Mock, Mock, Mock And A Little Bit Of Irony

I have to admit that until high school, I took literature for granted. I thought novels were just imagination on paper. As it turns out, they're much more than that. Throughout these years we've read some really dense texts which I truly believe (let's hope Mr. Durrance never reads this) are actually more complex than physics. At first, it was hard to grasp every significant detail the author threw at you. Mr. Tangen would show us something and I'd seriously doubt whether the author had really done it on purpose. As my bookshelf started growing, I realized I was making conclusions I wouldn't have made five years before.

If you had 8th grade Laura read Song of Salomon, and then asked her what her first impression of the novel was, she'd say something like: "I thought the book was cool because I had never read a book that began with a suicide."

I wouldn't say 8th grade Laura was wrong. It is a "cool" book after all. But her comment was definitely shallow. There's much more to this novel than just a suicide beginning. In her Foreword, Morrison states that the sentence "The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance agent promised to fly from Mercy to the other side of Lake Superior at 3:00" was "designed to mock a journalistic style." This sentence doesn't stand alone. Throughout her novel, this unlike-Austen female author implements irony in order to mock certain aspects of society.

An easy one to catch appears on page four, where the narrator is explaining the whole Doctor, Not Doctor Street fuss. The first colored doctor happened to live and die on "Mains Avenue." Due to this, the street acquired the common name of "Doctor Street." It wasn't long before people changed their address to "Doctor Street" and send mail to this same place. However, "the city legislators, whose concern for appropriate names and the maintenance of the city's landmarks was the principal part of their political life, saw to it that "Doctor Street" was never used in any official capacity." For all of you greedy politicians who focus mainly on insignificant details like street names and ignore real problems like starvation and violence, you're being laughed at. Thumbs up to that.

But don't worry, you're not alone. It wasn't long enough before Morrison picked a next victim: jobs and roles in society. In chapter one, the author lets us know Macon Dead owned and rented houses. However, she confesses he owned mostly "shacks" and only four "real houses." His "office", or what he thought of as his office, was and would always be remembered as "Sonny's Shop." Macon had painted the word "OFFICE" on the door but hadn't bothered to scrape the last owner's name off since "he couldn't scrape it off anybody's mind" (p. 17). I don't know how you feel about this, but to me, this sounds like an awful job. Nevertheless, Mr. Dead loved to show off that dreamy lifestyle wanted by so many other colored folks.

The last aspect I'm going to discuss, and probably the most recurrent, is family. Morrison mocks that happy family image which we're expected to follow through the greatly disturbed Dead family. I'd like to start off with Macon Jr. and his mom's fishy relationship. The story behind "Milkman" says it all. The second thing to highlight is the lack of love and excess of hate that exists in this family. Whenever Macon thought of his wife, his emotions were "coated with disgust" (p.16). He had wanted a son for fifteen years, but once he did, he felt bitter about it. Ruth and Macon's daughters, Magdalene and Corinthias didn't seem to have a healthy relationship with their mother. When Macon Jr. stopped his father from hitting his mom, his sisters looked at him with hatred. And even though it is more than obvious that this family is dysfunctional, they insist on taking rides on Sunday afternoons. They drive around, looking at lake houses, pretending everything between them is all right, showing others what they want to see: a family that spends "quality time" together.

The suicide was an innovating way to start the novel but Morrison's mocking abilities and overdose of irony were exceptional ways of causing a first impression.