1. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
Mrs. Littlefield IB English HL -12

2. Setting Somewhere in Michigan Wednesday February 18, 1931
How do we know?
Wednesday February 18, 1931
Mercy Hospital
Nickname No Mercy Hospital
Why?
Mains Avenue
Also known as Not Doctor Street
Beginning course details and/or books/materials needed for a class/project.

3. Characters Robert Smith
North Carolina Insurance Agent atop Mercy Hospital
Dr. Foster
Doctor who has Not Doctor Street named after him
Ruth Foster
Doctor Fosters Pregnant Daughter-comes from more money than most
Lena Dead
Ruth’s half grown daughter
Corinthians Dead
A schedule design for optional periods of time/objectives.

4. Characters Pilate Dead Ruth’s sister in law Guitar Bains
Young boy at the scene of the jump that catches the white nurses mistake about the spelling of admissions
Macon Dead III (Milkman)
Ruth’s son, born at Mercy Hospital
Macon Dead II
Ruth’s husband – slum lord
Rebecca
Pilates daughter
Hagar
Pilates young granddaughter
A schedule design for optional periods of time/objectives.

5. Plot Summary Robert Smith jumps from Mercy hospital
Ruth Foster goes into labor after watching and becomes Mercy’s first black patient.
We learn that Ruth, her husband, and children live in her fathers house where she is secluded from love and abused by her husband.
We learn that Macon II (Macon Jr.) is a slumlord who is money hungry
Denies Guitars grandmother delay in her rent so she can feed her grandchildren and when Henry Porter was drunk and threatening to kill himself he went to collect rent
Objectives for instruction and expected results and/or skills developed from learning.

6. Analysis of Characters Names/Events
p. 3: In her "Forward" to Song of Solomon, something you will enjoy reading after you have finished the novel, Toni Morrison takes a page explaining how her first sentence relates to the work as a whole. For now, what might be useful for you to note is that, in her words, "the name of the insurance company is that of a well-known black-owned company dependent on black clients" (Morrison, xiii).p. 4:  The narrator alludes to black men being drafted in 1918.   Those men would have fought in WWI.
p. 10:  When women ask Ruth if her son came "with a caul,"  they are referring to the rare instance (1 in every 10,000 births) when babies are born inside a still intact amniotic sac.    In many cultures, such a birth was once considered a sign of good luck or an omen of something, and the caul was kept for a variety of different rituals.   In Europe, for example, it was often saved as a family heirloom.
Relative vocabulary list.

7. Analysis of Characters Names/Events
p. 13:  Morrison compares Ruth to the Miller's daughter in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin.  Wikipedia retells the beginning of the story this way:   "In order to make himself appear more important, a miller/commoner lied to the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold with a spinning wheel to impress the king, so his daughter could marry the king's son. The king called for the girl, shut her in a tower room with straw and a spinning wheel, and demanded that she spin the straw into gold by morning, for three nights, or be executed She had given up all hope, when a dwarfish creature appeared in the room and spun straw into gold for her in return for her necklace; then again the following night for her ring. On the third night, when she had nothing with which to reward him, the strange creature spun straw into gold for a promise that the girl's first- born child would become his."
Relative vocabulary list.

8. Analysis of Characters Names/Events
p. 18 Lena's name comes from Mary Magdalene, the prostitute that Jesus cures of evil spirits in the New Testament.
p. 18  Corinthian's name comes from "Corinthians", a book in the New Testament.   It is the first of 2 epistle addressed by St. Paul to the Christians in the ancient Greek city of Corinth, a place known for the sexual promiscuity of its inhabitants.
p. 19  Pilate's name comes from Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who authorized the execution of Jesus Christ in The New Testament.
Relative vocabulary list.

9. Chapter 2 Fast forward to 1936 (5 years after the start of the book)
The Dead family is driving to Honore Beach Community (Macon Jr. plans to build upscale summer homes here for wealthy African Americans)
They are driving in their green Packard through Not Doctor Street and through a rough part of town known as Blood Bank (many of Macon Jr.’s tenants live here)
Symbolism Anyone???

