‘회복’과 ‘균형’을 통한 미국 흑인의 미래 모색 - 『솔로몬의 노래』를 중심으로

Abstract

Quest for a New Mode of Living for African-Americans in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon This paper argues that Morrison in Song of Solomon shows how African-Americans can balance the double task of reclaiming their racial and cultural heritage and of adopting beneficial aspects of dominant white culture and community-oriented black culture in American society in the 1960s at the height of Civil Rights Movement. For African-Americans who live in the midst of racist and materialistic white-dominated society, it is imperative to 'selectively' adopt white middle-class values without sacrificing their racial and cultural identity. The limits of blindly internalizing white values are manifested in emerging black bourgeois Macon Dead who becomes greedy and loveless patriarch unquestioningly accepting white middle values in its superficial and distorted form after his father's wrongful death. The women of the Macon Dead's family lead lethargic lives under the burden of the imposed model of Southern lady and ideal womanhood while the only son of this house is pampered enough to be a boss of the family without historical consciousness. The polar opposition of assimilation and separatism is revealed by Milkman's friend Guitar and Aunt Pilate. A member of a black militant group Seven Days, Guitar reproduces the bigotry of dominant culture in his eye-for-eye retaliation of racial injustice done to blacks. On the other hand, Pilate leads a self-sufficient life in the midst of capitalistic northern city and can be said to practice black nationalism in cultural arena. By portraying the poverty her family has to go through, Morrison shows the limitations of this mode of existence. Finally, through Milkman's recovery of historical consciousness and confrontation with Lincoln's Heaven, Morrison offers an example of alternative mode of living for African-Americans in American society in this revolutionary era.