Song of Solomon

The ability of flight stirs Milkman’s imagination. Milkman is enthralled by the stories of his great-grandfather Solomon, who escaped from the horrors of slavery by flying to the safety of Africa. When he realizes that the local children’s songs are actually about Solomon and the rest of his family, Milkman is delighted that his family’s legacy endures in the community, generation to generation. Even though the Butlers murdered his grandfather Jake and stole his land, Jake and Solomon’s descendants live on while the Butlers have died out, their decadent home destroyed by Circe’s dogs. Just like the peacock that is too laden down with “jewels” to fly, those who let their greed go unchecked cannot soar.

But there is a cost to such a mythic flight. Though Solomon flew away from slavery, he left his wife and 21 children in the middle of its horrors. There are consequences when flying leads to abandonment. In a way, Milkman “flew” away from Hagar, who went mad and died. Similarly, Solomon’s wife Ryna also went mad and was unable to care for her children. Her mournful call continues to echo at Ryna’s Cave.

Milkman learns that flying doesn’t have to lead to abandonment. By the end of the novel, Milkman sees that Pilate’s flying is much more impressive than any other flight in his family because she always flies toward love, understanding that love is the real power that allows people to soar. Although Milkman’s final action has ambiguous results—does he live or die?—he is driven by love for his best friend, his brother. This love allows him to defy his constraints and soar.

Grappling with the legacy of slavery, segregation, and poverty, Black men in Shalimar find ways to support each other so they can survive in an often toxic environment. Milkman is enraged at the young Shalimar men who attack him, but he doesn’t realize that they live according to a set of rules that protect them. Milkman’s flashy ways and his suggestive talk about the women in town suggest a predatory appetite that makes the young men turn against the dangerous outsider. But Milkman doesn’t recognize the signs that signal outsider versus insider, as his wealth and privilege have insulated him from the dangers of race and class that haunt Black men, especially in the post-slavery South.

But the older men of Shalimar give Milkman a chance to enter their world and understand the signs of nature that surround him. Stripped of his expensive clothes and shoes, which do him no good in the woods, Milkman is also stripped of any privilege afforded by his family, since these men know nothing of his father’s wealth or his grandfather’s bravery. Once he enters the woods with them, Milkman is on his own. Although suspicious of the men at first, he allows himself to be vulnerable and is eventually awed by nature and the men’s ability to recognize and interpret its signs, an interpretive ability he has never acquired.

When he rests, exhausted by the hunt, Milkman has an epiphany that gives him clarity to see the world in a new way. His full immersion in the woods allows him to enter an older world full of animals and signs that only the hunters know how to decipher. He feels a connection to their world, an ancient primal world beyond time and convention. This transformative moment cracks Milkman’s alienation and isolation, allowing him to reach communion both with the hunters and his family, whom he sees in a new light. Milkman realizes the value of his family and their love for him.

Milkman’s newfound compassion extends beyond his family to everyone and everything surrounding him. The men are likewise transformed in their relationship to Milkman, accepting Milkman as one of them, allowing him to transition from outsider to insider, someone who understands the multitude of signs in the world. Milkman’s new ability to interpret signs primes him to discover the truth about his family history, as this acuity helps him recognize Solomon’s song.