Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon

Toni Morrison’s
Song of Solomon

Toni Morrison: The Basics
• Chloe Anthony Wofford
• Born in Lorraine, Ohio (1931)
• Attended Howard University & Cornell
• Taught English at Texas Southern University &
Howard
• Textbook editor in New York
• First novel: The Bluest Eye (1970)
• Song of Solomon published in 1977
• Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993

Morrison’s Writing
• Troubled characters
• Explores the experience of black women
in a racist culture
• Male characters obsessed with flight
• Few white characters
• Magical realism

Morrison’s Purpose
• Deep concern for validating and enriching
African-American culture
• Desire to counteract the loss of the folklore
tradition
• Believes truly good literature says something
meaningful about what it is to be human

The Novel
• A romance of self-discovery
• A retelling of the Black experience in
America
• A family drama

The Novel
According to Morrison,
“Song of Solomon is about the sort of political
problem that young adults have, which is trying
to combine upward mobility…with some kind of
respect and reverence for their ancestors.”

Structure
• Shifts in narrative time
• Strong, symbolic echo and re-echo of key
details
• Connection to oral storytelling
• Extensive use of similes and metaphors
• Symbolism

Biblical Allusions
• “The Song of Solomon”
– Emphasizes age-old themes
– Love song (God’s love, total human love,
sexual love)
• Names
– Biblical names: Pilate, Hagar, Ruth, Solomon,
First Corinthians…
– Connection to epic heroes whose experiences
transcend cultural and temporal boundaries

Themes
• Flight
• Abandoned women
• The effects of racism
• The intersection between sex and love
• Culture and identity

Notebook
What does the term flight mean to you?
(Think about its various connotations). What
is appealing about flying? Why do people
like to fly?

Folklore, Myth, and
the African Literary Tradition
Flight Motifs
• The Western individual & humankind:
– A symbol of transcendence
– An escape from a disagreeable situation
• The African Diaspora
– A collective symbol of resistance
– Transcends a particular state of being: slavery

The Flying Africans
• Based on an Angolan folktale
• Story centers on a conjure man who
empowers enslaved Africans to fly back to
Africa
• Popular among slaves (especially those
on sea islands)
Why?

Flight and Slavery
• Suicide during Middle Passage referred to
as “flying back to Africa”
• Tales of flying Africans in response to the
brutality of white overseers
• Flight imagery seen in burial decorations
in African American cemeteries throughout
the South