Milkman And Ruth In Lord Of The Sun Chapter 2 Analysis

This passage is a dream that Milkman has about his mother. Ruth is outside planting. Milkman is watching her though a window and being surrounded by these “bloody” bulbs, they are growing faster and faster. Much to Milkman’s surprise Ruth doesn’t react in fear, rather she welcomes them, playing a very passive role with the flowers. She played with flowers, with a smile on her face while they slowly start to suffocate her, exhausting also this new-found innocence or ignorance to what’s happening. It takes Ruth a while to notice the flowers. This may speak to the type of ignorance Ruth may have when it comes to her surroundings, to how people may perceive her. Milkman thinks that his mother should react with some type of elevated sense of surprise or fear even, but she doesn’t. this can be emblematic of the reality of Milkman and Ruth. Ruth does things that do not seem “normal” or “sane” to the

In the passage right after this one, Milkman talks to Freddy about ghosts, saying that his mother was killed with a white bull. These supernatural, unnatural forces certainly seem to impede on these characters lives and actions, for Milkman, the realistic, suffocating nature of the flower are literally engulfing his mother, and for Freddy, this white bull killed his mother. These things take on an unnatural force, outside of their control, dictating how one lives their life. One might say that there are other outside forces that dictate their life as well, in terms of oppressive systems like racism, sexism and classism. Toni Morrison’s use of the supernatural allows us to look at a different way in which these systems can be manifested, like suffocating bloody flowers or like a raging white bull, they always seem to be very prevalent in their lives and in the community. It is Milkman who is watching this all through a window, yet cannot accept the supernatural when it is right in front of