In the novel, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison introduces the character of Pilate Dead. The aunt of the main character, Milkman Dead, Pilate is shown to be far more than a supporting cast member. Pilate is a play on naming a character. She is everything from nature shaman to a savior figure like Jesus Christ himself. In this paper, I will explore the many facets of Pilate, and the symbolisms behind them. When looking at Pilate, we need to look at the event of her birth. “How he had copied the group of letters out on a piece of brown paper; copied, as illiterate people do, every curlicue, arch, and bend in the letters, and presented it to the midwife.” (Song of Solomon, Morrison, P.42) Pilate’s father, saddened by his wife’s death, has named his daughter after randomly picking her name out of the Bible. But the name is Pilate, the one who sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion. His reasoning to keep this name even after the midwife has told him he shouldn’t do it is that he had asked God to save his wife and his prayers were not heard, so he is now looking at his daughter as the one that sentenced his wife to death. But there is more to her birth than this, another aspect of it that shows that Morrison was making Pilate into a Christ figure. Pilate’s birth is a magical event just like the birth of Jesus. Pilate’s mother died …show more content…
Pilate has no problem resorting to violence when it is needed. She has no problem holding a knife to the throat of a man that slapped her daughter. You would think that this ease to resort to a physical attack would make Pilate completely different from Christ in her ways. But, on the contrary, this is far from the truth. Even Jesus resorted to violence when it was necessary for him to do so and was angered. You must remember the story of when Jesus cleansed the temple of the cheating moneylenders and merchants from the holy