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Themes:
- money and display of it// Reputation
- death
- Mr. Smith, their last name, milkman's grandma
- nature
- family dynamics
- naming (also some info in Geography)
- not doctor street, no mercy,
- colors: red, white, blue, black
- flight: smith -> milkman -> Porter
- Pilate has no belly button, disconnected to her heritage
Magical Elements
Time
Colors
Dream of Tulips
pg 104-105
Names
1. the dream itself
ruth + tulips
2. Milk's response
+nature of dreams
Fake roses
have no purpose
pg 187, 213, 10
reference pg 133?
Heddy
red, white, blue and black in ch 1
warm colors (orange, yellow, red) in ch 2 even though talking about death -- also some green
also ch 2 pg 41 black might as well be a rainbow
Milk's reaction
Solomon
Ryna
Shalimar
- do nothing
while tulips basically rape her
- related to the father hitting scene
- why did he hit him?
- Ruth + sisters think he did nothing
could fly
red roses
white peacock ch 8
pride
white bull
white hen
milk = white
too much pride???
white rat (dr. foster) 73
20 Others
Sing Dead
find out in ch 10
Crow
Macon Dead Sr. // Jake
?
Macon Sr. wouldn't let anyone say this name
Doctor
"Everybody wants the life of a black man. Everybody" (222)
blue wings, water
"negroes don't like the water" 35
Susan Byrd
Pilate Dead
Macon Dead Jr
Ruth Foster (Dead)
Heritage
Redlining + Great Migration
green sack
money
dying tree
Heritage and African Folklore
burial
- Zoned areas on a map where something is desirable
- Redlining: denying or limiting of financial services
- Macon Jr. is in Real Estate : works in 4th grade, wants to purchase in 1st
○ Problems with this
○ Racial tension
- Relocation??
Flying African Specifically
Morrison confronts and subverts our assumptions of hwar colors mean, asserting that we never just see a thing, we're always bringing our past knowledge + experience in to making meaning (consciously or not)
Reba
123 - Fairfield Cemetery
Dr. Foster
The Great Migration
- Large waves of African Americans fled from the south to the north
- Violence
○ Racism
○ Jim crow laws
○ KKK
- Culture
○ Harlem renaissance
§ Lit
§ Music
- Flight: only birds and airplanes could fly pg 9
○ Not true, migration
- Names: connection to heritage
- Change
○ Macon Dead III --> Milkman
○ Location
- Song: sugarman pg 6
○ Opinion
Flight
Magdalene (Lena) Dead
First Corinthians Dead
Milkman (Macon) Dead III
name change: disconnects him from his father
Hagar
Geography
Civil Rights
Home
7 Days
Setting
names and the past: 4,5,14-15, 17-18, 23,27,
118
Guitar's View
"'he is my home in this world' 'And i am his,' said Ruth" 137
Hagar + Ruth talking about Milk
places:
Milkman's View
Milkman believes that some people are "dumb enough to believe that if they killed one man his whole line died" (236)
this idea emphasizes that he thinks the 7 Days is stupid
7 guys who kill random white guys when a black person gets murdered. Guitar is the Sunday guy
race is a numbers game
"names had meaning. no wonder Pilate put hers in her ear. When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do" (329)
bad = punished
good = reward
to do the right thing, knowing it sends you to hell is the height of morality
if...
bad = reward = sinner
good = punished = above morality
- 14 yr old and killed him for whistling at a white
○ Brutally, viscously murdered
- Murders were acquitted of all charges
- Symbol of racism
- Open casket = important b/c he was not hidden
- Guitar compares Till's death to the situation between Milkman and his father
- Milkman sees Till's death as insignificant
○ Will he recognize that something has to change?
- Will Guitar or Milkman end up being involved in racial violence?
- Easy to recognize change when you have nothing to lose
- Spark for civil rights
○ Kindling was that he was the same
○ Not about the particular death that was significant but it is the flaw in the system
People in the 7 Days:
Porter
Mini-Timeline
Food
Emmitt Till ch 3
7 Days ch 6
church bombing - ch 8
n v s
pg 115
"I love ya! I love ya all. Don't act like that. you women. stop it. don't act like that. don't you see I love ya? I'd die for ya, kill for ya. I'm saying I love ya. I'm telling ya. Oh, God ave mercy. What I'm gonna do?.... I'll take hate any day. But don't give me love. I can't take no more love, Lord. I can't carry it. Just like Mr Smith. he couldn't carry it. It's too heavy. Jesus you know. " 26
Biblical Names
fight is turning towards children
201 reference to pg 1
Education
what is North v. South pg 114
congo vs. French pg 116
North Pole pg 117
"people do funny things. Specially us. The cards are stacked against us and just trying to stay in the game, stay alive and in the game, makes us do funny things. Things we can't help. Things that make us hurt one another. " - Guitar 87
Milkman's Travels
Sweet - Ginger Smell
Narrative
pg 185, 199, 239, 287, 311
look at event surrounding it
Pilate Dead: Pontius Pilate ordered the crucifixion of Jesus
Reba: Rebekah was the wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau
Hagar: Hagar is Sarah and Abraham’s maid, gets banished
Magdalene called Lena: Mary Magdalene traveled with Jesus and was present at the crucifixion and resurrection.
