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Folklore and Community in Song of Solomon Author(S): Susan L Folklore and Community in Song of Solomon Author(s): Susan L. Blake Source: MELUS, Vol. 7, No. 3, Ethnic Women Writers I (Autumn, 1980), pp. 77-82 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Society for the Study of the Multi- Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/467030 Accessed: 18-01-2017 15:51 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press, Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to MELUS This content downloaded from 128.228.173.43 on Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:51:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Folklore and Community in Song of Solomon Susan L. Blake Solomon done fly Solomon done gone Solomon cut across the sky Solomon gone home. The "song of Solomon" that provides the title of Toni Morrison's third novel is a variant of a well-known Gullah folktale about a group of African- born slaves who rose up one day from the field where they were working and flew back to Africa. In the novel, this tale becomes both the end of, and a metaphor for, the protagonist's identity quest: Macon Dead III, known as Milkman, finds himself when he learns the story of his great-granddaddy Solomon who could fly. From this story he himself learns to fly, meta- phorically: "For now he knew what Shalimar [Solomon] knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it." In basing Milkman's identity quest on a folktale, Morrison calls attention to one of the central themes in all her fiction, the relationship between individual identity and community,2 for folklore is by definition the expres- sion of community-of the common experiences, beliefs, and values that identify a folk as a group. The use of the folktale of the flying Africans in this quest seems to establish equivalence between Milkman's discovery of community and his achievement of identity, but paradoxes in the use of the folktale suggest a more complex relationship and help to define just what Morrison means by the concept of community, a concept which she vigorously endorses. The flight of the transplanted Africans dramatizes the communal identity of Afro-Americans in several ways. It establishes "home" as the place of common origin and dissociates the Africans from the American plantation where their identity is violated. It dissociates them as well from American- born slaves, for only the African-born have the power to fly. At the same time, as the ability to fly distinguishes the Africans from their descendants, it represents an identity that the African-descended tellers of the tale believe they would have if they had not had another identity forced upon them by slavery. The tale thus represents a common dream, a common MELUS, Volume 7, No. 3, Fall 1980. 77 This content downloaded from 128.228.173.43 on Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:51:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 78 SUSAN L. BLAKE disappointment, and a group identity. As the object of Milkman's quest, it suggests a multi-leveled equivalence between individual identity and community. Simply as a folktale, it is an artifact of Afro-American history; its content links Afro-American to pan-African history; it is localized to represent Milkman's family history. His discovery of the tale thus repre- sents Milkman's discovery of his membership in ever more inclusive communities: his family, Afro-Americans, all blacks. Furthermore, although Milkman realizes he can "fly" as a result of discovering his flying ancestor, his quest itself parallels Solomon's own flight back to Africa; it, too, represents a return to the origins of the community. In fact, community is not only the end of his quest but the means; Milkman makes progress only as he acknowledges community. In the characterization of Milkman's father, Macon, and his father's sister, Pilate, the novel sets up a distinct conflict between individualistic and community values. Pilate represents the spirit of community inherent in the folk consciousness. She lives without electricity or stockings or table manners, but with "a deep concern for and about human relationships" (p. 150). In her, vestiges of folk culture function in affirmation of kinship and community. Her communication with her father's ghost, for example, demonstrates her belief that human relationships have substance; her use of conjure in Milkman's conception has helped carry on the family; and her song, "Sugarman done fly away," becomes the clue to the family's history. Macon, on the other hand, represents the individualism of "progress." For Pilate, "progress was a word that meant walking a little farther on down the road" (p. 271). He hates his wife, is ashamed of his sister, ignores his children, and teaches his son to "own things" so that he can "own [him- self] and other people too" (p. 55). As he travels back from North to South, from his father's home to his great-grandfather's, Milkman progresses from his father's values to Pilate's. He sets out seeking gold, his father's concern, but ends up seeking family, Pilate's concern. He begins by robbing Pilate, violating not only the principles of kinship and community but also the person who epitomizes them. He concludes by seeking reconciliation with Pilate and helping her carry out a sacrament of kinship by burying the bones of her father properly near his home. He begins thinking gold will free him from depen- dence on his father; he finds that he becomes free only as he throws off the influences of his father and absorbs the lesson of interrelatedness that Pilate has been living all her life. His thin-soled shoes fall apart on rough terrain; his three-piece suit labels him a stranger; the sense of superiority these city clothes represent makes the backwoods people whose help he needs want to kill him. But when he trades his suit and shoes for their army fatigues and hunting boots and goes hunting with them in a ritual test of This content downloaded from 128.228.173.43 on Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:51:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MORRISON'S SONG OF SOLOMON 79 fellowship, these same men give him the clue that leads to his discovery of his family history and an introduction to the woman (significantly, one whom social convention might label a commodity) with whom he has the first truly reciprocal relationship of his life. The same newly-awakened sensitivity to other people that he exercises in his relationship with Sweet allows him to see the parallel between the song "Solomon don't leave me here" that he hears children singing and the story he has heard of his own grandparents and realize at last that the characters in the song are real people, in fact, his own ancestors. In short, Milkman finds his connection with his ancestors as he acknowledges his connection with his contem- poraries; he finds community through community. The multiple ways of seeing Milkman's discovery as a discovery of community suggest that Song of Solomon is an elaborate, and entertaining, expansion of the equation between identity and community. In fact, however, the end of Milkman's quest is not the discovery of community, but a solitary leap into the void. And its mythical foundation is not the typical tale of the Africans flying as a group to their common home, but a highly individualistic variant. Milkman's discovery does not result in any of the conventional indications of community. Although Milkman is recon- ciled with Pilate and the two of them return to Shalimar to bury the bones of her father, Pilate dies (as she has lived, protecting Milkman's life) as soon as the burial is accomplished. Although he calls her "Sugargirl" and whispers wishfully, "There's got to be at least one more woman like you," Milkman does not so much unite with her as succeed her. What his discovery does is to provide Milkman with the examples of Solomon and Pilate. "Now he knew why he loved her so. Without ever leaving the ground, she could fly" (p. 340). This perception enables him to take the leap toward Guitar and the death that gives him life. Although Milkman leaps in acknowledgment of brotherhood-"It did not matter which one of them would give up his ghost in the killing arms of his brother" (p. 341)- brotherhood here is a dangerous void, which one can brave only through personal heroism. The importance of the gesture toward brotherhood is no resultant community-one of the brothers is expected to die-but the personal transcendence behind it. Milkman's leap does not dramatize his relationship with his friend-turned-enemy-turned-brother so much as it does his relationship with risk. The gesture is not communal but existential. Although Milkman cannot achieve identity without recognizing community, the identity he achieves is individual. Milkman's flying ancestor is also characterized individualistically.
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