In our class discussions we've talked a lot about how Milkman's story arc in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon is similar to the hero's journey, like the story arcs of characters such as Odysseus and Luke Skywalker. If we take a look at the traditional template for the hero's journey, Milkman's story crosses just about every threshold needed for us to consider his story a hero's journey.
A very broad template of the hero's journey is that the hero receives a call to adventure, receives some sort of aid (often supernatural), faces a series of challenges, has some sort of defining triumph, and comes back home transformed in some way. We don't see a lot of action on Milkman's part in the first part of the novel, and this is because he doesn't receive a call to adventure early on in the novel. Really, Part 1 largely serves to set up Milkman's hero's journey in Part 2 by showing how much Milkman needs this call to action. Part 1 reveals how Milkman has no initiative and no purpose in his life. Life basically comes to him. He has no need to chase after money given his dad's wealth and finds only apathy for his job (which his dad gave him). He is ambivalent on choosing an identity of people to be with (his upper social class versus Guitar's and Hagar's social class). We have no evidence that he really desires to do much of anything until his call to adventure. This call to adventure involve his being commanded to steal Pilate's gold and Lena's tirade against him. As a result, Milkman gets a desire to steal Pilate's gold and become independent of his family. When he gets to Danville, he ends up receiving supernatural aid from Circe (supernatural since Circe should not be alive at that point, and certainly shouldn't have a young woman's voice). Milkman then goes through a series of challenges, which include trying to find the gold in the cave, trying to find Shalimar, getting in the knife fight, and Guitar trying to kill him, among others. Before the end of the novel, Milkman comes home. He comes with no material gain, but he comes back a changed man. He has a real purpose beyond trying to further his material possessions and he wants to find out more about his family's past. In fact, this desire to learn about his family becomes so great that he is willing to get into a knife fight and ruin his shoes.
You may have noticed I forgot one part of the hero's journey I laid out earlier, and that is the defining triumph. It is difficult to pick one defining moment where Milkman has a great triumph that would be analogous to Luke destroying the Death Star. This is because Milkman's triumph isn't a traditional heroic physical action, but rather his triumph comes through the form of enlightenment. He realizes a greater purpose in life where he becomes driven by curiosity about his family, something he now takes pride in. By realizing this greater purpose and having a sense of pride, he triumphs over his pre-heroic self and situation. His new purpose in life overwhelms his previous desire to get money and become independent of his family, and it also gives purpose to a life which had no purpose prior to this hero's journey. Although this is not a traditional triumph, it nevertheless is a significant triumph that instills purpose in Milkman's life.
As other blog posts have said, Milkman is not a traditional hero. He does straight up suck at being a hero. At the same time, his journey follows the hero's journey, and although the fate of the galaxy doesn't hinge on the climax of his story, Milkman is still a hero, if only to himself.
A very broad template of the hero's journey is that the hero receives a call to adventure, receives some sort of aid (often supernatural), faces a series of challenges, has some sort of defining triumph, and comes back home transformed in some way. We don't see a lot of action on Milkman's part in the first part of the novel, and this is because he doesn't receive a call to adventure early on in the novel. Really, Part 1 largely serves to set up Milkman's hero's journey in Part 2 by showing how much Milkman needs this call to action. Part 1 reveals how Milkman has no initiative and no purpose in his life. Life basically comes to him. He has no need to chase after money given his dad's wealth and finds only apathy for his job (which his dad gave him). He is ambivalent on choosing an identity of people to be with (his upper social class versus Guitar's and Hagar's social class). We have no evidence that he really desires to do much of anything until his call to adventure. This call to adventure involve his being commanded to steal Pilate's gold and Lena's tirade against him. As a result, Milkman gets a desire to steal Pilate's gold and become independent of his family. When he gets to Danville, he ends up receiving supernatural aid from Circe (supernatural since Circe should not be alive at that point, and certainly shouldn't have a young woman's voice). Milkman then goes through a series of challenges, which include trying to find the gold in the cave, trying to find Shalimar, getting in the knife fight, and Guitar trying to kill him, among others. Before the end of the novel, Milkman comes home. He comes with no material gain, but he comes back a changed man. He has a real purpose beyond trying to further his material possessions and he wants to find out more about his family's past. In fact, this desire to learn about his family becomes so great that he is willing to get into a knife fight and ruin his shoes.
You may have noticed I forgot one part of the hero's journey I laid out earlier, and that is the defining triumph. It is difficult to pick one defining moment where Milkman has a great triumph that would be analogous to Luke destroying the Death Star. This is because Milkman's triumph isn't a traditional heroic physical action, but rather his triumph comes through the form of enlightenment. He realizes a greater purpose in life where he becomes driven by curiosity about his family, something he now takes pride in. By realizing this greater purpose and having a sense of pride, he triumphs over his pre-heroic self and situation. His new purpose in life overwhelms his previous desire to get money and become independent of his family, and it also gives purpose to a life which had no purpose prior to this hero's journey. Although this is not a traditional triumph, it nevertheless is a significant triumph that instills purpose in Milkman's life.
As other blog posts have said, Milkman is not a traditional hero. He does straight up suck at being a hero. At the same time, his journey follows the hero's journey, and although the fate of the galaxy doesn't hinge on the climax of his story, Milkman is still a hero, if only to himself.
Nice post. It's interesting to put it this way because the first time reading through part II it seemed really lame to be called a "hero's adventure", but now that you summarize what happened, it really was an eventful adventure. Along with your statement that Milkman isn't a traditional hero, I would agree. To me personally, Milkman wasn't awfully sympathetic, he wasn't exactly the revered figure one would expect from a hero's tale, but it's interesting how this hero dynamic still fits.
ReplyDeleteSong of Solomon isn't really a traditional story arc; Milkman's transformation comes rather late in the story, and it ends at a climactic fight scene. He also screws up a ton throughout the story; in fact, I'd describe the impact of Milkman's character is mostly negative, which is definitely unusual for a "hero". That said, Song of Solomon is told mostly from Milkman's perspective, so I guess his hero's journey makes sense, because it's his enlightenment, not anyone else's. Is that indicative of Milkman's selfish personality remaining after his change?
ReplyDeleteI definitely think you can see it like that. Milkman is indeed pretty much only a hero to himself, and as a result this can be seen as a continuation of Milkman's selfish personality. Since his transformation mostly has to do with his purpose in life, you can argue that not much of Milkman's personality changed over his hero's journey.
DeleteOne important deviation from the hero's journey paradigm, which I mentioned in class, has to do with the "return home": Milkman's return home to Michigan is anything but triumphant, which suggests that he maybe hasn't had his "ultimate test" yet. He is not welcomed by Pilate (quite the contrary, actually--knocked out and imprisoned in her basement), and his mother and sisters are largely indifferent to his return (and his father only wants to hear about the stuff that refers to him personally). So he immediately goes *back* to the end-point of his journey, and that's where it ends--with Pilate's death and his leap at Guitar. We could read the fight to the death that will follow as his ultimate test, but Morrison doesn't let us see how that one turns out. Because "it doesn't matter" who will die in the fight--the important thing is that he leaps without hesitation. (This fits your idea of the personal nature of Milkman's triumphs.)
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I really like how you explained how Milkman's "triumph" was the enlightenment he experienced on his journey. However, at the same time, this aspect of Milkman's story does align with a traditional hero's journey (at least from what I understand). Milkman is not a hero whatsoever at the start of the novel. He is aimless, uncaring, etc. but by the end of the novel he realizes something important about life and changes because of that.
ReplyDelete