Macon and the White Man in Song of Solomon

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In the novel Song of Solomon a major ambiguous event occurs. The author, Toni Morrison leaves the interpretation up to the reader on the issue of whether or not Macon killed the "white" man in the novel. In Song of Solomon, Macon tells his son, Milkman, the story of when his father was killed by white men and he and his sister, Pilate, ran away together. Macon says that he and Pilate were followed by "a man who looked just like their father." (168) After three days of being followed by this man, they decided to find an escape by taking cover in a unused cave. In the middle of the night, Macon awoke to find a man sleeping near him, "very old, very white, and his smile was awful." (169) Spurred by the images floating through his mind of his father's cold blooded murder at the hands of white men, Macon lashed out in anger and threw a rock at the "white" man's head. Instead of falling to the ground, the "white" man "kept coming and coming"(169) towards Macon. This action by the grinning, sadistic "white" man signified Macon's sentiment that the white race would not cease to plague his ev...

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