First Corinthians: relates to Paul – he talked about the importance of unity under the church and the importance of love
Ruth: Ruth followed her mother-in-law even when she was not wanted – showed her loyalty
Circe: possibly meant “bird” in Latin translation of the Greek. In Greek mythology she is a sorceress
Biblical Allusions
Song of Solomon
Snake
Mercy
In the Bible it is a lyrical poem in the Old testament about two lovers - a young black maiden and King Solomon.
pg 54 - 55
Pilate is compared to a snake
tulips pg 104
Page 207
the white man's bones that Pilate carries around are Mr. Soloman's
3rd day he rose again
dad seen as ghost on 3rd day
pg 168
Characterization
Milkman
Macon:
Pilate:
pg 86ish ch 3
on his journey he sheds his possessions as he goes back in time to the south
Pg 40 - 41
Pg 63
pg 51
hit scene: why do the women react the way they do
milk = white
white = pride
milk = pride?
- who is she, is she a snake? 40-41
he recognizes that society is broken
wants the crumbs if can't have the pie
is he a man for doing this?
is this moral?
impacting next generation?
"the fact was he wanted the gold because it was gold and he wanted to own it." 257
pg 31, 35
- "concentration on things behind him"
- don't know about his past at all
- thinks he has no future
- without a past there is no future?
- whites suppressing him?
- (beginning asks "what are the men you know really like?")
- incest = look inward
- care about themselves, not community
pg 51
- his childhood is all about what he owns
- father was a slave so owning land was important
- referred to as heaven
- taken away
- is this an explanation or an excuse for what he is/how he acts?
- connection
she saved Milkman's life before he was born
- connected to nature
- likes specific answers
- both name and snake have connotations of the devil
- think she is not this and this is juxtaposition
- believes in people
- isolated (different than Macon (foils) but similar)
cares for him
Happiness
"Milkman was five feet seven then but it was the first tie in his life that he remembered being completely happy" 47
he owns other people -> slave owner (pg 55)
go back to pg 99,104, 110,120
go to pg 149
give and take in 285 -- saying / talking
Toni Morrison
admits he is ignorant and vain pg 276
"It was becoming a habit - this concentration on things behind him." 35
Lena
Gender Roles
Manhood
pg 213
"thank you" pg 99
can you be a man if you are inwardly turning?
pg 196-- every woman is a doll baby
also family dynamics
man's job is to protect stereotypically
Gender Roles + Employment
Dedication: Daddy
next page:
The fathers may soar
And the children may know their names
what are the men you know really like?
pg 235
- Morrison did not like the mystery of creativity
- Father's death was one of her muses
- African American culture
○ Biblical importance
§ Phrases in regular conversation
○ Language
§ Lyrics from songs were used in conversation
- Song/ music
○ Can reveal history
§ Way of communication
○ Mother was inspiration
- Stories and myths
○ Myth about flight
§ African slaves that flew back to africa from the US
○ Flights will be pivotal in the book
○ Flight has many different connotations
§ Escape
§ Move from earth to more spiritual
What to possibly expect:
- Importance of language
- The act of singing
- How will characters escape?
- What will they sacrifice?
1. Men seek to Dominate women
Guitar
Hagar
focus on ch 6
By Toni Morrison
"'Die, Hagar, die.' Either this bitch dies or I do. And she stood there like a puppet strung up by a puppet master who had gone off to some other hobby. O Solomon don't leave me here" 301
milkman = solomon?
Short Stories
Breakdown
Sing/Song/ Lyrics
songs/tales -> Civil Rights
- MLK vs Malcom X
---> Seven Days (Validity)
- Milks Role moving forward
look at religion
307: a "chorus" of family
pg 317, 318
Chapters
Ch 12 - 15
Flight
Ch 12
Ch 13
Escape?--> Death = escape?
children = birds pg 268
Suicide?
298
pg 162
only birds and airplanes could fly - pg 9
pg 120
CH 1 - 5
Ch 14
Ch 15
"Too much tail. All that jewelery weights 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." (179)
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 1
"Riding backward made him uneasy. It was like flying blind, and not knowing where he was going - just where he had been - troubled him" 32
peacock flew 283
"In the air, away 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" (220)
Chapter 5
Chapter 4
CH 6 - 11
Chapter 6
Chapter 8
Chapter 7
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11