Feminist Lens - Close Reading (SOS)

Text: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Lens: Feminist Lens

“You’ve been laughing at us all your life. Corinthians. Mama. Me. Using us, ordering us, and judging us: how we cook your food; how we keep your house… Who are you to approve or disapprove anybody or anything? I was breathing air in the world thirteen years before your lungs were even formed….  but now you know what's best for the very woman who wiped the dribble from your chin because you were too young to know how to spit. Our girlhood was spent like a found nickel on you. When you slept, we were quiet; when you were hungry, we cooked; when you wanted to play, we entertained you; and when you got grown enough to know the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford, everything in this house stopped for you… You have yet to wash your own underwear, spread a bed, wipe the ring from your tub, or move a fleck of your dirt from one place to another. And to this day, you have never asked one of us if we were tired, or sad, or wanted a cup of coffee. You’ve never picked up anything heavier than your own feet, or solved a problem harder than fourth-grade arithmetic. Where do you get the right to decide our lives?... I’ll tell you where. From that hog’s gut that hangs down between your legs. Well, let me tell you something, baby brother: you will need more than that.” (Morrison, pg 215)

In this passage from Song of Solomon, Lena, Milkman’s older sister, is lecturing him about the disrespect he pays towards women, particularly to those who reside within in his own household. Lena describes the efforts the girls went through during their lives after Milkman was born as being “spent like a found nickel.” In this metaphor, Lena compares the efforts she and the girls put into raising Milkman to how a child would spend a nickel on a pleasantry without any sentiment because they didn’t even need to work to earn it. All his life, Milkman didn’t have to work for any of the things he received, and even after he was capable of “know[ing] the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford,” he still took all of the girl’s efforts for granted and never did a single thing to pay them back. In fact, while the girls spent his entire childhood doing motherly tasks including cooking, entertaining, etc. Milkman, as capable as he is, wont even bother to do menial tasks like “mov[ing] a fleck of [his] dirt from one place to another.”

This can be connected to a certain attitude of male privilege which existed in Milkman’s society, and within Milkman himself, which is a term that defines the social, economic, and political advantages or rights that are only made available to men solely on the basis of their sex. Lena makes an effort to devalue him further by insulting the only thing that gives Milkman leverage in society, which she calls the “hog’s gut that hangs down between [his] legs”. At the end of her tangent, Lena refers to Milkman as “baby brother” in order to further remind him exactly where he stands in the family hierarchy, and reinforce the fact that they are done putting up with his disrespect and underappreciation and for their work and his misogynistic attitudes have absolutely no value in their household.