Nature And Society In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

In her 1977 novel Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison thematically contrasts nature and society to develop the message that society burdens people while nature frees them. The story is primarily set in an unnamed city in Michigan that houses a sizable African American community and is divided by racial conflict. This urban setting is symbolically important because it is both isolated from nature. Aside from the fact that urban development is literally the opposite of natural wilderness, the city is also unnatural because it is dominated by white people and their culture, both of which Guitar calls “unnatural.” This racial inequality is established early in the book; the city’s legal system fails to punish white crimes against black people,

Hagar suffers because she defines herself in terms of white women, failing to see that she is “really rather pretty”(305). Another character who suffers as a direct result of white societal values is Milkman’s father, Macon. He willingly embraces the materialism of white culture to achieve financial success. Guitar notes that “he behaves [and] thinks like a white man.” He endlessly pursues material wealth and social class, hoping that his elevated social status will compensate for his race and allow him to rise above other African Americans. Instead, it only alienates him from other blacks, who dislike him for his ruthlessness and arrogance. Macon Dead is actually damaged from trying to follow the ideals of a white society because his pursuit of wealth has left him spiritually dead, without love or friendship in his life. For example, when Mrs. Bains begins to ask him for leniency on her rent because she needs money to raise the children, Macon recalls “not the woman, but the circumstances”(21) of her rent. This event symbolizes how Macon generally sees others not as people, but only as opportunities to make money. He refuses her pleas, which indirectly characterizes him as cruel, furthering the notion that he is