Flight and freedom

The book starts out with the the image of attempted flight.  Robert Smith, promises to "take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings" (3). Pilate sings him to his death: "O Sugarman done fly / O Sugarman done gone,").Milkman is born the next day in Mercy Hospital. He is  the first "colored" baby ever.  Most everything in the opening scene deals with flight and the feeling of freedom.  The foreshadowing is with Robert smith on top of the hospital the same day milkman is born.  Milkman will obviously be paralleled next to this man later on.

     Later on, Milkman and his friend, Guitar, are amazed by the mysterious appearance of a peacock over the building of the used car lot. "The wings of all those other people's nightmares flapped in his face and constrained him" (222). Mostly, Milkman's flight fantasies are in the form of dreams.  He longs to fly and feel the freedom slapping him in the face.  By flying he is letting go of everything, he would be able to see over everyone; and no one could tough him either.

     In order to fly, however, Milkman must give up his male narcissism.  "The shit that weighs [him] down". He disrespects women all together. He becomes jealous when he sees women happy because to him it mean they are ‘flying’ high, so he takes it from them, destroys it. He takes away his sister’s once chance to be happy. He brakes Hagar’s heart, and makes accusations against his mother.  If they can’t fly, neither can he

     [Milkman's ancestor, Solomon/Shalimar, was one of the slaves from Africa who could fly; according to the story Milkman is told, Solomon launched himself into the air from a cotton field one day, leaving behind his wife and twenty-one children. The cry of the abandoned woman, another primal scream from the jungle of female discourse, still echoes throughout the land in Ryna's Gulch, a testament to the irresponsibility of men and the proclivity of women to love them. ]

       It is questionable whether or not Milkman "rides the air" in the last lines, or whether he reenacts the suicide of Robert Smith on page one, jumping into space and delivering himself into "the killing arms of his brother," he is finally taking his flight.  

Maturity

 Maturation of Pilate's rite of passage and the ritual of cultural surrounding is another major theme. Having been raised in  isolation with her brother, Macon, Pilate is cast out as an orphan into the harshness of reality. Her quest for acceptance, turns into rejection, especially from her brother.Her initiation into the depth of lonliness does not result in coherence into the community but isolation from it. "When she realized what her situation in the world was and would probably always be she threw away every assumption she had learned and began at zero. First, she cut off her hair ... Then she tackled the problem of trying to decide how she wanted to live and what was valuable to her" (p. 149).  

[Pilate must first deconstruct herself - symbolized by cutting off her hair - before she can reconstruct truth which in addition to her two maxims - that she does not fear death and she has "compassion for troubled people" (p. 150).  Pilate, isolated from society, develops compassion  and respect for people's privacy, generosity, and unrestrained laughter. "She gave up ... all interest in table manners or hygiene, but acquired a deep concern for and about human relationships" (p. 150). That concern leads her back to community, the natural completion of her maturation process. Ironically, then, isolation from community inadvertently provides the means for Pilate to develop antistructure.  She represents the antithesis of her brother's way of life, though they essentially share the same values: hard work, education, and family. The difference, however, is again the motive behind these values.]

[ ]- http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~mmaynard/Morrison/sos.html.  Toni Morrison-Song of Solomon.