《所罗门之歌》成长主题分析

《所罗门之歌》成长主题分析［Abstract］Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is an initiation story and a tragic song glorifying African-Americans. By analyzing Milkman’s initiation process of growing from a purposeless and empty boy into a mature man with a sense of belonging, taking pride in his own race, this thesis aims to illustrate that only when the black return to nature and know their own culture and root, can they survive and grow mature in the drastic cultural conflict.［Key words］Toni Morrison,Song of Solomon,black people,initiation[WTBZ]I. IntroductionToni Morrison is the first black woman writer in American literature who has won the Nobel Prize. Her works have attracted great attention from literary critics at home and abroad for a long time. In her life, she has produced eight famous works, including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved and so on, thus receiving the National Book Critics Award, Pulitzer Prize and other prizes.Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison’s third novel, is the only oneregarding a male as protagonist among her eight works. This novel has won highly evaluation from critics and is considered the best black American work after the publication of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. It is a typical initiation story of black people. The protagonist, Milkman’s maturity of affection and awakening of male consciousness make up the initiation theme of this novel. There is no direction in Milkman’s life. He does not know his own name, nor comprehends the cultural tradition. Being selfish, he never thinks over others’ideas. With the guidance of his aunt and friend, he becomes an inheritor of African American culture, finally finding the root of his nation and going mature gradually.Song of Solomon has got much focus from critics in America after its publication. The main critical aspects are: the importance of naming, racism, culture and other problems. Karen Carmean’s Toni Morrison’s World of Fiction is one of achievements. Scholars in China began to examine Toni Morrison’s works in the late of 1980s. The number has multiplied after her winning Nobel Prize in 1993. In 1999, the research on her had important breakthrough, for Peking University Press published Gender·Race·Culture, which was the first book studying Toni Morrison and her works very systematically and deeply in China, written by professors Wang Shouren and Wu Xinyun. It shows that China’s research on Toni Morrison has entered a new era. This thesis mainly talks about initiation of the protagonist Milkman by analyzing his growing up withflying and understanding tradition.Ⅱ. A Brief Introduction to Initiation StoryInitiation story originates in Germany in the middle of the 17th century and its representative work is The Adventurous Simplicissimus, written by Hans. J. C. von Gimmelshausen. It flourishes in the late half of the 18th century, exemplifying by Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. There are a lot of similarities in initiation story in Germany. All of them emphasize adolescences’characters’growing and moralities shaping. But ways of achieving its goals are different. Before the Enlightenment, the initiation story focused on the internal shaping of figures’moral growth. This type of story lacks external plot and objective descriptions of social life and character’s psychology. Initiation story in Germany after the Enlightenment begins to concentrate on character’s education, transforming from internal shaping to external experience, emphasizing the significant role of social life, in the hope of getting rid of the conflicts between human and society by means of the character’s socialization. Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship are representative works. The protagonist Meister in the latter work was born into a commercial and rich family. His father wants him to inherit the family business and to become a merchant. But the young Meister prefers dramatic performanceand mode of free life. Hoping to enlighten the public and improve the condition of society through drama, he leaves his family and starts the journey of realizing his dream. After a series of ordeals and frustrations, he begins to introspect his dream and location, finding that he is short of dramatic genius. So he leaves dramatic world and embarks on a new stage, achieving the purification of spirit and shaping of character. Goethe creates an important tradition of Initiation story in Germany.The English initiation story has a long traditional history. It can be traced back into The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan in 1678, which is a significant work on initiation theme. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719 has a detailed description of a young man’s initiation after Robinson’s struggling against nature, loneliness and enemy, eventually returning to motherland.The novel of initiation has become very popular in England in Victorian period. