|
 Overcoming the Past
Linked from Essay
III, Section 13: "[man],
still unvanquished, eternally directed toward the future, whose
own restless energies never leave him in peace," |
|
 'The
male is the only one got that tail full of jewelry. Son of a
bitch. Look at that.' The peacock opened its tail wide. 'Let's
scare it. Come on, Milk,' and Guitar started to run toward the
fence.
'What
for?' asked Milkman, running behind him. . . .
'How
come it can't fly no better than a chicken?' Milkman asked.
'Too
much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can't
nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up
the shit that weighs you down.'"
From Toni Morrison, Song of
Solomon, New York: Plume, 1987, p. 178-79.
Reader's Questions
- How does Nietzsche's discussion
in Section 13 of Essay III relate to the history and "jewelry"
that "weighs down" the Dead family? What would make
the family members "sick" to Nietzsche? Why?
- How, in the course of Morrison's
novel, does Milkman use his own "restless energies"
to uncover the past and thus overcome it?
- What does Milkman have to
"give up" to get to that point? How does this make
him different from his friend Guitar, his father Macon Dead,
his lover Hagar, or his aunt Pilate?
RETURN
TO ESSAY THREE |