Morrison presents the pursuit of wealth and the problems caused by racism as having a profound and damaging effect on the characters in the novel, especially the male characters, who become lesser men as a result and who are out of touch with black culture and their fellow African Americans.
The pursuit of wealth is chiefly practiced by Macon Dead II and it influences the way that Milkman lives until he discovers his family’s true history and he is transformed from someone who uses other people and take their devotion to him for granted into a man who is starting to be re-integrated into the African American community. Macon Dead II is despised by both his friends and his tenants as a landlord. Because he lacks any awareness of his family’s past, he devotes his life to pursuing wealth in a vain attempt to mimic the white working class Bjork (35) states:
The father, Macon Dead II, who lives in and expresses the American Dream myth, promulgates the belief that the introjections of white capitalism’s competitive, success-motivated motivations and actions are the only viable alternatives for the fulfilment and advancement of the black race.
An analysis with which Beaulieu agrees (326), writing that “has removed himself completely from the African American community and rejected their cultural values in his haste to assimilate into the white middle class.
At one crucial moment in Milkman’s childhood is when his father tells him “One important thing you’ll ever need to know. Own things.” (Morrison, 55). But owning things brings no happiness to the male characters and offers no solace to the women folk. Flying to Africa or the pursuit of gold, these male activities take place, Morrison’s narrative makes clear, from a desire to be free of the constraints that African American felt in a racist society. These actions also represent the dysfunctional families inevitably produced by the system of slavery in the past, when married slave couples might by casually separated by their white owners if one of the couple were sold to another slave owner. Thus Morrison is at pains to make clear that the past affects the present and that actions from decades before – the murder by white men of Macon Dead I, for example, - go on to influence the attitudes and behaviour of Hagar. As a young man, before he investigates his family’s history and changes as a result of what he finds out, Milkman pursues his father’s dream of material success before he discovers the genuine riches of his cultural past and becomes a real man – at peace with himself and aware of how lacking in sympathy his treatment of others had been in the past, because if hid all-consuming desire for money. Bjork (326) writes that Milkman “has removed himself completely from the African American community and rejected their cultural values in his haste to assimilate into the white middle class.”
Milkman’s quest to discover his family history, which ironically begins as a quest to discover gold, makes him and the reader re-assess the character of his father. It remains true that Macon Dead I is a greedy, money-grabbing snob, but he has been traumatized by witnessing his father's murder at the hands of white men, which triggers his life-long obsession with assimilation into the white bourgeoisie –which, of course, is also ironic, because Morrison makes it clear that white people cannot distinguish between different classes of African Americans, dismissing them all as ‘colored.’ The other turning point of Macon Dead II’s life is when he discovers in a cave a huge quantity of gold and Morrison describes the moment in detail:
“Gold,” he whispered, and immediately, like a burglar on his first job, stood up to pee. Life, safety, and luxury fanned out before him like the tail spread of a peacock, and as he stood there trying to distinguish each delicious color, he saw the dusty boots of his father on the other side of the shallow pit. (Morrison, 125).
This is how his pursuit of wealth begins and it is significant that he sees, but also ignores, his father’s presence. His father’s murder by racist white men teaches him the wrong message: that in order to avoid such a fate one must live in as a parody of the white man’s capitalist world.
Racism has a central role in the novel incising misery and unhappiness. The inadequacies of the male characters and their futile pursuit of gold cause suffering and pain to the female characters – throughout the generations. It is not merely the pursuit of gold: Milkman’s great grandfather ahs flown back to Africa in an attempt to escape slavery, but in doing so – a magnificent and brave action which proclaims his right to be free – he condemns his children to a fatherless youth and his wife to all the problems of being a single mother and one who is imprisoned in slavery without the comfort of her husband. Similarly, Milkman’s quest for gold leads to the death of Hagar . Morrison is showing that flight and escape – although triumphant gestures in the history of African Americans under slavery – also cause profound damage to those they leave behind. Morrison’s presentation of Milkman’s pursuit of gold, Beaulieu argues (316), “does not celebrate Milkman as the rugged individualist.” Before his quest takes him to Virginia he has been prepared to rob from his own aunt, when it is rumored that Pilate has a stash of gold hidden in her house. This is especially ironic because Pilate really is in close connection with her past and with black culture: she eccentrically wears a quilt in the winter. The quilt symbolizes her attachment to and recognition of generations of black culture. The continued pursuit of the gold, leads to a complete breakdown in the relationship between Milkman and Guitar – who decides to kill Milkman, believing that he has cheated Guitar out of his share of the gold. Guitar is alreadsy alienated because of his father’s death at work through the negligence of his white employers, and, furthermore, he is deeply affected by the church bombing in Birmingham and the death of Emmett Till. Morrison adds another layer of irony to the abortive burglary of Pilate’s house: Milkman and Guitar discover only an old skeleton in a sack – but this is the skeleton of Macon Dead I, and, after Milkman’s quest for his own past, the skeleton is finally laid to rest. Milkman expected literal gold, but he discovers metaphorical gold which enables him to discover his family’s past and for him to emerge a wiser, better man.
Thus it can be seen that the struggle for wealth and the problems of racism are central to this novel. Morrison demonstrates that in order to become fully human African American men must have “a black cultural and historical context (Beaulieu, 35); that Macon Dead II “represents the achievement of individual desires to the detriment of the surrounding community” (Beaulieu, 326), a cycle of behaviour that begins with Solomon who left Ryna to face slavery alone and which is perpetuated by Milkman until he understands the truth.
Works Cited
Beaulieu, Elizabeth Ann, The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia. 2003. London: Greenwood Press.
Bjork, Patrick Boyce. “Song of Solomon: Reality and Mythos Within the Community.” Pages 35 – 56 in Bloom, Harold. ‘ 2009. New York: Infobase Publishing.
Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. 1977. New York: Random House.
