Song of Solomon quotes Flashcards
Guitar’s speech about black masculinity
II. 10. 222
‘Everybody wants the life of a black man.’
‘They want us, you know, ‘universal,’ human, no ‘race consciousness.’ Tame, except in bed. They like a little racial loincloth in the bed.
‘Oh they love the music, but only after you pull eight at the post office.’
‘They (black women) won’t even let you risk your own life, man, your own life–unless its over them…What good is a man’s life if he can’t even choose what to die for?’
Guitar’s Love
II. 10. 223
“It is about love. What else but love? Can’t I love what I criticise?”
Guitar’s father
II. 10. 224
Sliced in two and placed ‘cut side down’. Each half facing the other.
Circe’s house
II. 10. 220
‘Life that crawled, life that slunk and crept and never closed its eyes…Birth, life, and death–each took place on the hidden side of a leaf. From where he stood, the house looked as if it had been eaten by a galloping disease, the sores of which were dark and fluid.
Awakening of orality
II. 10. 220
‘raucous silence’
Flying
II. 10. 220
‘The airplance ride exhilarated him, encouraged illusion and a feeling of invulnerability.’
Milkman’s possessions, what do they represent?
II. 10
‘Cutty Sark’ ‘the gold Longines’ p226 - notes everything by brand, ownership ‘his beigh three-piece suit’, ‘and his beautiful Florsheim shoes ‘ p227
the watch
‘gold Longines’ (226), ‘heavy overdesigned watch’ (238), it breaks in the water (250)
Street names
‘How could he find Windsor or Stone Lane if there were no signs?’ (II. 10. 228)
The Men’s interpretation of Macon Dead Sr
II. 10. 235
‘Grab it. Grab this land! Take it, hold it, my brothers, make it, my brothers, shake it, squeeze it, dig it, plow it, seed it, reap it, rent it, buy it, sell it, own it, build it, multiply it, and pass it on - can you hear me? Pass it on!”
Circe’s Knocker
II. 10. 238
‘the sound was soaked up like a single raindrop in cotton’
Circe
II. 10.
Old woman w/ voice of a twenty year old, ‘combination of daintiness and cultivated speech’ p248
Circe’s criticism of Milkman
II. 10.
- “You don’t listen to people. Your ear is on your head, but its not connected to your brain. “p247
Milkman’s hunger
II. 10.
- ‘Milkman began to shake with hunger. Real hunger, not the less than top-full feeling he was accustomed to, the nervous desire to taste something good. Real hunger.’ p253
- He examined the bushes, the branches, the ground for a berry, a nut, anything. But he didn’t know what to look for nor how they grew.’ p253
Solomon and Shalimar
II. 11
- “Yes, suh. Shalimar.” The man pronounced it Shalleemone.’ p261
Milkman’s first meeting w/ Guitar
II. 11
(memory)
‘Milkman watched the children. He’d never played like that as a child.’ p264
‘until Guitar pulled those four boys off him’ p264 -
Presentation of Milkman by the Shalimar men
II. 11
- ‘He was telling them that they weren’t men, and that they relied on women and children for their food.’ p266
- ‘They looked at his skin and saw it as black as theirs, but they knew he had the heart of the white men who came to pick them up in the trucks when they needed anonymous, faceless labourers.’ p266
Anger
I. 6
M: “You’re not angry? You must be!”
G: “Not at all…”
Guitar’s feelings towards Macon Sr
II. 1
‘Your father is a very strange negro…He behaves like a white man, thinks like a white man.’
Shalimone’s attitude to Milkman
II. 11
‘They looked at his skin and saw it as black as theirs, but they knew he had the heart of the white men who came to pick them up in the trucks when they needed anonymous faceless labourers.’ (266)
Beer
I. 4. 91
‘She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; not the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because its there, because it can’t hurt, and because what difference does it make?’
Milkman’s unawareness of his past
“Your father was a slave?”
“What kind of foolish question is that? Course he was. Who hadn’t been in 1869?” p33
Names - Macon Sr’s Mama
“Mama liked it. Liked the name.. Said it was new and wold wipe out the past. Wipe it all out.” p54
What does Milkman want?
‘He just wanted to beat a path away from his parents’ past, which was also their present and threatening to become his as well.’ p180
