Names in SONG OF SOLOMON

page 89[Milkman speaking] "Sweet Hagar. Wonder what her name is."[Guitar speaking] "You just said it.""I mean her last name. Her daddy's name.""Ask Reba." Guitar paid their bar bill and helped Milkman negotiate to the door. The wind had risen and cooled. Guitar flapped his elbows againt the cold."Ask anybody but Reba," said Milkman. "Reba don't know her own last name.""Ask Pilate.""Yeah, I'll ask Pilate. Pilate knows. It's in that dumb-ass box hanging from her ear. Her own name and everybody else's. Bet mine's in there too. I'm gonna ask her what my name is. Say, you know how my old man's daddy got his name?""Uh uh. How?""Cracker gave it to him.""Sho 'nough?""Yep. And he took it. Like a f-ing sheep. Somebody should have shot him.""What for? He was already Dead."

Names in SONG OF SOLOMON

page 229: Milkman smiled and let his shoulders slump a little. It was a good feeling to come into a strange town and find a stranger who knew your people. All his life he'd heard the tremor in the word: "I live here, but my people . . ." or: "She acts like she ain't got no people," or: "Do any of your people like there?" But he hadn't known what it meant: links. He remembered Freddie sitting in Sonny's Shop just before Christmas, saying, "None of my people would take me in."

Names in SONG OF SOLOMON

page 329: [Milkman] read the road signs with interest now, wondering what lay beneath the names . . . How many dead lives and fading memories were buried in and beneath the names of the places in this country. Under the recorded names were other names, just as "Macon Dead," recorded for all time in some dusty file, hid from view the real names of people, places, and things. Names that had meaning. No wonder Pilate put hers in her ear. When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do. Like the street he lived on, recorded as Mains Avenue, but called Not Doctor Street.
Questions:1) Why does Pilate bury the box with her name in it at the end of the novel if what Milkman thinks here is true? Why doesn't she hang on to it?

Names in SONG OF SOLOMON

page 17: [Macon Dead] walked there now . . . thinking of names. Surely, he thought, he and his sister had some ancestor, some lithe young man with onyx skin and legs as straight as cane stalks, who had a name that was real. A name given to him at birth with love and seriousness. A name that was not a joke, nor a disguise, nor a brand name . . . His own parents, in some mood of pervesness or resignation, had agreed to abide by a naming done to them by somebody who couldn't have cared less.

Questions:1) Why doesn't Macon change his family name if he is so bothered by it? Isn't he perpetuating the "resignation" by accepting the name of Macon Dead?

Names in SONG OF SOLOMON

page 15 "A milkman. That's what you got here, Miss Rufie. A natural milkman if ever I seen one. Look out, womens. Here he come. Huh!"Freddie carried his discovery not only into the homes in Ruth's neighborhood, but to Southside, where he lived and where Macon Dead owned rent houses. So Ruth kept close to home and had no afternoon guests for the better part of two months, to keep from hearing that her son had been rechristened with a name he was never able to shake and that did nothing to improve either one's relationship with his father.



Questions:


1) How did Milkman get his name?


2) How many people know why Milkman is called Milkman?


3) Why doesn't Milkman ever think to ask someone why he is named Milkman?

Murder and Death in SONG OF SOLOMON

page 81[Freddie speaking] "A dead man ain't no man. A dead man is a corpse. That's all. A corpse."

Question: 1) How does Freddie's comment relate to Milkman's conclusion that "[your name] will die when you do"?

Murder and Death in SONG OF SOLOMON

page 100: When some particularly nasty murder was reported, the Negroes said it was Winnie Ruth. They said that because Winnie Ruth was white and so were the victims. It was their way of explaining what they believed was white madness -- crimes planned and executed in a truly lunatic manner against total strangers. Such murders could only be committed by a fellow lunatic of the race and Winnie Ruth Judd fit the description. They believed firmly that members of their own race killed one another for good reasons: violation of another's turf (a man is found with somebody else's wife); refusal to observe the laws of hospitality (a man reaches into a friend's pot of mustards and snatches out the meat); or verbal insults impugnating their virility, honesty, humanity, and mental health. More important, they believed the crimes were committed in the heat of passion: anger, jealousy, loss of face, and so on. Bizarre killings amused them, unless of course the victim was one of their own.




Questions:1) How is killing someone because they insult your honesty justifiable? If someone insulted your humanity and then you killed them, wouldn't their insult have been right on target?
2) Is Guitar's murder of Pilate (and his indirect murder of Milkman) justifiable, following the above code?