Odd, yet Effective, Character Development

            In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, a plethora of characters have odd character development, especially pertaining to their age or the era in which it takes place; however, I find this to most relevant with Macon Dead III, or Milkman. Milkman, despite being over 30 years old, still lives at home, along with his two sisters who are even in their 40s. What I find to be especially odd is that whilst having a conversation with his father he refers to him as “Daddy” (164), which is completely inappropriate for a full-grown man. Also, as shown by the lengthy paragraph on page 165 in which he describes everything wrong in his life, he seems to have absolutely no control over any aspect of his life, which is relatively unrealistic, but the way in which he describes it makes it seem as if he is victimized makes it ridiculous. Why do so many of his actions mirror those of a young child when in fact he is a full-grown man? I believe that these developments are largely used  to emphasize  how his warped childhood and family dysfunction has affected him so greatly.

Blatant Ignorace on the Part of Guitar Bains

            Guitar Bains was formerly one of my preferred characters in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon; however, after chapter six, this drastically changed. After much goading from Milkman, Guitar finally revealed why he has seemed so elusive to Milkman in the recent past. He went on this elaborate rant about how all white people are bad or “unnatural,” which I found to be highly insulting and absolutely ridiculous, as he has no evidence to support his argument whatsoever. His plan with “the Seven Days,” is basically repetition of the ancient law of retaliation, more commonly referred to with the expression “an eye for an eye.” But at least with that code, the eye that was taken in retaliation was the same eye that did the taking of the first; that I can see a little bit of logic in. Guitar’s concentration on the “numbers” seems absolutely preposterous. One, a group of seven men in one small town is not going to make a significant difference when it comes to the numbers of blacks and whites throughout the world. Two, if they really cared about their cause they would spread it around because he only way to have success with something such as this is to have widespread support. Three, sweeping statements such as “every one of them is a potential nigger-killer” (155) and “Hitler’s the most natural white man in the world” (155) definitely need evidence to be even considered (which they don’t have). Even though Guitar’s actions and words anger me, I think that Toni Morrison used this character and his feelings as a hyperbole to emphasize the resentment that many black people had, and maybe still have, against whites.