Okay last time I blogged, which was when Milkman was in the middle of a conflict between many people in his life, his friend, Guitar, his aunt Pilate, his mother, his father and Hagar. After escaping many murderous attempts by Hagar, he final realizes that Pilate has something stashed in her house. His father tells him a tale, about when Pilate and he ran away after their father was murdered, they were in a cave and a man with gold tried to hurt them, but Macon killed him. They discovered the gold but buried it to come back later. Macon believes that Pilate has the gold in her house. After Milkman and Guitar try and go retrieve it they discover it isn’t the gold it’s the bones of the man whom Macon killed. Pilate gets them out of jail making up a tale about how this was her husband and she couldn’t afford to bury him so she has carried him everywhere. Milkman decides that the gold must still be buried down south, he decides to go get it. This is a passage about how the flight down south made Milkman feel.
“The airplane ride exhilarated him, encouraged illusion and a feeling of invulnerability. High above the clouds, heavy yet light, caught in the stillness of speed (“Cruise,” the pilot said), sitting in intricate metal become glistening bird, it was not possible to believe he had ever made a mistake, or could…This one time he wanted to go solo in the air, way from real life, he felt free, but on the ground, when he talked to Guitar just before he left, the wings of all those other people’s nightmares flapped in his face and constrained him. Lena’s anger, Corinthian’s loose and uncombed hair, matching her slack lips, Ruth’s stepped-up surveillance, his father’s bottomless greed, Hagar’s hollow eyes-he did not know whether he deserved any of that, but he knew he was fed up and he knew he had to leave quickly. “(220-221)
This book has a theme of flying and how that is an escape of the soul and body, Pilate has her own type of flying. Her dead father visited her and told her to sing and let her spirit fly. This is Milkman’s first taste of this freedom. His whole life has been dictated by others, on how to act and feel. His decision to go look for the gold is a brash one. A decision that the old Milkman would have never done, he is so complacent and accepted of his boring life that he believes that there is no way out of it. He decides to go look for the gold so that his parents and friend Guitar will get off his back. Once Milkman is in the air and experiences flying all of his struggles float away, he feels free. Before he left, he was troubled by the fears of others, and their hatred of him because of his actions, Corinthians because he ratted out her love affair. Lena because she just plain hated him, he stole her girlhood and now she was a boring old woman. One of the biggest is his father’s greed, he wants and desires many things and is much like Okonkwo in his pursuit to get them.
There is a lot of depth in the line “caught in the stillness of speed.” So many people think speed means everything is happening fast, but speed can come in many different forms. It’s like taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture, knowing every little detail about what has happened and what will happen. Allowing yourself to not get caught up in the details, but knowing that what has happened is something you can’t change. The future is up for grabs, you can decide and design it, Milkman is “Carpe Diem” the day. This is almost an out of body experience for Milkman, feeling the power of being up in the air.
He does feel while in the air that he has done no wrong, which is a lie. He is a selfish pitiful man with no back bone. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction.
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