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By Ernest Our identity is the sum of who we are. Every person, whatever our circumstance, is summarized by his or her identity. However, we, the individuals who make up mankind, are not static. Our personalities and views of the world do not hold still, unchanging as time passes on. Rather, we are dynamic. We are shaped by the world around us and how we view it. It is our very need to quantify who we are at a given moment as compared to who we were before that causes us to sum up our existence into an identity. Our identities, while often taking lifetimes to make large changes, vary slightly from day to day, even. Moreover, every change in our identity is the sum of the conditions in which we live and our outlooks as we question our own philosophies. In this way, identity is partially uncontrollable and partially a constant process of challenging everything we believe based on those very beliefs we are challenging. In Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison shows us how identity changes for every member of a family, some slowly and some quickly, and what kind of changes can come about from the same environmental background. One character that changes, but only a small amount over a long time, is Macon Dead. Macon Dead begins as a man separate from his family. He is dispassionate, and not close to his wife or any of his children. “Solid, rumbling, likely to erupt without prior notice, Macon kept each member of his family awkward with fear” (10). He, in fact, looked down upon his family, feeling nothing but disappointment and dislike for them. “His hatred of his wife glittered and sparkled in every word he spoke to her. The disappointment he felt in his daughters sifted down on them like ash...” (10). However, over the course of the novel, his outlook on at least one family member changed significantly. A man who used to be prone to reflection, his distorted situation with his wife and distasteful feelings toward those around him prevented him from reflecting on his past. Yet, he somehow connected to Milkman. “But for years he hadn’t had that kind of time, or interest. But now he was doing it again, with his son, and every detail of that land was clear in his mind...” (52). He seems to see some of himself in his son, allowing him to open up and begin to bond to a member of the family he had become so estranged from. And, while we gain little further insight into Macon Dead’s identity, we see a clear change over time. His environment is still nearly the same as it was early on, but something within him changes and allows him to open up. Another character from the Dead household who shows a much greater change is First Corinthians. She came from the same family with the same frosty relationships. But First Corinthians considered herself something special. She was from a rich, established family and was educated in Europe. “...she believed what her mother was also convinced of: that she was a prize for a professional man of color.” (188). She sees herself as above the common man. She is only for an established man with money and prestige. However, she is later humbled, unmarried and limited in her options of where she could work. “After graduation she returned to a work world in which colored girls, regardless of their background, were in demand for one and only one kind of work” (189). That work was being a maid. It was the same simple work as every other woman. Moreover, even as her family name and college education got her nowhere, she continued to consider herself above the other maids around her. “She avoided the other maids on the street, and those whom she saw regularly on the bus assumed that she had some higher household position than theirs as she came to work in high-heeled shoes and only a woman who didn’t have to be on her feet all day could stand the pressure of heels on the long ride home” (190). Yet, as she takes the bus, an older man begins to sit next to her. As she rides the bus day after day, he continues to sit next to her, until he gives her a card. She is touched by this gesture, but he then disappears for two weeks. Once he returns, she begins to warm to him, despite his being a common man. “She looked up, gave him a small smile...” (193). She and this man who is “below her” become quite close and begin dating. Then, when First Corinthians appears about to lose this lower-class man, she throws away the dignified upper-class act to try to keep him. “In a panic, lest he shift gears and drive away, leaving her alone in the street, Corinthians climbed up on the fender and lay full out across the hood of the car.” (199). She has thrown away the need to put herself first and be “above” those around her. Rather, she has seen the happiness another human being can provide, even if he is the common man. This rearrangement of priorities is a clear change in who she is at the most fundamental level. Milkman also changes through the course of the novel. He begins as a simple boy from a complicated home. He enjoys disobedience for a day of fun as most young boys do. “Delicious as the day turned out to be for Milkman, it was even more so because it included secrecy and defiance...” (49). He is a normal boy, driven by the normal pure desire to have a little fun and enjoy his youth. Yet later he gets sexually and emotionally involved with Hagar, his second cousin. She makes herself completely available to him, and he grows to care about her less and less. He also, indirectly, seems to grow to care about people in general less and less. He takes her for granted, expecting her to just be there and thinking he can simply toss her away when he’s finished. “It wasn’t going anywhere and it was keeping him lazy, like a pampered honey bear who had only to stick out his paw for another scoop...” (91). He does not care about her for who she is, rather he sees her as an object there to pleasure him as he desires. This is a change from the innocent, fun-motivated boy he began. As life goes on and he lives as an empty shell, living off his name and his family’s money. He becomes shallow and greedy. He no longer even tries to be aware of those around him and what they are feeling. He simply looks out for himself, relying on money to do everything. “They looked with hatred at the city Negro who could buy a car as if it were a bottle of whiskey because the one he had was broken. And what’s more, who had said so in from of them. He hadn’t bothered to say his name or ask theirs, had called them “them,” and would certainly despise their days...” (266). He does not even consider the feeling of people he has just met, not even extending these small town folk the common courtesy he would expect when meeting someone in the city. He segregates himself because he has money. He allows his greed to define who he is, and his identity becomes one of a shallow man, caring only about himself and money. This is an every further cry from the innocent young boy he once was than the dispassionate and uncaring man he had been. Yet it is clearly an extension of the same trend. His identity changes over time, and not for the better. Morrison shows us the changes in identity over time of a family from the same broken household. The family members retain only fragments of their original identities. From a man who opens up, to a woman who lets herself put concerns of class out of her mind, to a boy who completely loses who he once was, the family all become new people. This clearly parallels our lives. How many families, over the course of years and the children growing up, do not undergo changes? Do we truly believe that our father and siblings are now who they were when we, or they, were born? Who we are as human beings changes continually; change, in fact, is the only constant. The very same environment can still foster different changes in different family members. It is this dynamic sense of identity that makes human beings so adaptable, and yet at the same time so unpredictable. Identity simply cannot and does not stay the same. | ||
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