Song of Solomon IRA 5

                “Milkman smiled, remembering Pilate. Hundreds of miles away, he was homesick for her, for her house, for the very people he had been hell-bent to leave. His mother’s quiet, crooked, apologetic smile, Her hopeless helplessness in the kitchen.”(300) These lines are so powerful in Milkman’s growing up, he is finally realizing that even though he felt they were the very things holding back they were really holding him up.  He is coming to the understanding that family can be used to benefit everyone not just him. Pilate and his mother needed something from him, in Pilate’s case a male to carry on the Dead name, for his mother a proof of the love her husband never gave her. These responsibilities use to rub and annoy Milkman but now he is seeing their true weight, how they helped him grow up.  Giving him something to reach for, to achieve, and to fulfill his full capabilities.   Milkman is going through many self-revelations but possibly the most important is the revelation that his family has a long and powerful history. He is just beginning to find out about his great grandfather Solomon, who could fly. This explains the feeling he had when he flew for the first time (IRA Blog,3) Deep in his being Milkman knows that he can do great things, but he has never accepted any challenge to cause him to grow. He has always taken the easy route, hoping for the best and feeling self-satisfied, like he deserves the world to be handed to him on a silver platter. He is discovering the greatness in his ancestry is something he can achieve in his life.

“ That wasn’t what he was telling her at all; maybe the ghost was just repeating his wife’s name, Sing, and Pilate didn’t know it because she never knew her mother’s name.  After she died Macon Dead wouldn’t let anybody say it aloud. That was funny. He wouldn’t speak it after she died, and after he died that’s all he ever said- her name.“ (294) This is very ironic,, how Milkman’s grandfather after he was killed he only would say the name he never spoke again. It’s very sad how people can’t always cope with lost, I know I can’t say the name of my cat that died last winter without crying. The fact that he loved her so much to never speak her name in the life after she died but to die to only think about her. Trying to tell your children about the wife you loved and adored. But you waited too long to let them know about the wonderful women whom they will never meet. It’s all very sad.