Self-Actualization In Song Of Solomon In the novel Song Of Solomon, Toni Morrison depicted the many aspects of self-actualization, as well as the tormenting road that lead to the shaping of an individual. Throughout the novel, she described a young African American man’s journey as he uncovered his personal history, myths, and essence, eventually leading to the realization of who he was.
When the man, Milkman, finally reached the point of realizing who he was and where he was from, he found himself able to “fly”, the one thing he had attempted to do his entire life. The story revolved around the idea of the main character realizing who he was and where he was from. Milkman Dead evolved through the descriptions, events, and experiences of others. His parents, Macon Dead and Ruth Foster Dead, represented the wall that blocked Milkman from attaining his true identity. Milkman was an African American boy who was better off than most of his peers.
He came to school in what most children would wear to Sunday school, and every weekend, his father would take the family for a drive in their expensive car. There was, however, a daunting personal problem that followed him everywhere. Up until he was six years old, Milkman’s mother breast-fed him. After a situation involving her dead father, Milkman’s father had shunned his wife sexually. “[Ruth’s] passions were narrow but deep. Long deprived of sex, long dependent on self-manipulation…” (Morrison 134).
That depravation led her to her prolonged breast-feeding of her son, and to the unfortunate nickname the situation gave her son: no longer was he Macon Dead. “He’d found the phrase he’d been looking for.’A milkman! That’s what you got here, Miss Rufie. A natural milkman if I ever seen one. Look out, womens. Here he come. Huh!'” (Morrison 15). The embarrassing name of Milkman was thefirst incident that tie…
