Keeping an Online Journal

I haven't really been a huge fan of doing the reading journals online. I know that there are advantages to being able to read and comment on what my classmates have been observing in the novels, but I've found that in this class (as in English classes that I've taken in the past), there are discussions about the books that we're reading occurring out of class.

I really liked being able to keep a written journal; when I was writing in that, I found that I was thinking more about the content of what I was writing and it was much more personal. I would include a lot more tangents, anecdotes, and doodles that I have trouble incorporating into my online journal. I feel like when I'm writing something (especially when I know that anyone can read it) I try to make it a lot more polished and I end up taking a lot longer to think of something to write about. In previous journals, after doing that day's reading, I would just write down whatever I was thinking about, even if it wasn't totally relevant. I had a lot of fun doing that kind of writing, and I know that keeping a written journal has been an option, but I would always feel guilty because if I had enough free time to do that, I felt like I should be working on my online journal or an upcoming paper instead.

I don't know that getting rid of the online journals altogether would be a good idea, because I think that some people have definitely benefited from them, but I wasn't really a huge fan of them.

Milkman in Part II

At the beginning of part II, we see Milkman by himself, flying to Pilate and Macon's hometown. This is the first time when we really see Milkman acting independently and without his immediate family members or close friends trying to influence him (which is pretty strange, since by now, he's a middle aged man). I thought that his actions in the beginning of this section are very different from how he had been acting in the first section; he goes back to his father's hometown with the intention of looking for the gold that Macon and Pilate had found as children, but while it may seem that he's only travelling there for selfish reasons, he seems very different than he was before.

The change in Milkman's character is hinted at in chapter 10, but in chapter 11 when he is out hunting right before Guitar finds him is where he seems in embrace his changing personality. Because he is so far away from his home in Detroit, he is able to realize how much he relied on his wealth, and he sees the extent to which he took his money and relationships for granted.

Milkman's Relationships

In Song of Solomon, Milkman experiences many different kinds of love from his family members and close friends. Some of the forms of love that he experiences are healthy, while others are not. For example, the kind of love that Ruth feels for Milkman is unhealthy. She has an aggressively possessive type of love for Milkman. An example of this is how she nurses him much longer than most children nurse for; she doesn't want him to grow up because that might mean that he would grow away from her.

The love that Milkman's father has for him is also fairly possessive and controlling. We see Macon and Ruth competing for Milkman's love and loyalty when they tell him vastly different versions of the night that Dr. Foster died, trying to show themselves as respectable and deserving of his love in their respective versions. However, Milkman doesn't seem to love either of them after these incidents, the only emotion that he gets after listening to his father is disgust, and he seems rather apathetic when hearing Ruth's version of the story and her accusations against her husband.

Hagar's love for Milkman is another example of unhealthy love, although it is not nearly as selfish as the love that Milkman's parents have for him. She cares about him much more than he cares about her, and this ends up hurting her so much when he breaks up with her that she decides to try and murder him with an ice pick.

Perhaps the only example of selfless and healthy love that any character has for Milkman, is the love that Pilate has for him. When he first goes to her house as a child, she welcomes him into her house, even though she has a bad relationship with Macon. Pilate's love for Milkman is epitomized in the scene where Milkman and Guitar are in jail after stealing the bag from Pilate's house and instead of getting angry or leaving them in jail, she convinces the police to let the two boys go. This is also one of the few relationships where Milkman reciprocates the love that he is shown.

Pilate and Macon

When Macon tells Milkman the story from when he and Pilate were younger, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. After hearing the story about Ruth and her father just after he had died from both Ruth's and Macon's perspectives, I tried to take everything that Macon said with a grain of salt; while there was surely some truth in his story about Ruth, there was also probably some lies. Knowing this, I think that it's impossible to say that Macon is being totally honest with Milkman when he tells him the story about Pilate.

I can't wrap my mind around Macon's accusation, especially since Pilate has been portrayed as a character who cares very little for wealth. I don't know how she would be so comfortable with giving away so many things while secretly holding onto a bag of gold that she stole as a child. This portrayal of Pilate as selfish conflicts with the person that Milkman has gotten to know. The version of Pilate that he knows is strict, but loving, and, according to Ruth, she saved him from his father. Milkman almost seems like a small child in this section because of how easily he's influenced by his father and Guitar.

Of course, in chapter nine, the real story comes out after Milkman and Guitar are caught and brought to the police station. I wasn't all that surprised when they found that the bag wasn't full of rocks, and instead was filled with rocks and the body of the man that Macon and Pilate has killed. However, since Pilate didn't have the gold, and Macon claimed that it had disappeared when he had searched the cave after a few days, the question of what actually happened to the gold can be added to the long list of questions that Milkman has about his family.

