Song of Solomon

On the day before Milkman Dead is born, an insurance agent in blue silk wings jumps from a hospital roof, and the rest of the novel keeps circling back to the question of flight. Milkman grows up comfortable and careless, the son of a hard landlord who believes in owning things and the nephew of Pilate, a winemaker born without a navel who cares nothing for property. When a rumor of buried gold sends him to Pennsylvania and Virginia, he stumbles into a family history that no one has told him. Toni Morrison turns a treasure hunt into a search for names, songs and the dead, and ends with a leap that readers still argue about.

What happens in Song of Solomon

In an unnamed Michigan city in 1931, an insurance agent named Robert Smith jumps from the roof of Mercy Hospital wearing blue silk wings. The next day Ruth Foster Dead gives birth there to a son, Macon Dead III, who is later nicknamed Milkman because his mother nursed him long past infancy. His father, Macon Dead, is a cold, wealthy landlord who despises his wife, keeps their grown daughters at home, First Corinthians and Magdalene called Lena, and has cut off his sister Pilate, a bootleg winemaker born without a navel who lives with her daughter Reba and granddaughter Hagar. As a boy Milkman visits Pilate with his older friend Guitar Bains and is drawn to her house. His father tells him how Milkman’s grandfather, the first Macon Dead, got his name from a drunken Union soldier and was killed by white neighbors who wanted his Pennsylvania farm. As a grown man Milkman drifts, ends a long affair with Hagar, and hears conflicting accounts of his parents’ marriage. Guitar reveals that he belongs to the Seven Days, a secret group that avenges the killing of Black people with killings of whites. Macon tells Milkman that as a young man he killed a white man in a cave and left gold behind, and that Pilate may have taken it. Milkman and Guitar steal Pilate’s green sack, but it holds only bones. Hoping to find the gold, Milkman travels alone to Danville, Pennsylvania, where the ancient midwife Circe tells him about his grandparents, and then to Shalimar, Virginia. There he survives a fight, a night hunt and an attempt on his life by Guitar, who believes Milkman has cheated him. From a children’s singing game he learns that his great-grandfather Solomon was said to have flown back to Africa. Meanwhile, Hagar, heartbroken, dies at home. Milkman returns, learns of her death, and tells Pilate that the bones she carries belong to her father. He and Pilate take them to Virginia to bury them, and as they finish, a shot from Guitar kills Pilate. The novel ends as Milkman leaps from a high rock toward Guitar.

Where and when Song of Solomon happens

Chapter by chapter summary + why it matters

1. 1

   Chapters 1–3: A flight, a birth and the Dead family

   Robert Smith, an insurance agent, leaps from the roof of Mercy Hospital in blue silk wings while a crowd watches, and the next day Ruth Dead gives birth there to the boy who will be called Milkman. The Dead household is prosperous and unhappy, ruled by Macon Dead, a landlord who has forbidden contact with his outcast sister Pilate. Milkman and his friend Guitar Bains visit Pilate’s house anyway and meet Reba and Hagar. Macon then tells his son about their family’s farm in Pennsylvania, how his father got the name Macon Dead, and how white men killed him for the land. Years later, when Macon slaps Ruth at the dinner table, the grown Milkman strikes his father, and Macon answers with his own damning account of Ruth and her late father, Dr. Foster.

   Why it mattersMorrison opens with a failed flight and a birth, pairing the novel’s two great concerns, escape and inheritance. The contrast between Macon’s cold house and Pilate’s warm, disorderly one sets out the two ways of living Milkman will have to choose between.

2. 2

   Chapters 4–6: Hagar, Ruth and the Seven Days

   Now a grown man, Milkman ends his long affair with his cousin Hagar with a cool Christmas letter and some money, and she begins trying to kill him, month after month, never able to go through with it. He follows his mother on a secret night trip to her father’s grave, and she gives him her side of the family’s story, including how Pilate helped her conceive him and protected him before he was born. Guitar admits that he belongs to the Seven Days, a secret group of seven men, one for each day of the week, who answer each unpunished killing of a Black person by killing a white person in the same way.

   Why it mattersThese chapters show Milkman as a man who takes love for granted and has no sense of anyone’s pain but his own. Ruth’s story and Guitar’s confession both unsettle him, one by showing that his parents’ histories are contested, the other by showing how far violence has entered his closest friendship.