10. During the drive, the Dead family's strained conversation touches on numerous topics that reveal the family members' personal beliefs and values.
Corinthians is excited about Macon's plans to establish a beach community at Honoré for "high class Negroes,“
Ruth's comments are generally ignored.
Lena is intent on keeping the peace between her parents,
Milkman fidgets and finally finds a way to escape his imprisonment — he needs to go to the bathroom. After a brief stop results in a minor family crisis, the family heads back home.
While Milkman is out near a tree using the bathroom Lena walks up behind him and he turns around and pees on her.
Foreshadowing?? - The narrator tells us that concentrating on things behind him becomes a habit for Milkman, as though he does not have a future to look forward to.

11. Fast Forward Again – Milkman is 12
Milkman meets Guitar Bains a teenager in high school.
Milkman follows Guitar to Pilate’s home even though he was prohibited to never go there by his father.
Milkman asks Pilate if she is his father’s sister and she responds with “Ain’t but three Dead’s alive.”

12. Pilate invites the boys in and tells them stories of her (and Milkman’s) family and growing up in Montour, Pennsylvania on a farm named Lincoln’s Haven.
We learn that Macon I was shot while sitting on a fence waiting for someone and that Macon Jr. and Pilate saw his ghost sitting on a stump in the sunlight.
Milkman and Guitar also learn the rumor of Pilate being born without a naval is true.
The visit is interrupted by Pilate’s 16 year old granddaughter, Hagar, whom Milkman instantly falls in love with.

13. Pilate introduces the two as brother/sister even though they are cousins and says it doesn’t matter because “one has to act the same to both”
Pilate’s daughter, Reba, then shows the boys a diamond ring she won for being Sears Roebuck’s half-millionth customer and tells them that she has a knack for winning things, like the ring and a hundred pounds of free groceries.
Pilate and Reba ask Hagar if she has ever had a hungry day in her life, and when Hagar answers yes, Pilate and Reba start to cry.
They tell Hagar that they will get her anything she ever wants.
Pilate, Reba, and Hagar sing in a chorus about Sugarman, who flies home across the sky—the same song that Pilate sang on the day of Robert Smith’s flight.

14. Macon scolds Milkman for disobeying him and is stunned by his son's questions about the Dead family's history.
Macon reminisces about his childhood in Montour County, sharing with Milkman some of his fondest memories.
Macon reiterates his warning to Milkman to stay away from Pilate, whom he describes as a "snake.“
Macon says that it is time for Milkman to learn the family business, to "learn what's real." He will teach his son the "one important thing [he'll] ever need to know: own things."

15. Chapter 2 Analysis
The Packard - we realize that their being "pressed" into the Packard symbolizes their being trapped by materialism. Like the Deads' house, which is "more prison than palace," the green Packard provides no joy for its owner; like Macon's ring of keys, the car is strictly a status symbol.
The Packard, which is the color of money, elicits a range of emotions among both passengers and onlookers.
Lena and Corinthians fantasize that they are princesses riding in a "regal chariot driven by a powerful coachman“
Milkman views it as a cramped space that inhibits his mobility
Macon is satisfied with the Packard only because it is a symbol of success: "These rides had become rituals and much too important for Macon to enjoy“
The townspeople name the car "Macon Dead's hearse," emphasizing the link between material wealth and spiritual death.

16. Analysis – References to Flight
Lena and Corinthians' perception of "the summer day flying past them,"
the Packard's "silver winged woman" hood ornament, and the car's "dove gray" seats.
Milkman's sensation of "flying blind" — yet another reference to his dulled, unenlightened existence.
Milkman's spirits are raised when he is later introduced to Hagar: "He seemed to be floating. More alive than he'd been, and floating." This new feeling in Milkman emphasizes the relationship between flying and living, experiencing life on one's own terms rather than on someone else's.

17. Chapter 3 Summary
Milkman’s life gets better after he begins working for his father.
He runs errands to the houses Macon is renting, which gives him opportunities to visit the wine house where Pilate lives.
Milkman is friendly, the opposite of Macon, and so renters are more open with him than they are with his father.

18. Milkman and Guitar go to a pool hall, owned by a man named Feather.
Feather, who rents from Macon, tells Milkman to get out, of the grounds that he’s Macon’s son.
Guitar tries to convince Feather to let them both stay, but Feather insists that they leave.
Guitar and Milkman wander through town, eventually reaching a barbershop owned by Railroad Tommy and Hospital Tommy.
Hospital Tommy, an articulate man with a good vocabulary, scolds them for skipping school, and Railroad Tommy warns them not to drink or gamble.

