Some Theoretical Background for Song of Solomon

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Signifying

• Literary critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in his seminal work, The Signifying Monkey, explores signifying as the dominant trope (or literary device) of African American literature

Definition

• Most generally, “signifying” refers to a way of using language.– A verbal game-playing activity or form of verbal dueling

(such as “Playing the Dozens,” “Yo Mama” jokes, etc.– Also can suggest a way of encoding messages or

meanings which involves a certain amount of indirection (often a necessary cultural practice for an oppressed minority group not allowed to openly defy the dominant culture)

Gates, specifically

• Gates argues that signifying comes from an African trickster tradition of making “toasts” (involving verbal play, dexterity) to the signifying monkey, a trickster figure

• The Yoruba god, Elegba

Gates on African American Literary Texts

1. They share much more in common with western literature than they differ from it

2. So, these texts utilize traditional western conventions (i.e. Song of Solomon as a bildungsroman novel). But African American writers always repeat these conventions with a difference—a black difference, some way of making the conventions their own

3. Renaming=revising=signifying on a tradition

Double ConsciousnessLanguage “doubleness” related to W.E.B. DuBois’ famous idea of double consciousness:

“This American world” yields to the black man “no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world [the white majority in America]. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness…One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unprecedented strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

Mythic Background in Song of Solomon

Mythic Backgrounds Morrison Draws From

•African-American•African•Classical•Biblical•Fairy Tales•American myths

African American MythologyI think the myths are misunderstood now because

we are not talking to each other the way I was spoken to when I was growing up in a very small town. You knew everything in that little microcosm. But we don’t live where we were born. I had to leave my town to do my work here; it was a sacrifice. There is a certain sense of family I don’t have. So the myths get forgotten. Or they may not have been looked at carefully. Let me give you an example: the flying myth in Song of Solomon. If it means Icarus to some readers, fine; I want to take credit for that. But my meaning is specific: it is about black people who could fly. That was always part of the folklore of my my life; flying was one of our gifts. I don’t care how silly it may seem. It is everywhere—people used to talk about it, it’s in the spirituals and gospels. Perhaps it was wishful thinking—escape, death, and all that. But suppose it wasn’t. What might it mean? I tried to find out in Song of Solomon.

(Toni Morrison, in an interview with Thomas LeClair, 1981)

African Myths—Mwindo Epic

--From Linda Krumholz: “Dead Teachers: Rituals of Manhood and Rituals of Reading in Song of Solomon.” Modern Fiction Studies 39. 3-4 (Fall/Winter 1993): 551-574.

Classical Myth

• Circe• Icarus• Daedalus• Oedipus

(Freud)

Monomyth of the Hero• Cross-cultural pattern of

mythic heroes• Followed by heroes

such as Oedipus, Moses, Perseus (son of Zeus, killer of Medusa), Gilgamesh, Tristan, Romulus, etc.

• Each with slight variations

Stages of the Hero Myth

1. The hero is the child of most distinguished parents, usually the son of a king.

Stages of the Hero Myth

2. During or before pregnancy, there is a prophecy, in the form of a dream or oracle, cautioning against his birth and usually threatening danger to the father

Stages of the Hero Myth

3. As a rule, the hero is surrendered to the water, in a box. Traditionally, he is maimed and abandoned by the father.

Stages of the Hero Myth

4. He is then saved by animals, or by lowly people and is suckled by a female animal or a humble woman.

Stages of the Hero Myth

5. After he has grown up, he finds his distinguished parents, in a highly versatile fashion.

Stages of the Hero Myth

6. He takes revenge on his father (on the one hand), and is acknowledged on the other.

Stages of the Hero Myth

7. The hero finally achieves rank and honors.

Biblical Myths

• Fall and Redemption—sinners can be redeemed by the love and self-sacrifice of a Christ, who dies for our sins, who dies so that we may live

• Names• The biblical Song of Solomon

Fairy Tales

• Rumpelstiltskin (13-14)• Goldilocks (135)• Jack and the Beanstalk

(181)• Hansel and Gretel (221)

American Myths

• American Dream—upward mobility equated with financial prosperity/home ownership

• Red, white, and blue imagery throughout

Mythic Images and Symbols