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  • Essay / Milkman's Search for Identity in "Song of Solomon"

    In America, there is a systematic structure outlined by white male patriarchy that allows black men to act, speak, think, and live like men. Nonetheless, the reality of race and the lack of racial diversity hinders a black man's ability to progress into adulthood. Thus, the black man must continually fight for an identity, to understand who he is rather than who he is visualized as. “Song Of Solomon” by Toni Morrison is a coming-of-age story that focuses on the main protagonist Milkman Dead and his journey from birth to adulthood. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an original essayA major theme of Song Of Solomon is the milkman's quest for identity as a black man and his journey also acts as a key to his spiritual identity, connecting him to his past while incorporating the present and making it emerge towards self-discovery. Song Of Solomon recaptures the majority of Milkman Dead in a multitude of ways, beginning with a civilian named Robert Smith jumping from the roof of Mercy Hospital. “When the little boy discovered, at four years old….” After the fall of Robert Smith Milkman Dead is born, but just like Robert Smith Milkman, the desire is to escape one's life through flight. "But he lacked coherence, a coming together of traits into a total self." Milkman, at a very young age, was characterized as a strange, dead (emotionally) child who seemed to lack personality. He grew up without knowing who he was when he looks in the mirror, all he sees is an incomplete being. Milkman's adult status has gone into reverse, and as the only son of an upper-middle-class family, Milkman also resists the. feeling of interconnectedness and devotion to others that is required of adults is a mirror image of his father Macon Dead, he constantly tries to manage Milkman, and prevents him from becoming independent without realizing that Milkman is. changing and trapped in the context of his own life In the novel the white peacock is mentioned, the white peacock symbolizes the milkman and how he cannot take flight at first and is weighed down by the jewels, these jewels represent. how the milkman is privileged and has the wealth of a white man, all because of his father and because of this it keeps the milkman from stealing and understanding himself. “I don’t want to be my old man’s office boy anymore…”. The milkman values ​​materialistic things like his father, he becomes very arrogant and has the mentality that money is the gateway to freedom and power, but he felt like everyone used it, making him the subject of his own needs. Milkman slowly begins to understand this and realizes that he must be his own man, he must be an independent man. “Who are you to approve or disapprove of anyone or anything…”. After years of unprecedented antipathy, Magdalena confronts Milkman to watch Through the window of a dying maple tree, Lena tells him about all his faults. This symbolizes the fact that the milkman has never done anything for anyone in his entire life and yet people have sacrificed so much for him and the urinary escapade completely ruined his sister's life which then causes the personality to change/ the identity of the milkman and he realizes that he must do it. change in itself. Milkman was born again and an important aspect of his rebirth was the responsibility he took for Hagar's death. Milkman only took advantage of women during his youth and saw them as nothing but objects and taking on that responsibility is unlike his old self,