19. Guitar mentions that he doesn’t like to eat sweet foods, and Milkman is amazed.
Guitar can’t explain why he doesn’t like them, except that they make him think of dead people and white people.
He reveals that when his father died in a sawmill accident, the sawmill’s boss responded by stopping by Guitar’s house and giving him candy.
Guitar and Milkman pass by a beauty shop, and notice that, unlike the male-populated barbershop, the beauty shop has curtains, since women don’t want others to see them getting their hair done.

20. We Skip Time Again-Milkman is now 14
Milkman notices that his left foot is slightly shorter than the other.
This makes him seem to strut in a showy, arrogant way
Milkman tries to disguise his shorter foot, though fewer people notice it than he imagines.
He feels a secret connection to President Roosevelt (who can’t walk because of having caught polio when he was young), often thinking that he has more in common with FDR than with his father.
While he fears and respects Macon, he deliberately tries to be different from him.

21. Macon enjoys teaching his son his business, since it means that his son belongs to him and not to Ruth.
While Milkman collects rent, Macon contemplates ways to grow his business.
Because he’s black, it’s difficult to find new properties, but he is optimistic that he will be able to find properties that no one knows are valuable yet.
The year is 1945, and life is good for Macon, with the exception of Ruth. She is now 50 years old, and still disappears from Macon’s house, though no one knows where she goes. Macon is suspicious that Ruth has lovers, but he doesn’t hit her anymore.

22. Again a jump in time – Milkman is 22
The last time that Macon hits Ruth occurs when Milkman is 22 years old
Milkman hits Macon back.
Milkman sees his mother as a sad, weak woman taking care of small, weak things like flowers and goldfish.
Ruth resents Macon, and feels that their marriage somehow inspired her father to kill himself. She provokes Macon in small ways; Lena doesn’t notice her manipulation, but Corinthians does.

23. One example of the way Ruth provokes Macon occurs when the family is eating dinner.
Ruth describes going to the wedding of Anna Djvorak’s granddaughter. At the wedding, Ruth was offered communion and asked if she was a Catholic; she replied that she was a Methodist, and thus unfamiliar with communion.
Macon doesn’t believe that Ruth didn’t know about communion, and shouts that Anna Djvorak doesn’t even know Ruth’s name — Ruth is only her father’s daughter.
Ruth smiles and agrees. In response Macon hits her in the jaw. Milkman then grabs Macon, pushes him into the radiator, and threatens to kill him if he hits Ruth again.

24. It’s unclear, both to us and to Milkman, why Macon dislikes Ruth talking about her father so intensely.
Of course this doesn’t mean that Macon is right to hit his wife
The truth about why he does so, as always in Song of Solomon, is more complicated than it seems.

25. Macon is humiliated and surprised that another man is dominating him, but is also a little proud of Milkman.
Milkman is angry with Macon, but is also saddened to have so easily defeated a man whom he once thought unbeatable.
Milkman asks Ruth if she’s all right, and notes his sisters, who are 35 and 36, staring at him with hatred.
He goes to his room, and realizes that he hasn’t changed the relationship between his parents at all.

26. Again a shift
Milkman has been sleeping with Hagar, and thinks that it has made him kind and generous.
He remembers talking with Ruth about going to medical school; Ruth had encouraged him to use his middle name, Foster, instead of going by “Dr. Dead.”
Macon sees no reason Milkman should go to school.
Macon also uses his influence with bankers to transfer Milkman out of the draft for World War II.

27. Finally-Why Macon Hates Dr. Foster
Macon explains to Milkman that he married Ruth in 1917, when she was 16 years old.
He wasn’t really in love with her, but wanted a good wife.
Ruth’s father didn’t like him 
Dr. Foster was a rich, respected black man, but he was also an ether addict and didn’t care about blacks at all
He was happy when his granddaughters Lena and Corinthians were born with lighter skin.
Macon recalls a time when a railroad was being built through town; Macon had deduced where the tracks would be laid, and needed to borrow money from Dr. Foster so that he could buy the land cheap and then sell it for a huge profit. Dr. Foster refused to lend him any money, and when Macon asked Ruth to convince her father to do so, she said that it was her father’s decision. At this time, Macon began to wonder who Ruth was married to — him, or her own father.

