Why Do People Fly?

At the very end of "Song of Solomon: by Toni Morrison, Milkman leaps toward Guitar after he had just killed Pilate.  As this happens, Milkman is thinking in his head "If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it."  In class, within our groups, we were debating on whether Milkman actually flew or whether he died at the end of the novel.  This led me on to think about what flying symbolizes within the novel.  Mrs. Valentino said that there is a possibility that it symbolizes when a man would die in slavery and the other people would say that he "flew back to Africa" to make them feel like it was not as bad and that the man was now free.  So along with symbolizing freedom, the idea of flight also may represent death.  In this same fashion, this could go into the thought that someone who is murdered or commits suicide is becoming free, either by their means or somebody else's.  This may seem dark, but it also provides some sort of relief for those that are close to the victim as it supplies them with some idea of closure.  Another possible way to look at this connection between flight and death in today's society is through the planes flying through the sky and our thought flying through the internet.  It was Albert Einstein who said “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."  Planes are a generally luxurious technology, and the general population that uses these planes feel very free as they can go almost anywhere they want in the world in a short amount of time.  At the same time, however, the many technologies in the world are believed by many people to be slowly killing the population and making them brain-dead.  So in the end, the idea of flight could be construed as both good or bad.

Why Is Incest So Common

Once again my blog post of the week is going to be about "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison.  This time we are going to be tackling the matter of incest.  For those who don't know, incest is defined as sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other.  In many places, incest is seen as a crime as well.  In "Song of Solomon" incest is shown between many characters, but the main example of incest in the novel is the relationship between Milkman and Hagar.  Even when they first met, "Milkman had no need to see her face; he had already fallen in love with her behind," they were already in love with each other.  The two of the started having sexual relations starting when Milkman was in his teens and ending in his thirties.  This novel also not the only novel or story that shows the idea of incest between characters.  In the story of "Oedipus Rex," the main character ends up killing his father and marrying his mother.  If incest is seen as so bad in society, why does incest show up so much in this novel that we are reading and other literature in general?  The difference is that many of the novels that involve incest are set in a time where it is not seen as so bad.  Many father and family figures wanted to keep their bloodline inclusive and so they would not let their children marry outside of the family.  In this way, incest became a staple of older literature, but now incest is seen as taboo.  There are also scientific reasons as to why incest is seen as bad.  Intermarrying between a family destroys the genetic diversity of a population which makes that population more susceptible to being wiped out by foreign pathogens.

Why Are We Reading This Book

So in class we having been reading "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison.  The first thing that comes to my head after reading the first chapter is that this book is very very weird.  The main scene that caused this thought is the breastfeeding scene where Ruth breastfeeds her son who is much too old to perform this action.  When we were asked to analyze this scene, we were told to mainly look at the line that said "It was as though she were a cauldron issuing spinning gold."  From this line we made a connection to the story of "Rumpelstiltskin" in which an entity of unknown origin grants a woman the ability to spin straw into gold in exchange for her firstborn child.  To be honest, I still don't understand how the story of Rumpelstiltskin connects with "Song of  Solomon," but I never really liked "Rumpelstiltskin."  The beginning of the story is good and creates a nice conflict but the conflict is then resolved in an unsatisfactory way when a random soldier of the king overhears Rumpelstiltskin speaking his name which allows the woman to gain power over the entity and gain the rights to her child back.  Similar to how I feel that this story has little connection to the novel that we are reading, many of the events just within the first chapter of the novel seem only loosely connected with each other.  We start off with a man jumping off a hospital and committing possibly accidental suicide.  Then we start talking about how a street got its name and then into the backstory of many different people, some of which are related.  These events are shown so randomly that it makes the novel seem very disconnected even though all I have experienced so far is reading one chapter.

Why Is Violence Seen As Bad In The Media

In class class we were told to read many passages relating to the use of violent images in the news media, but not only in the news are violent images shown.  These images are also shown in video games, social media, movies, TV, and many more.  All of these platforms are attacked by the public because they see it as not appropriate and too graphic to show to the public.  In the case of video games, many parents are angered that their kids are subjected to many violent scenes shown in shooter games and fighting games.  The main problem with that rationale is that video games with violent images have an age rating that is usually 18 years of age or older.  This means that if they are not OK with their kids playing violent games, it is their fault for letting them purchase and play these violent video games.  With social media it is generally the same case.  In social media you are shown images and video from the people that you follow or choose to interact with.  It is all by choice.  So if you are seeing violent images or videos, it is a direct result of the choices you have made on that platform.  Many social media platforms also have censors on videos or images that make you agree that you are willing to see something graphic before subjecting you to the content.  In the case of the news media, not showing and telling about the violent events of the world is pretty much lying.  Paul Martin Lester stated that "Death happens to be one of life's main events" and that it is "inaccurate-for newspapers to fail to show it..." (Source A).  So in the cases of violent images in media, they are either a necessity to show, or you are seeing them as a result of your own actions.