3. 3

   Chapters 7–9: The green sack and the end of Part I

   Believing that the green sack hanging in Pilate’s house holds gold from the Pennsylvania cave, Milkman and Guitar steal it, only to find human bones inside. The police arrest them, and Pilate wins their release by putting on a humble act and claiming the bones belong to her dead husband. Milkman learns that his sister First Corinthians has been secretly seeing Henry Porter and tells their father, and his other sister, Lena, angrily accuses him of having always treated the women of the house with contempt. Part I closes with Milkman deciding to leave home and search for the gold himself.

   Why it mattersThe theft is Milkman’s lowest point, a betrayal of the one relative who loves him freely, and Pilate’s performance at the police station shows her using the roles white authority expects to protect him. Lena’s rebuke forces him to see, for the first time, what his comfort has cost others.

4. 4

   Part II, Chapters 10–12: Danville and Shalimar

   Milkman flies south and in Danville, Pennsylvania, finds old men who remember his grandfather with pride. In the ruined mansion of the white family that killed him, he meets Circe, the ancient midwife who delivered Pilate, and she tells him his grandmother’s name was Sing and that his grandfather’s body was left in a nearby cave. The cave holds no gold, and Milkman follows the family trail to Shalimar, Virginia, where he quarrels with local men, joins them on a night hunt, and survives an attempt by Guitar to strangle him in the woods.

   Why it mattersStripped of his car, his fine clothes and his confidence, Milkman begins to value people and places instead of money. The hunt tests him physically and humbles him, and his growing ease among the men of Shalimar marks the start of a real change.

5. 5

   Chapters 13–15: Hagar’s end and Solomon’s Leap

   Back in Michigan, Hagar tries desperately to make herself beautiful enough to win Milkman back, and after a shopping spree in the rain she falls ill and dies. In Shalimar, Milkman works out that a children’s singing game tells his own family’s story: his great-grandfather Solomon was said to have flown away to Africa, leaving his wife Ryna and their many children, including Milkman’s grandfather, behind. He returns home to find Hagar dead, and after learning from him that the bones in her sack are her father’s, Pilate travels with him to Virginia to bury them. As they finish, a shot from Guitar kills Pilate, and Milkman, singing to her as she dies, then leaps from the rock toward Guitar.

   Why it mattersThe discovery of the song gives Milkman what the gold never could: a name, a history and a people. The ending sets flight against the cost of flight, since the novel has shown again and again that those who fly away leave others behind to grieve.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in Song of Solomon what the novel is really about

Symbols & motifs

The ending of Song of Solomon, explained

After learning the song of Solomon, Milkman goes home full of joy, but Pilate, grieving for Hagar, knocks him out and keeps him in her cellar until she understands what he has come to say. When he tells her the bones in her sack belong to her father, not to the white man Macon killed in the cave, she agrees to return with him to Virginia and bury them. On a high rock known as Solomon’s Leap they lay the bones to rest, and Pilate places her earring, the box holding her name, in the grave. Guitar, who has followed them believing Milkman stole the gold, fires a shot that kills Pilate, most likely meant for Milkman. Milkman sings to her as she dies. He then calls out to Guitar and leaps from the rock toward him, and the novel ends in midair without saying where he lands. Readers disagree about what happens. Some read the leap literally and hopefully: like Solomon, Milkman has learned to fly, having given up the weight of his selfish past. Others see death, for Milkman, Guitar or both, and argue that the flight is spiritual rather than physical, a moment of freedom that does not require survival. Many readers connect the ending to Pilate, whom Milkman comes to see as the freest person he has known, a kind of flier who never had to abandon anyone, since she lived by her own rules while staying loyal to others. The ending also recalls the novel’s warning about flight, because this time Milkman does not fly away from those he loves but toward the friend who has become his enemy. The open ending asks readers to decide what freedom means and what it costs.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

Milkman Dead grows up in a rich Black family in Michigan, but his home is unhappy and he only cares about himself. His father tells him that Milkman’s aunt Pilate may have hidden a bag of gold, so Milkman steals the bag, but it only holds bones. He travels south alone to look for the gold, and on the way he meets people who knew his grandparents. He learns that his great-grandfather, Solomon, was said to have flown away to Africa, and that his family has a proud history nobody taught him. The trip changes him, and he starts to care about other people. At the very end he makes a leap, and the book lets readers decide what it means.

Compare & connect the story universe

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• Why is Milkman called Milkman in Song of Solomon
• What does flight symbolize in Song of Solomon
• What are the Seven Days in Song of Solomon
• What is in Pilate’s green sack
• Who is Solomon in Song of Solomon
• What happens at the end of Song of Solomon