How Does Toni Morrison Use Material Items In Song Of Solomon

Jewlery of the People
Material items are a large part of many peoples lives. New clothing, jewelry, car, etc. Some try to limit how much it defines them. Most people fully give into a materialistic life. In Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, material things define the characters. They are limited by symbols through material items. Toni Morrison uses the imagery of the natural and unnatural world coming together to show that material things limit character development.
Material symbols demonstrate limitations through vanity thus limiting the characters. The velvet rose petals are a great example of this. They are a material item that define Lena and Corinthians. Lena sews these roses to have purpose in her life: “I was the one who started making

It keeps them quiet” (213). The order of characters here is important because it shows the hierarchy in the family. It further shows that Lena has little purpose in her life besides making the velvet roses. Her Mama and Corinthians have slightly more purpose because they are not as focused on materialistic things thus focused on natural things. Making the roses keeps her quiet because without that item, she has no purpose in life, thus no reason to live. This connects to the mention of the asylum where people who struggle in life are placed. The women’s struggle is very present through how they only live to serve men. The velvet roses are made, then they wait for a man to say that he needs them: “His sisters made roses in the afternoon. Bright, lifeless roses that lay in peck baskets for months until the specialty buyer at Gerhardt’s sent Freddie the janitor over to tell the girls that they could use another gross” (10). “His sisters” is used to emphasize how little purpose women have in life. Then the roses are described as lifeless because they represent death/a lack of meaning in life. Which is further shown by a janitor being the person that asks the girls for more petals

Vanity thus limits a character's potential. Morrison displays this through the peacock landing on a buick. Which represents the joining of the natural world (peacock) and the man-made world. The men view it as representing vanity: “Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that shit” (179). The sentence ends with talking about flying which references taking off, fulfilling potential, meaning developing as a character. He’s saying that nobody who values material things so much can develop. Demonstrated by the peacock landing on a material item instead of another natural thing. The peacock is too extra. It has too many vain features. Instead of being admired for what it is capable of, it is admired because of its physical features and how it looks. The men are also saying that it’s too much which represents women wanting to always please them, going above and beyond to make themselves look good. Only for that to be what the men don’t fully want which leads to their death. Hagar doesn’t follow the same “rules” about men as her family does which leads to her death. She wants unnatural things compared to a natural solution. When she is trying to impress Macon she wants unnatural shampoo unlike her mom: "I need shampoo then. Real shampoo. I can't use Mama's soap"(309). Here, Morrison uses repetition to emphasize the differences between Hagar and Ruth.