A Cultural Calling

With names in the back of my head I continued my journey into The Song Of Solomon. The story developed into the story of Milkman, a character that has a lot to do with his name. If I were called Milkman because my mother breast-fed me past the appropriate age I would probably try to loose the nickname. Not only does this strange fellow accept his name it does not bother him. When you go a little deeper and look at his last name, Dead, you realize that there is definitely something very special about the way Morrison portrays her characters. At a given point Milkman travels to his aunts house. Seen as the family bookkeeper Milkman’s aunt begins to tell him the story about the Dead family. At a slight sardonic tone leads the main character to become defensive: “as though having the name was a matter of deep personal pride, as though she had tried to expel him from a very special group, in which he not only belonged, but had exclusive rights” (Morrison, 38-39). He is proud about his name and will fight anyone who sais otherwise. Although this surprised me at first I soon realized that it was to be expected from someone who wants to feel as if he were a part of something.

Furthermore, Milkman’s obsession with the past begins to grow incessantly. After questing his aunt he asks his father for his recollection of the past. His eagerness to find the meaning behind the Dead name has made him forget the present. After finding out as a reader that the reason why the name Dead was born was because someone had misspelled it, I reached my own conclusion. Most characters had a ridiculous name that tried to forget the past. In the special Dead case “Mama liked it. Liked the name. Said it was new and would wipe out the past. Wipe it all out” (Morrison, 54). When I tried to make out a reason for waning to forget your name I embarked on slavery. The Song Of Solomon deals with a black family’s struggle to become a white family. It was a painful process that leads to the birth of a different and new culture.