Symbols Flashcards
Breakdown
Location
Significance
“The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior…”
- geographical locations that suggest a journey from south to north - common for black migration.
South to North [significance] = freedom
Great Migration: the movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States between 1910 and 1970. [SOS 1931-1963]
a.) Poor economic conditions
b.) Racial segregation and discrimination
c.) Lynchings
“At 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me. I loved you all.”
Robert Smith,
Ins. agent
Location
Symbolism
Symbolism of Traveling from North to South = danger and discovery
a.) Moving geographically south can be a symbol for going deep into the psyche. In “the south” (meaning any place south of where the character started), characters encounter new political ideas or philosophical viewpoints. Often suggesting that those ideas were there all along, in the character’s subconscious.
b.) Writers send characters south so that they have a direct encounter with the subconscious: something trying to make its way out.
Geography is as significant as history to SOS,
Milkman’s “reverse” migration to the South reveals his ancestral history by delving into the past in order to contend with pressing issues of the present.
Flight and the myth of the Flying Africans
Flight is a symbol of freedom
- can be a literal and metaphorical symbol of escape.
- each individual character that chooses to fly in the novel is “flying” away from a hardship or a seemingly impossible situation.
The Flying Africans:
- Flying Africans are figures of African legend who escape enslavement by a magical passage back over the ocean.
In May 1803 a group of enslaved Africans from present-day Nigeria, leaped from a single-masted ship into Dunbar Creek off St. Simons Island in Georgia. A slave agent concluded that the Africans drowned and died in an apparent mass suicide. But oral traditions would go on to claim that the slaves either flew or walked over water back to Africa.
Color
Morrison claims that the opening passages of her works attempt to establish ‘a canvas upon which the story will unfold’. Like a painter, she uses color imagery to create that background. The three dominant colors Morrison uses in the opening scene are…
a.) red/rose petals
b.) blue/wings
c.) white/snow
- these three colors represent the United States of America - the social, political background on which the Dead family’s story unfolds.
Names
s. question
Importance of Names in SOS:
- emphasizes names and naming in ways that place the novel squarely within Black American literature’s dominant tradition
- works in this tradition enact quests for identity within a culture which systematically denies the black person’s right to both name and identity as a means of denying his or her humanity
“Although more subtle than the use of physical violence and intimidation, the act of erasing and replacing a person’s identity is an effective means of breaking the resistance of captive humans. … The names of enslaved people found among various historical records are the products of a process of dialog and negotiation between persons asserting dominance and others being forced to submit…”
Characters → Concepts
White oppression
Macon Dead: [white oppression]
Macon II thinks that surely somewhere he must have had an ancestor “who had a name that was real. A name given him at birth with love and seriousness. A name that was not a joke, nor a disguise, nor a brand name.”
- To Macon Dead II, the name means only a heritage of oppression that his father was unable to master or even survive.
Rememory: Freedmen’s Bureau 1869 = Macon/I’m free/He’s Dead
Characters → Concepts
White economic oppression
Guitar Baines: [white economic oppression]
Guitar receives his name out of his desire to have, not his ability to play, the guitar. As a baby “I cried for it,” he explains, “And always asked about it” (45).
- Guitar’s knowledge of the world grows from desire and deprivation = the twin sources of his name
Characters → Concepts
Oral history
Milkman: [oral history]
- community name [life lived]
- alludes to Milkman’s dependency on his family
- alludes to father and mother’s use of Milkman for comfort
Characters → Concepts
Strength of black oral history
Not Doctor Street: [strength of black oral history]
- example of artificial symbolization the means of naming in order to control and define one’s history
- represents a conflict between two narrative authorities [residents of Southside vs government]
“…the avenue had always been and would always be known as Mains Avenue and not Doctor Street”
- subverts the power structure by turning turn the language of official power back on itself
Characters → Concepts
Allusions
Biblical Allusions:
Ruth
First Corinitians Dead
Pilate
Magdalena called Lena
Hagar
Reba
Macon and the “magic” of his two keys
- keys distinguish him as a man of property that sets him apart from the black community socially and economically beneath him
a.) Dr. Foster: despises black nurses, calls “Southside” men/women cannibals, first to own a two horse carriage, waterford crystal from England, denied rights to Mercy Hospital, daughter has no friends, set apart from the black community- Ruth idolizes her father and gives him absolute authority
b.) Macon Dead Sr: despises the men/women of the community, Guitar Baine’s gma denied rent extension after husband killed in an industrial accident, keeps daughters isolated from community, denied opportunity to purchase land he wants -buys what the white’s don’t want - has complete authority over family they are “awkward with fear”
The Green Packard
symbol of freedom through wealth
What it means….
Macon: proof he is a successful man
Ruth: a chance to display her family
Milkman: a burden - uncomfortable looking ‘backwards’
- 1st Corinthians and Magdelena known as Lena: [genuinely happy - a sense of adventure]
- Southside Community [Blood Bank - blood flows freely] called Packard: Macon Dead’s hearse [absence of life - 32]
Susan Byrd’s house
Initial visit: red, white, and blue
…represents America and its dream
- white picket fence → bright and perky on first visit NOW ‘flaked, peeling, even leaning to the left”
- blue steps → “a watery gray”
- red bricks → crumbling
Now, MM has rejected the mythological American Dream and exchanged for “spiritually substantial values” [similar to Pilate’s]
House once impressed MM/American Dream of materialism
What is the significance of names given to characters/places?
PEOPLE (biblical allusions)
Milkman: named after being caught breastfeeding past the appropriate age…prolonged dependency and immaturity
Pilate: name suggests a disconnect from traditional morality
Hagar: signifies suffering and abandonment (s. Bible)
Guitar: named after his desire to have a guitar…indicates his musical nature and rhythm but also symbolizes his internal conflicts (revenge)
Ruth: s. Bible (widowed and left alone by all the men in her life, attempts to make more of herself on her journey w/ mother-in-law) devoted nature
Macon Jr.: named after his father
Macon Sr.: originally named Jake, name misinterpreted by worker…new identity
Corinthians: unlike her name, her life is marked by limitations
PLACES
Shalimar: meaning “abode of love” in Persian, where Milkman uncovers his family history
No Mercy Hospital: reflects the racial inequalities of the time, where African Americans receive substandard medical care… no mercy
Not Doctor Street: officially Mains Avenue, called Not Doctor Street by the Southside community (Dr. Foster having been the first black doctor in the area), defiant against official names and recognition of their own history.
Lincoln’s Heaven: land owned by Milkman’s ancestors, sense of freedom
Solomon’s Leap: cliff from which Solomon supposedly flew back to Africa, symbolizing escape
Danville: a place of refuge where Milkman learns about his family’s past
What are the 3 recurrent themes in regards to interactions at barber shops?
Cultural specific history, male bonding, and argumentation.
Barbershops were traditional businesses African-Americans could own
- African-Americans could be vulnerable and talk about issues of importance in the community
- scholars refer to these establishments as “sancturaries
- provided a unique social function [chess/cards/dominoes]
- More importantly: conversations about local gossip, politics, and community affairs
Emmett Till discussion at the barbershop serves to summarize and interpret event and reaches a moralistic conclusion [no justice]
