Keeping a Blog

For me, this semester of blogging has generally been a productive, idea-nurturing task. By maintaining a blog, I was able to explore the books I read in a more formal, in-depth manner. I feel more driven to read the novels more carefully and take mental notes of important parts. I also feel that I get more practice in writing because the blog forces me to take time to analyze my thoughts and structure my ideas. I would feel less incentive to do so if I knew that my writing was for a limited audience, but on a blog, nobody knows who could be reading what. For this reason, I highly appreciate the mandatory blog assignment and believe that it is a very effective requirement for any variety of courses.

Milkman's Hidden Passion

One thing I overlooked throughout my reading of Song of Solomon is Milkman's brief moments when he displays somewhat of a longing for the future. The impression that Milkman gives in the majority of the novel is that he lacks drive for life. In very short instances (I remember only one time before chapter 10), the reader sees Milkman mention the future: Milkman tells Guitar about how he worries about the stories he will tell his children when he is old. This small detail stands far away from Milkman's general image.

In chapter 10, the reader sees a change in Milkman. As Milkman hears more about his father's father from Reverend Cooper, he begins to feel more than nothing for his father, emotionally. He begins to see his heritage from a different life, and even denies that this change of feeling was due to the strong whiskey he ingested. In fact, he begins to feel genuine feelings of "anger" towards the whites that killed his grandfather among other feelings.

Chapter 10 marks the time when Milkman begins his coming of age. He grows up in the fact that he opens his self to his given life. Before he ignored it or took it for granted, but during his 4-day long stay at Reverend Cooper's house, he becomes stronger and braver. Instead of just accepting the events as they come, he begins to feel passion. He feels passion to take the gold from those that killed his grandfather. He feels passion in telling (bragging to) the locals about his father's life. And these are all signs of his development into someone knew. It is hard to say that he strictly becomes a Man, but Milkman definitely becomes something else.

Monsieur Milkman

As I've been reading Songs of Solomon, a huge similarity between the characters Milkman and Monsieur Meursault from The Stranger dawned upon me. They both carry the same mentality which trivializes life. They both act according to physical pleasures and have this idea of the meaninglessness of life nested into their heads. In fact, both portray their disdain for emotional matters: Meursault believes that marriage does not symbolize anything of importance; Milkman similarly believes that his life is just an extension of the present rather than looking to the future.

The two characters' nearly identical ideals help morph my impressions of Songs of Solomon as I continue reading. Meursault is generally admired until the incident at the beach, which brings havoc and shows that society does not accept humans without what is considered normal emotions. At this point, The Stranger ends, and the reader becomes incapable of exploring the circumstances further. On the other hand, Milkman faces "society" with his beliefs (as evident by his situation with Hagar) in the middle of the novel. As we progress further and further into Songs of Solomon, we see Milkman who is forced to face the things which he regarded as unimportant. Perhaps a similar situation would have arose in The Stranger if Albert Camus had not ended his novel at that point.

From my interpretation of The Stranger, I strongly believe that Meursault held on to his belief that emotional matters are of less importance. In Songs of Solomon, I think that Milkman is headed in an opposite direction. As Milkman continues to face more and more consequences of his life, he will change in unforeseen ways (which happens in all coming of age novels). Assuming this is true, I predict that Milkman will learn to settle down and become more aware of those he interacts with (for example, Lena and Corinthians).