SOS Responding and Reflecting - Marxist Lens

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is an interesting take of the black experience during the 1920’s to the 1930’s. One of the more interesting aspects is the characterization of the character of Macon Dead Jr. He is the father of Macon “Milkman” Dead and is portrayed as a ruthless landlord. The extend he goes to get rent from his clients is appalling. In the first chapter, he goes to the house of a drunk who is out of control and threatening people with a gun. Instead of calming down the drunk, he tries to see if he can get the drunk’s rent. This ruthlessness makes it seem that Macon Dead Jr. is bad person. I believe this is not the case as I think that the society of the character can change people to the point where they become the villain.

To go over why Macon Dead Jr. is the villain portrayed in the early sections of the books, we must look at his past. I think the best source to explain Macon Jr.’s villainy is dad, the original Macon Dead.   Macon Jr. says when talking about his dad, “Everything bad that ever happened to him happened because he couldn’t read.  Got his name messed up cause he couldn’t read…” (Morrison 99).  Macon Jr. is right. This starts with Macon’s name. His father was called Macon Dead because a mistake a drunk Union soldier made when registering the first Macon Dead after the end of the civil war. The Dead name has humiliated the entire family for generations. The same illiteracy was the reason for the name given to Pilate which humiliated her at birth. Lastly, Macon’s illiteracy became the reason why he died. After he was tricked into signing his land, Macon Dead fought to the death to protect his land. Obviously his missteps affected Macon Jr. but the question remains why he became so ruthless. Based on what I have read, I think he became so ruthless to escape the missteps of his father. After his father died, he was shocked and he did not want the same fate to happen to him. I think he thought the best way to up his chances of survival was to emulate the people who killed his father. The people who killed his father were whites who tricked him to selling the land over to them. These whites owned land which gave them power in this society. This made them almost untouchable and it allowed to do abuse people like the first Macon Dead. I think that Macon Dead Jr. not only wanted to have that kind of power in the society but would go at extreme lengths in order to get it. Macon Jr. might have succeed but at a cost.

Macon Dead Jr. is an interesting character that the author Toni Morrison has created. He seems like he was trying to help himself by attaining higher status in his society. Although the main question is at what cost? He caused deep emotional scars in his family. He became known as ruthless, unsympathetic landlord but his family was living comfortably. So was it worth it? I think that Toni Morrison wrote this character to represent the attainment of high status. He did not only attain the power the whites who oppressed his father but also became the same kind of villain in the process. The villainization of Macon Dead may show that the society can change people to become something that they were oppressed by.