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and David Copperfield trace the protagonists’growth from adolescence to adulthood. Novels in this period are always ended with a pleasant result—the main characters receiving love. The plots are less complicated than those before the Victorian period. They just concentrate on the figures’personal emotion. In his Season of Youth, Jerome Buckley advances an outline of an initiation story plot, which can be regarded asthe unified definition of Victorian Initiation story:A sensible child who is restricted socially and intellectually in his country hometown leaves the repressive atmosphere to live independently in a city where his true education begins. After a series of ordeals and hardships, he casts off innocence and becomes mature. (Buckley, 1974: 13)The novel of initiation in England has a pleasant ending generally and the protagonists hold a positive attitude towards growth. This kind of novel keeps record of human’s maturity and the state of existence in different times and situations in a mode of epitome and moving.In American literature, writers began to care the problem of youth’s growth in the middle of the 19th century. Nathaniel Hawthorne is the first writer who centers on the novel of youth. The Scarlet Letter, his most important work, is a novel on sin and initiation. In the late half of the 19th century, industrialization and urbanization in America throw the youth in this period into the circumstances of social reform, providing lively and fresh material for novel of initiation. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn show his great concern for the problem of youth’s growth. They also mark the maturity of American novel of initiation.In general, novel of initiation has three conspicuous features. First, the protagonist’s age is between 13 and 20, not an absolute criteria. Most scholars call the protagonist “adolescent”. Blackberry Winter by Robert Penn Warren is considered as a typical initiation story, whereas the protagonist is only 9 years old. The protagonist Milkman in Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is already 30 years old when he finishes his journey of maturation. Second, structure is rather modeling: innocence-temptation-leaving home-bewilderment-trials-losing innocence-recognizing life and himself or herself. This general mode applies to all initiation novels. Each work has its uniqueness. The time of journey is not regular, several days to more than ten years. But leaving home to journey is the most fundamental factor in character’s maturation. Third, in terms of result, the protagonist recognizes society, life and self in a new way after experiencing all kinds of trials in life.These features are summarized from most of the typical initiation novel. It can not be said that each initiation story contains all these features. It is peculiarities of these novels that add infinite vitality and diversity to novel of initiation.Ⅲ. Milkman’s Growing up with FlyingOne of the significant factors leading to Milkman’s maturation is his leaving home. Not being able to stand the pressure of his family, hechooses to journey to the south solely. This journey enrich Milkman’s knowledge about society and social experiences. More importantly, he finally achieves the enhancement of sense of independence.3.1 Tremendous burden from his familyMilkman’s father Macon Dead is a selfish, greedy, irresponsible man. His aim in life is to make money as much as possible. Milkman’s grandfather is an intelligent and hard-working farm owner and has a happy childhood. Unfortunately, the white want to plunder their farm “Lincoln’s Heaven” and shoot his father. Losing family, property and his father, he holds the concept that money is everything. In accumulation of money, he loses humanity and becomes very violent and vicious. He marries a rich woman. He does not admit his sister. After being a wealthy man, he infills all his doctrines into Milkman and urges Milkman to make money illegally with him. Milkman grows up in the environment without love. The only thing Milkman has learned from his father is accumulating money as much as possible. Under the influence of his father, he holds that women are weak and inferior. He regards his girlfriend Hagar as a sexual tool and discards her ruthlessly.Milkman’s mother Ruth was born into a prestigious family. Her mother died when she was very young. It is love from herfather that makes Ruth a docile dependent person. Ruth hopes Milkman will be a little boy in her arms, never growing up. On the other hand, she wants Milkman to grow quickly and treats Milkman as a substitute for her father and husband.3.2 The enhancement of a sense of independenceMilkman is doted by his mother and loved by his sisters during his childhood. He is controlled by his father to squeeze wealth from the black. At 32, he has the desire to leave home, since he can not bear the things around him. He is also tired of his purposeless and pointless life. At that time, Milkman considers possession of money as the only tool to bring liberty for him. Under the persuasion of his father, he sneaks into Pilate’s house and steals away the so-called gold-bag. Finding that there is no money in it, he goes to the south himself. Hoping to leave home and get rid of his father’s domination and the stressful family shows Milkman’s beginning of sense of independence.In his journey to the south, Milkman experiences all the difficult trials for the first time in his life when he goes to the cave to find gold. His expensive suit is broken and dirty, the golden watch crashing. Milkman has never learned how to hunt, how to participate