her generosity of spirit ("If I'd-a knowed more people, I'd-a loved more," she says)-parallel the tensions which seize every generation of this family. her need to remember its stories and its past, his love-'em-and-leave-'em attitude toward women vs. Pilate's compassion, his desire to escape from the family vs. His aunt Pilate, a poor woman whose life is filled with love, is so vibrant a contrast and so dominating a force in the family, however, that she becomes the fulcrum upon which the action turns. The male protagonist, Milkman Dead, is the arrogant son of a wealthy slumlord. For all its elegance of development and seriousness of purpose, however, this 1977 novel by Toni Morrison is decidedly earthy, filled with unusual characters and exciting, often sensuous, stories about a family descended from Solomon, a freed slave who, according to legend, flew on his own wings back to Africa, leaving his wife and twenty-one children behind. "Solomon cut across the sky, Solomon gone home."įilled with imagery and symbolism from the Bible, this landmark novel also draws on the epic tradition, tracing the roots of four generations of an African-American family as they fight a series of battles-against the legacy of slavery and racism, the loss of cultural values and roots, the trauma of injustice, and the self-centeredness which results from economic success. ( Jump over to read a review of A Mercy and Beloved)
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