800 Morrison, Toni
GrieF in Song of Solomon
After being reared for virtually her entire child-
hood by her devoted and elitist father, Ruth Fos-
ter Dead evolves into womanhood dependent on
and loyal to her father for the great affection he
showed her throughout her life. However, after her
father’s death, Ruth understands that her tremen-
dous investment in her father’s life contributed sig-
nificantly to her lack of a personal identity. Since
her father had great wealth and many of the finest
material things, she developed a false consciousness
that she would not need anything or anybody other
than her father. Therefore, through convincing her-
self that her father is the only person or thing she
needs in life, Ruth exposes herself to the possibility
that she will have to experience the harmful impact
of a lasting grief. In delineating her despondent
condition, Ruth states, “I didn’t think I’d ever need
a friend because I had him. I was small, but he was
big. The only person who ever really cared whether
I lived or died . . . he cared . . . and there was, and
is no one else in the world ever did.” Ruth carries
the burden of her self-inflicted grief by electing
to alienate herself from establishing a meaningful
camaraderie with someone other than her father.
Therefore, the obsession that she develops for her
father leads her to experience the significant grief
that accompanies an excessive attachment to tem-
poral beings or things that cannot transcend the
ravages of time. As a means of attempting to satisfy
constantly her fetish for her father, Ruth visits
his grave each night to revitalize her connection
to her father and restore that “cared-for-feeling.”
However, Ruth finds that her grief over her father’s
death only further complicates her relationships
with her husband and son. The novel provides an
interesting engagement with the theme of grief not
only through its treatment of Ruth’s response to
her father’s death, but also through its treatment of
Macon Dead II’s grief, which emerges in response
to Ruth’s uncanny fetish for her father.
Macon carries the grief of not being able to show
his wife love and affection. He grieves the loss of
their relationship after he finds her alone with her
father’s dead body. With disgust, he thinks, “In the
bed. That’s where she was when I opened the door.
Laying next to him. Naked as a yard dog, kissing
him. Him dead and white and puffy and skinny,
and she had his fingers in her mouth.” Therefore,
the reader is able to see that the grief that Macon
Dead II experiences results from his wife having
such a strange fetish for her father that she places his
dead fingers in her mouth. Ruth’s eccentric sexual
act with her dead father is so traumatic for Macon
because it shocks his consciousness. He knows that
he cannot ever kiss and show his wife affection
without this unspeakable memory coming back to
him. He becomes so psychologically disturbed that
he “started thinking all sorts of things,” including
the possibility that he is not the father of his and
Ruth’s children.
Morrison’s novel enables the reader to see how
intricately complex and debilitating grief can be for
individuals, especially individuals who already are
situated in a historical moment that does not afford
African Americans treatment and opportunities
equal to those enjoyed by members of the domi-
nant culture. Ruth and Macon are classic examples
of how incommodious it can be to overcome the
depredation of salient grief. Unfortunately, Ruth
and Macon Dead II are unable to overcome their
overwhelmingly challenging grief.
Antonio Maurice Danielsrace in Song of Solomon
In her novel, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison does
not attempt to provide a solution for racial conflict,
but rather depicts the effects of racism on three
generations of an African-American family and the
communities in which they live. Morrison depicts
racism as both a physical and mental barrier that
exists not only between multiple races (interracial)
but also within a single race (intraracial). For the
Deads and the closely knit African-American com-
munity in Song of Solomon, race significantly affects
every aspect of their lives.
The novel, set in the 1930s and 1940s in an
unnamed Michigan town, opens with an introduc-
tion to race as a physical divider, which Morrison
presents in terms of the socially and legally autho-
rized, race-based segregation prevalent in American
society up through the 20th century. Robert Smith,
an African-American insurance agent, has deter-
mined to “take off from Mercy and fly away on [his]