in street fights like other poor black youth in the process of growing up. Being short of life experiences and a sense of independence, Milkman loses his balanceand falls in the creek, thus completing his baptism of entering a new life. In the south, he has to live on himself. He walks out of his small world in which he is lazy, greedy and hypocritical, stepping into a new room where he is abandoning the material and pursuing the spirit. When he loses all his valuable possessions and puts on heavy boots, hunting clothes and a hand-woven hat, Milkman has fulfilled the transformation from a rich boy into a man who starts to enter into a black culture and becomes independent gradually. In the process of hunting, Milkman must learn those skills to cross darkness and the rocky zone, the barking of hunting dog, the sound signals to his partners. Finally he hasachieved the goal of independence.Milkman is once an outsider of the black culture. When he watches black children playing games and singing the song of Solomon, he recalls that he has never been invited to join in by his compatriots. But now he has decoded this divine song and integrated into the black community. He says that he has already learned how to play this game and it is also his game. Furthermore, he has mastered the song of Solomon and begins to bear the responsibilities of spreading his nation’s cultural tradition.Ⅳ. Milkman’s Growing up with Understanding TraditionEach person’s initiation is influenced by several factors. Milkman’s aunt Pilate and his friend Guitar have a great impact on him in terms of understanding tradition, thus leading to Milkman’s awakening of race consciousness.4.1 Pilate’s leading rolePilate is a leader and knowledge-conveyor during Milkman’s maturation. In a sense, she is also the woman who gives Milkman life. With Pilate’s help, Milkman’s mother Ruth conceives and raises him successfully. Her name Pilate has the meaning of pilot, signifying her leading role in Milkman’s growth metaphorically. She loves her father, elder brother, daughter, nephew Milkman and every person in her community. She hates gold and always helps others in need with her little money. Although she is poor, other people can not see the sign of poverty. All things around her are natural. She preserves the tradition of black culture—the habit of singing. Pilate’s house is one of places where Milkman likes to stay, for Milkman enjoys the atmosphere of relaxation and pleasure in comparison with his own depressing home. He has been living in his mother’s small world, lacking some qualities of men. The emergence of his aunt fills the vacancy without doubt. But more importantly, she subtly instills into his brain a lot of black cultural factors, arousing recognition of his own cultural traditions, identity and sense of belonging. To much degree, she is a prototype of a black folk singer andstory-teller. Her stories give people some sense of community. When Milkman first comes to Pilate’s house, he is captivated by her singing and the stories she tells. He sees the charming of nature and rustic life in the south, stirring his longing for the past and the south. She is the first person who talks about his grandfather and Lincoln’s Heaven to Milkman. Pilate knows and guards the history of family. Her most favorite song opens Milkman’s spiritual gate to finding the nation’s history and the value of himself. The white gives her a mistaken family name, but she never forgets her real name and black people’s history. No matter where she goes, she carries the old white man’s bones killed by her brother, a geography book and stones which are collected from each place she has traveled. Pilate’s brother hates her, but she still loves him and her nephew Milkman. Her generosity and responsibility have a positive influence on Milkman, causing Milkman to wake and sublimate in psyche.Pilate teaches Milkman personably that one can fly even without leaving ground. She is a symbol of the black culture and national forces. She is not only the successor of the tradition and the protector of the soul, but also the leader of Milkman’s growth. It is her long-term guide that makes Milkman to understand the significance of names and family tradition and also keep his sense of conscience, finally achieving initiation and rebirth.4.2 The influence of Guitar’s blind revengeGuitar is Milkman’s best friend and it is him who compels Milkman to leave home to journey the south and contact with nature. In Milkman’s eyes, Guitar is kind-hearted, intelligent and brave. No matter when Milkman is unhappy, Guitar always talks to him and comforts him. At the same time, Guitar is also the person who points out Milkman’s flaws, making him to step out of his family. The two people come from different families, for Milkman has never experienced those sufferings Guitar has had. He comes to the north with his impoverished family from the south, hoping to live a free life without discrimination and oppression. However, what they get in this place is only prejudice and unfairness. The reason why he hates the white deeply is also because his father was killed in a white man’s company when he was 4 years old. He holds that he has the duty to blame evil and aid good people. As a result, he joins in a violent community— Seven Days. The members in this group advocate