail that Morrison included, before Milkman had told Guitar the story, says "He was standing at the kitchen sink pouring the rest of his coffee down the drain when he looked through the window..." (Morrison 104). The coffee is this scene represents reality. While Guitar doesn't know, us readers do know that Milkman's "dream" had actually occurred, however Milkman described this story as "light-hearted as possible" (Morrison 105). Milkman did this because he doesn't want to face the reality of his life and how much it lacks compared to others. He does not want to realize that his life is not going change because, in reality, he's stuck with the cards that he was dealt.
After class on Friday, I was also very shocked on how many secret meanings were within Morrison's text! I really liked how you chose to talk about this because most people seem to be talking about either culture or the motif of names. I also really like the way you analyzed each scene!
ReplyDeleteI really liked that you chose to write about this because while we were talking about it in class it really shocked me hoe Morrison does this throughout the novel a multitude of times. I also liked how you concluded your piece by analyzing Milkman's inability to alter the society he lives in and the struggle he faces by dealing with it.
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