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Flight In Song Of Solomon

725 Words3 Pages

In the book, Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, the image of flight is a major symbol. It signifies true life and the living of it, as well as a sense of freedom, of release, and touches the lives of all the main characters in the book, as it is a part of the dead family history. But the most affected is Milkman, who embarks on a journey of self-discovery, and discovers this true meaning of flight. The first instance of Morrison's use of the image of flight is at the very beginning of the book. "At 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wing Please forgive me. I loved you all. Robert Smith, Ins. Agent" (p 3) Smith is unable to take the pressure of his life any longer and longs …show more content…

His legacy is left in the form of a song, as the people of Shalimar sing. The people of Shalimar sing his song, hoping for his return, but they know that he is never going to come back. In "Song of Solomon" another motif that occurs quite frequently is color. At many points throughout the novel, Morrison uses color as an added description of the scene as well as to point to a meaning in the story. The novel starts out with the motif of color appearing in the first chapter many times. Morrison describes Mr. Smith with "wide blue silk wings" and she describes "red velvet rose petals"(5). One of the most significant mentions of colors, is the first paragraph of chapter eight where "Guitar was seeing little scraps of Sunday dresses-white and purple, powder blue, pink and white..."(173). This all relates to the issue of racism in this book because this is one of the dreams Guitar has that encourages him to seek justice for his people. This later becomes an obsession for him, and he goes to the point where he feels no emotion what so ever when killing people. The basis of this book falls on the colors of black and white and the racial issues of the characters in this novel. The reoccurring of the color in this novel is blue. The color blue seems to appear in many instances, though the meaning is hard to distinguish. It could, signifies a feeling

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