Magical Realism In Toni Morrison's The Song Of Solomon

The bildungsroman and long-time classic, The Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, explores multiple literary elements that develop the flight of the novel's main character, Milkman Dead. Magical realism, a phrase used to describe the authenticity of an object considered genuine, is used regularly to bring further meaning to Morrison's 1977 novel. Using this literary component, she brings the term to life in clever references that reflect its mythical existence to represent real life.

Named offhandedly by her father, Pilate Dead is the sister of our main character. Alienated from her father and brother, Milkman described his estranged sibling, saying, "For all the years he knew her, her stomach was as smooth and sturdy as her back, at no place

Although easy to gloss over, a white or albino peacock is pure fiction and impossible. However, in the novel, Morrison introduces the bird with Milkman saying, "Some jive flying, but look at her strut." (Morrison 179). Next, Guitar says, "Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down." (Morrison 179). This explanation of why a peacock cannot fly, even one as glamorous and beautiful, shows that its appearance and initial nature are a weight from its freedom as Guitar and Milkman decade to capture it. As always, Morrison deliberately puts this animal in the readers' path to show the weight of greed and selfishness that guides Milkman from his attraction to flight. In addition to the peacock, Morrison includes ghosts. Not including Pilate's communication with her late father, we learn about Circe. An old lady, Circe, is an enigma to Milkman as he describes her "That was as far as he got because although the woman was talking to him, she might in any case still be dead—as a matter of fact, she had to be dead. Not because of the wrinkles, and the face so old it could not be alive, but because out of the toothless mouth came the strong, mellifluent voice of a twenty year-old girl." (Morrison 240). Seemingly natural, Circe is the definition of someone who should be dead but alive, a ghost,