28. The Plot Thickens
Macon adds that after Dr. Foster died, Macon saw Ruth lying next to her father’s body, kissing him and putting his fingers in her mouth.
Macon grew paranoid that Lena and Corinthians might be Dr. Foster’s children, not his own, but decided that Foster wouldn’t have been so concerned about their skin color unless Macon were the father.
Macon concludes by telling Milkman that he isn’t a bad man, but that he couldn’t stand Ruth smirking about being her father’s daughter. He walks out of Milkman’s room before Milkman can say a word.

29.  He is angry that his father told him about his mother, and feels that he isn’t ready to talk to any woman, even Hagar.
As Milkman thinks about Dr. Foster, his grandfather, having sex with his own daughter, he remembers the way Ruth breastfed him as a child.
He begins to question all women’s love for him: his sisters, his mother, Pilate, Hagar.

30. Milkman finds Guitar in Tommy’s Barbershop.
Everyone in the shop is listening to a radio report about a black boy named Till who was killed in Mississippi after whistling at a white woman. His killers, white men, have boasted of their murder. 
Freddie takes the view that Till was foolish and arrogant to have whistled
Guitar, on the other hand, is furious that Till was murdered for something as trivial as a whistle, and calls Freddie a coward.

31. Chapter 4
Milkman and Hagar’s relationship is seen for what it really is – he treats her like a “third beer”
What does this mean?
Milkman doesn’t see Hagar as wife potential because of her lower social class so he looks for a bride among the wealthy black women of Honore, but finds them too boring.

32. Time Shift
Milkman is now 31 and he gets tired of Hagar so he writes her a letter to break it off with her.
This letter drives Hagar crazy and she goes in search of Milkman.
While Hagar is out searching Milkman is talking with Freddie, the janitor.
Freddie believes in ghosts -mother died after childbirth because she saw a ghost of a white bull (symbolism??)
Growing up in jail because they didn’t have facilities for black orphans.
Thinks Guitar is involved with the killing of a white boy in town

33. Speaking of Guitar….
Milkman and Guitar have grown apart during chapter 4
Milkman thinks Guitar is hiding something
Dramatic Irony – we know or at least think he is
Guitar thinks Milkman is living too frivolous of a life
Milkman tells Guitar about a dream in which he sees his mother planting flower bulbs in their backyard. The flower bulbs, Milkman says, grow instantaneously, almost choking his mother. Although Milkman says that the vision was a dream, he knows that it was reality.

34. Biblical Allusions and the Supernatural
Milkman is disconnected from his true identity in part because he rejects the love that he is given instead of returning it.
For instance, just as the biblical Abraham banishes the handmaiden Hagar instead of marrying her after she bears him a child, Milkman discards Pilate’s granddaughter Hagar when he no longer finds her useful. 
Only Milkman is unwilling to acknowledge the Supernatural events and their existence publicly. Even though he sees the flowers choking his mother, when he tells the story to Guitar he purposefully claims it was a dream in order to avoid seeming like a fool who believes in fairly tales. His smirking disdain for the janitor’s story suggests that he considers belief in the super-natural to be a mark of either stupidity or low social standing. 

35. Chapter 5 – Milkman and Hagar
Hagar has gone crazy over her breakup with Milkman.
She is obsessed – she roams the streets looking for Milkman and even tries to kill him
Milkman hangs out at Guitars trying to stay away from her
Hagar gets into Guitar’s flat tries to kill Milkman with a butcher knife but instead of getting up and fighting her Milkman closes his eyes and wishes her dead and asks a “power” to choose between him and her
She stabs him on his collarbone but the knife doesn’t go in…Milkman insults her and walks away

36. Flashback to One Week Before
As Milkman lays in Guitar’s bed he thinks about how a week ago he followed Ruth to the Fairfield Cemetery (her father was buried there 40 years ago)
He waits several hours at the gates and confronts Ruth when she leaves
Ruth tells Milkman a very different story about her relationship with her father – one that challenges Macon Jr.’s version
Her father was the only one that cared how she lived
Macon Jr. killed her father by throwing away his medication
Macon Jr. tried to force Ruth to have an abortion when she got pregnant with Milkman
Pilate scared Macon Jr. with a voodoo doll to stop the forced abortion
Ruth says she did breastfeed him for a long time but it was out of love not anything incestuous

37. Fight For Your Man
Ruth finds out about Hagar’s attempted murder on her son and goes to see Pilate.
Because she has always seen Milkman as her “passion” and her “single triumph,” rather than a separate person, Ruth is determined to keep him out of harm’s way.
On the porch of Pilate’s home, Ruth threatens Hagar. Ruth and Hagar heatedly discuss their love for Milkman until Pilate interrupts and tells them that it is silly for a woman to feel so much for any man. 