violence and brutal behaviour, never believing the possibility of conciliation between the black and the white. Milkman opposes strongly Guitar’s act of killing the white blindly, whereas Guitar thinks that his doings is completely out of love to the black. At last, Guitar is suspicious that Milkman has found and possessed the gold. The behaviour of Guitar’s desire to kill him makes Milkman to understandthat it is not humane nor available to revenge blindly in a cruel way.4.3 The awakening of race consciousnessMilkman’s initial motivation to go to the south is looking for gold his father and aunt have left in the cave. Not finding the gold, he accidentally embarks on a road searching to his ancestors. During this journey, Milkman sees the black compatriots’real living conditions and their spiritual world, and gradually experience the connotation of black culture, and ultimately achieve a spiritual adult. At the same time, his sense of responsibilities is strengthening during the journey.During his journey to Danville, Milkman knows his father and grandfather with a new version through the black people’s recollection of them and stirs his strong sense of pride. His grandfather, a hardworking and kind-hearted old man, would die against the white’s gun rather than give up his farmland. His father changes from an industrious guy into having to accept and succumb to the relentless social reality in the United States, from a being deprived person into a ruthless man who is an exploiter to the black people. However, Milkman is full of respect for his father when he thinks that his father has been working in the fields over the years painstakingly and doing business of renting houses in order to give the family a comfortable life. In Danville, he boards the cave where his father and aunt have stayed under the guidance of an old black manthrough climbing and wading. This journey is not only long but also difficult. Although the motivation of seeking gold is unsuccessful, it means that he is closer to his ancestors in spirit. And those damaged clothes, table, and shoes which are on behalf of the middle-class identity stands for his shaking off the white values in his mind gradually. This trip of Danville is a necessary preparation for Milkman to find the direction of life.The journey of Shalimar makes Milkman’s spirit to be baptized and completely abandons the white’s values and completes the sublimation of the spirit, finally achieving his real initiation. When he first arrives in Shalimar, Milkman has intense conflict with local black people. On the surface, it is contradictionbetween the rich black and the poor black. But in fact it is the conflict between white culture and black culture, because Milkman’s dressing up and principles of dealing with things shows some traces of the white’s cultural values. Later, he surrenders to those black hunters’agility and their blending with nature. It is in Shalimar that Milkman feels closeness to the nature, to his ancestors, to the black nation.Returning from the south, he is ashamed of his previousattitudes towards all the people. He starts to understand and care forhis parents and sisters. He is aware that the relationship between lover is giving and sharing, not demanding and possessing. When he knows that Hagar has died because of his cruelty, he takes a strand of her hair in order to atone and remember her. At the same time, he has learned how to keep a reciprocal relationship with his lover Sweet. In his journey to the south, his act of helping other people to lift luggage for the first time in his life demonstrates his enhancement of responsibility. He buries his grandfather in the platform of Solomon with his aunt Pilate, showing his duty of inheriting the black culture. After this series of baptism and reflection, Milkman has transformed from a receiver to a giver, from an indifferent person to a warm-hearted man. From this moment, he begins to take the responsibilities of protecting and inheriting their nation’s home and culture.Milkman recognizes that those moral concepts of the white which his father has taught him are not suitable to the black. He starts to be pride of his ancestors and culture of the black. This journey to the south is actually a process of Milkman’s searching for his identity, family name, own family and root of the black’s nation.Ⅴ. ConclusionThis paper focuses on the initiation theme, including its origin, development and the black person Milkman’s maturation in Song ofSolomon. Milkman’s neglecting of the black tradition makes him to lead a purposeless and confused life over 30 years, incapable of finding himself. The white values and concepts encroach the traditional culture of the black and the black lives a different life in the tough environment. Therefore, the black must understand their own tradition and return to the nature. Only in this way, can the black achieve freedom and maturation in spirit.【References 】［1］Carmean, Karen. 1993. Toni Morrison’s World of Fiction ［M］.New York: Whitston.\[2\] Marcus, Mordecai. 1969. What is an initiation story?［C］//William Coyle. The Young Man in American Literature: The Initiation Theme. New York: The Odyssey Press.\[3\] Morrison, Toni. 1997. Song of Solomon［M］.New York: Vintage Books.\[4\] Smith, Valerie. 1991. 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