When Guitar and Milkman break into Pilate's house to steal the bag, I was almost hoping that they would get caught so that Pilate could explain her side of the story to Milkman. Pilate is, without any doubt, my favorite character in Song of Solomon, which is obviously giving my perspective here a huge bias, but I just don't see how Macon's story could be totally true.

Guitar and Meursault

I don't know if it's simply because my research project was on Meursault and absurdism, but I can't stop myself from seeing Guitar as a bit of an absurdist. In the section where Guitar tells Milkman about the Seven Men and their doings, he says, "And how I die or when doesn't interest me. What I die for does. It's the same as what I live for" (Morrison 159). I'm not trying to say that Meursault and Guitar are exactly the same; but I think that they definitely have some similar beliefs. The language that Camus uses in Meursault's epiphany in jail is very similar to what Guitar says to Milkman:

“Well, so I’m going to die.” Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living—and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying. […] Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter. (Camus 114)

Both Guitar and Meusault are firm believers in living in the moment and not worrying about what happens, but there is a difference in their philosophies in that, Meursault believes that the world is just going to go on no matter what he does and Guitar believes that he has to change the world. In the passage above, Meursault says "in either case other men and women will naturally go on living--and for thousands of years" (114), Guitar remarks on this topic as well, but he has a different perspective, "It's not about you living longer. It's about how you live and why. It's about whether your children can make other children. It's about trying to make a world where one day white people will think before they lynch" (160).

There is another similarity that I think is important between the two characters. And that is the fact that Meursault shoots an Arab, and Guitar kills white people. Meursault is living in a colony where there are Arabs and French people, and there is definitely a lot of blatant racism; Guitar's self-proclaimed purpose in life revolves around racism. However, a difference that definitely should be noted is that, Meursault and the French abuse the Arab population, while Guitar and the black community is being abused. This difference could tie into the fact that Meursault doesn't shoot the Arab for any particular reason, and Guitar lays out definite reasons for his actions.

Antoinette's Madness

Towards the end of Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette 'goes mad'--but, what exactly is the operational definition of madness that we are using? In class discussions, we were saying that madness is determined by how your society sees you. But, the problem with this definition is the fact that towards the end of the novel, Antoinette goes to England, where she is no longer being viewed by her society. The only people in England who have any contact with her, besides Rochester, have no idea what the world that she comes from is like, so it makes sense that they would see her as being mad.

When Rochester first comes to where Antoinette lives, he is seen as an outsider and people don't really know how to understand him. This is similar to how Rochester, and everyone else in England, don't understand Antoinette. But, a difference arises because Rochester isn't considered to be 'mad'; this seems to be because everyone already knew that Antoinette's mother was mad, and it was a ready-made excuse for Rochester to use to explain his wife's behavior.

I think that the solitary confinement that Antoinette faces in part three of the novel definitely drives her mad. But, I think that her madness is very different from what Rochester thinks that it is. Rochester locks her up because he thinks that she is totally incapable of making rational decisions and functioning in society, but she isn't ever really given the chance to be a part of England's society. And, I think that she is able to make rational decisions--when she attacks Mr. Mason, this may seem like a totally irrational thing to do, but not when you think about her reasons for attacking him.

Antoinette's suicide is another example of how she is still able to make rational choices. While suicide may seem like an irrational thing to do, one has to look at what her options are; she can remain confined in an attic for the rest of her life, or she could not. I think that staying in the attic would have been better proof that she was mad than any of the reasons that Rochester used to justify keeping her there. When Antoinette chooses to jump out of the window, she is freeing herself from the life of a madwoman that she had been forced into. However, by jumping she cements the idea that she is crazy in the minds of readers (and, as seen in Jane Eyre, the other characters in the story). I'm a little hesitant to say that she's in a Catch-22, but she definitely is stuck in a situation where she can't win. She is forced to choose between life and freedom, and by jumping out of the window, she chooses freedom--from both her husband and the identity of a madwoman that he has forced on her.

Rochester

The beginning of part two was a little confusing at first, but I quickly figured out that the narrator had switched from Antionette to her new husband. I couldn't understand exactly why or how they got married. Rochester didn't seem too enthusiastic about being married to Antionette. He keeps referring to how she isn't really an English woman, and he has clear doubts about the marriage. Antionette also has her own doubts about Rochester, for a period of time, she refuses to marry him, until he goes to her and talks her back into the marriage.

As Rochester gets further into Antionette's world, he finds himself more and more uncomfortable. Antionette tries to introduce Rochester to Christophine, but he tells her that he doesn't like her because of her language and rough nature. Rochester doesn't actually feel comfortable until he is led to Mr. Mason's old room and is left alone to write a letter to his father. He doesn't like the fact that the privileges that he is so used to having in England are diminishing and being replaced by dislike and distrust from the people that he is encountering.