38. Pilate’s Story Pilate goes on to tell Ruth the story of her childhood
She had worked diligently as a migrant worker but was driven out of each place because people were terrified of a woman with no navel.
Pilate settled down on a Virginia island for a few years, and found a good man who fathered Reba. Despite being in love, she refused to marry him.
After Reba gave birth to Hagar, Pilate moved her family to Macon Jr.’s town, bringing a green sack from Lincoln’s Heaven as one of her few possessions.
The ghost of Macon Dead I, Pilate claims, followed her, sometimes speaking to her and murmuring the word “sing.”
She also tells Ruth that she became a wine-maker and seller because it was the job that afforded her the most independence.
Finally, Pilate concludes her story, which she has deliberately made long to keep Ruth’s mind off Hagar.

39. Chapter 6 - The Seven Days
Milkman confronts Guitar and asks him to reveal the reasons for his secretive behavior.
Guitar tells him that he belongs to a secret society called the Seven Days.
The organization, composed of seven black men each of whom is assigned a day of the week, kill white people at random every time that a black person is murdered and the assailants are left unpunished.
Guitar says that Robert Smith and Henry Porter were both members.
The Seven Days try to make each revenge killing similar to the original violence against the black victim. If he was hanged, for example, they hang their next victim.
These revenge killings are performed on the same day of the week as the original murders of the black victims.
Guitar is the only young man in the group.

40. Guitar tells Milkman that his activities are driven by the firm belief that whites are “unnatural” people who would murder and pillage in the right circumstances.
Blacks need to take drastic measures to avenge assaults against them.
Guitar concludes by saying that his actions help keep the ratio of blacks to whites balanced, ensuring that whites will not gain an upper hand by means of genocide.

41. Milkman counters Guitar’s rhetoric by telling him that many whites have made real sacrifices on behalf of African- Americans.
He also asks why Guitar does not change his name, like Malcom X did, in order to show that he refuses to accept his “slave name.”
Guitar answers that his slave name, Bains, does not bother him—only his slave status does.
To no avail, Milkman begs Guitar to see him and others as human beings rather than whites or blacks.
Milkman finishes his conversation with Guitar by telling him that Guitar’s murderous activities are “crazy,” that they have become a “habit,” and that since he is able to kill so callously, he might move toward killing black people, including Milkman himself.

42. Chapter 7 Milkman goes to speak with Macon Jr.
Stifled from spending over thirty years at home, he asks Macon Jr. if he can leave home for a year to travel and explore his personal interests. (Theme – Flight as escape)
During the conversation, Milkman unintentionally mentions the green sack hanging from Pilate’s ceiling.

43. Pilate Green Sack
Macon Jr. interrupts Milkman and his eyes begin to gleam.
He tells Milkman about the days after his father’s murder.
For two weeks, Macon Jr. and Pilate hid in a manor house where Circe, the midwife, worked as a maid.
While in hiding, Pilate put a brown piece of paper with her name on it in a snuffbox, attached a wire to the box, and began to wear it as an earring.
After Macon and Pilate left Circe, they traveled across the countryside, encountered their father’s ghost sitting on a tree trunk, and then saw the ghost again at the mouth of a cave. The siblings followed the ghost into the cave and spent the night there.
In the morning, Macon Jr. became aware that there was someone else in the cave: an old, white man. Terrified that he was seeing an apparition, Macon Jr. killed the man.
Underneath the man’s green tarp, Macon Jr. discovered a treasure of gold nuggets.
Macon Jr. imagined a life of luxury spread out before him “like the tailspread of a peacock,” but then they saw their father standing before them.
Macon Dead I then disappeared and Pilate darted around the cave looking for him.
Macon Jr. wanted to take the treasure, but Pilate urged him not to.
They fought. Macon Jr. left and came back three days later, finding the dead man still there, but Pilate, the tarpaulin, and the gold were gone.
After hearing Milkman mention the green tarpaulin, Macon Jr. becomes convinced that it is full of the dead man’s treasure. He urges his son to “get the gold” so that they can share it.