Song of Solomon Précis
Jennifer Yu
The Song of Songs
My father's bones are buried here
Still Here
The Continuing Song
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The Search for Self-Identity
Toni Morrison, an exceptional writer who authored the fictional masterpiece Song of Solomon (1997), creates a masterpiece that asserts the difficulties behind an individuals's journey of self discovery through the life of several characters such as Pilate. Pilate's experiences from birth such as her missing navel (Morrison 143) and her drifter-status drifting from state to state (145) as an outcast of proper society (141) ultimately all add up and become the sum of her identity in her earring box (167). Up until the backstory of Pilate, the novel has revolved around the story of Milkman and his search for his identity and where he belongs; whether in the strict society of reality with his father Macon Dead II, with Guitar and The Days (159), or somewhere in between the the two sides of the spectrum: Pilate's story is an example for Milkman to parallel with his own much like how Leslie Silko's Ceremony emphasizes the repetition of the past in the form of new characters, Morrison's develops the growth of Milkman through the bildungsroman-like back story of Pilate and her search for identity.