Upper-Class Women In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

“Speak up more.” “Don’t be bossy.” “Be confident.” “Don’t be arrogant.” Expectations are hard. They’re especially hard for Cori and Lena Dead from Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Although women throughout the novel are often left on the sidelines, Chapter 9 finally shines a light on Cori and Lena, bringing them out of the background for the first time. Born into the wealthiest family around, they’ve learned to adhere to the strict confines and expectations of their socioeconomic status. Using Cori and the velvet roses, Morrison illustrates how adhering to these expectations can lead to broken and dysfunctional lives for upper class women, but offers hope because it’s possible to overcome societal pressure and find happiness.

Elegant and refined,

Typically, a woman who is well educated, has money, and is attractive won’t have trouble finding a suitable partner and getting married. Except, for Cori, her upper class status makes her less desirable. When men were looking for wives, “Cori was not their choice” because she had “no ambition, no hunger, no hustle” and was “too elegant” (188). Because her family is wealthy, she has never had to work hard for what she has, leaving her passive and directionless. Despite appearing to have the qualifications of a good wife, Cori is unable to get a husband because of her upper class attitude and manners. Since she studied at Bryn Mawr, a prestigious college for women, people expected her to get a job fitting for her education such as a teacher, but even Cori is aware that “Bryn Mawr had done what a four-year dose of liberal education was designed to do: unfit her for eighty percent of the useful work in the world” (189). Being able to afford college should have opened up many opportunities for Cori, but it actually limits them by only teaching her “domestic mindlessness”. She ends up working as a maid, which is the same job that almost all poor, uneducated, black women have. What’s more, she could “never let her mistress know that she had ever been to college or Europe or

Finally deciding to get out of the house and find a job, Cori shows that it’s not too late to change her life even after 40 years of petal-making. Although she felt humiliated to be working as a maid, “she had what she had never had in her own: responsibility. She flourished in a way, and exchanged arrogance, occasionally with confidence” (190). Cori finally learned independence and responsibility. She experienced freedom by making her own money instead of relying on her father and even began to shed her feelings of superiority. Her decision to work was unexpected by everyone, and she showed that she can decide what she wants to do with her life no matter what anyone else thinks. When Cori realized that she wanted a life with Porter, “a yardman”, she banged on his car window and even “climbed up on the fender and lay full out across the hood of the car” (198,199). Being the daughter of a wealthy family, Cori has always been put together and elegant. However, in this moment, she’s sprawled out over a car and doesn’t care at all what she looks like. She further breaks expectations by wanting to be with a poor man. In the end, after spending time with Porter, she lets her hair down and decides that “she wouldn’t have collected her hair into a ball at her nape now for anything in the