Morrison's Characters In Song Of Solomon By Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison was the first black woman who received a Nobel Prize for literature. Morrison has explored black women’s experience in a racist society. Her masterpiece Song of Solomon (1998), that wins her Pulitzer and Nobel Prize. The novel is unique in themes and characterization as it places a male protagonist at the centre of the plot. Milkman Dead is the pivotal character and his epical spiritual exploration of self is the main focus of Toni Morrison. His journey is also a unique quest to his ancestral home. Marc C. Conner points out that finding home is not, as Milkman believes, “a simple matter of geography” but that “his communal identity must be earned; that is, Milkman must undergo his own harrowing in the older sense of being torn, lacerated, cut through in order to find who he is and where he has come from” (60). Milkman’s name is the product of prolonged breast deeding of his mother; Milkman considered his name a source of shame. J. Brooks Bouson connects Milkman’s rejection of his name to a broader rejection of his race, gender and heritage, describing him as “a shame-ridden individual who carries with him the ‘shit’ not only of his family’s false class pride but also of inherited familial and racial shame” (75) . It is Pilate who is responsible for Milkman’s journey towards constructing his self and establishing his identity. Dorothy H. Lee makes a perceptive observation about Milkman’s journey. She states that Milkman “. . . travels from innocence to awareness