Milkman's family

For pretty much all of part 1 Milkman seems pretty distant from his family (and really everyone, except Pilate and Hagar for a bit). His biggest show of emotion is hitting his father (and not even out of love for his mother, just because she seems helpless and I guess he felt like he should). His parents both tell him stories to get him on their side and he just doesn't want to hear it. He works for his father but he doesn't really seem to like it and doesn't really have any intentions of continuing it forever, however much his dad wants him to, and when Lena accuses him of being like his dad it seems that both of them understand that that's an insult. Milkman doesn't even care about Lena that much -- I guess him telling Macon about Corinthians and Porter could be caring about her, but it could also be like punching Macon -- something he thought he should do with not much real emotion behind it.

Things change so much when he leaves his family and goes to Pennsylvania. He gets so excited when someone references "his people," which struck me -- back in Michigan he seems like he's stuck between two worlds -- a lot of people don't like his family but he can't sufficiently rid himself of his upbringing to fit in with them. In Pennsylvania, suddenly there are people who like his family, and he practically swells with pride. He goes there to get gold -- his father told him about it but really he's getting it to gain independence -- but he seems to be drawn closer to his family in the process, or at least towards his father's side (I guess there just isn't a pocket of people who really love Ruth's parents or grandparents). Milkman relays his father's accomplishments, which before he didn't really seem to care about, and he "glittered in the light of their adoration and grew fierce with pride."

Is this kind of pride that Milkman can only really have when separated from Macon? The quest for the gold seems less and less promising, but I don't know if the gold would even help Milkman -- he needs some kind of purpose or fulfillment in life that he doesn't really have, and without it the gold won't really improve his life much -- hopefully he finds some other sort of realization.

Pilate & Macon

I've been enjoying Song of Solomon, and one of my favorite parts about the book is the characters. They're all very interesting, and Morrison keeps revealing more details about them. Ruth is a character that I initially wasn't that interested in -- she barely did anything at the beginning except obey Macon. I felt sympathy for her, but I wasn't really eager to read more about her. Pilate, on the other hand, is immediately interesting, especially as a contrast to her brother Macon. We talked about the differences between the Macon and the Dead households in class, and Pilate's household seems more alive and less stifling. Milkman wants to escape from his household to Pilate's. So I thought it was really interesting when we got a look into Ruth and Pilate's relationship. Pilate seems very motherly, especially when she threatens Reba's boyfriend -- she doesn't like to see people in trouble. So it makes sense that she would help Ruth. The interesting thing is that it also shows that Macon is still afraid of Pilate -- we saw that he's still intrigued by her when he passes by their house one night, but the fact that Pilate still has power over him and doesn't seem to be afraid of him is interesting. When Ruth gets pregnant, he suspects that Pilate had something to do with it, and when Pilate leaves a doll in his office, he behaves. Macon also seems very afraid of how his reputation could take due to his connection to Pilate. In a novel which is a lot about family, Milkman's sisters don't play much of a role, and both Reba and Hagar are only children, but the sibling dynamic between Macon and Pilate is very interesting and I hope we see more about it.