Milkman's failures as the hero of a coming of age novel

In Part II of Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Macon Dead III (Milkman), begins a journey that could easily be described as a hero's journey, or him coming of age (if he didn't suck at it). Almost nothing goes according to plan for him, and he is routinely taunted by his mistakes as the easier solutions to his problems reveal themselves after he chooses another path. He repeatedly tries to be the hero of the story and an independent adult, but ends up acting like a teenager and pays for it. Arguably, he started this journey to try to become more of an adult after his epiphany in the bath tub, and getting destroyed by his sister, so this should have been the turning point of the novel where he becomes a more mature person and becomes independent. Unfortunately he fails miserably and ends up going to Virginia on another teenager-like poorly made decision. 

A traditional hero's journey often involves a witch-like character, and Milkman's has Circe. However, several things about his meeting with Circe are distinctly un-heroic. First there is the fact that, upon approaching the house, Milkman compares his experience to Hansel and Gretel approaching the witch's house. He portrays himself as a child, which isn't very heroic. On top of that, Milkman's encounter with Circe almost doesn't happen because he is denied by a door which doesn't have a doorknob that turns.  Then, almost by accident (after he initially gives up), he is granted access to the house by his impressive foe and gets to meet Circe. 

After that, on his way to the cave to find the treasure, he repeatedly takes the much more complicated route and ends up destroying his clothes. While his struggles on the way to find the buried treasure in a cave that was guarded by his father's skeleton might seem heroic, he discovered that he really didn't have to go to so much trouble to reach the cave. After he climbs the rock wall to get to the cave he notices that there was a much easier path up the hillside to reach the cave. Then on his way back from the cave (after discovering that neither the gold nor his father's skeleton were in the cave) he discovers a bridge across the river that he had tried (and failed) to walk across. The bridge leads to a path through the woods that he had struggled through on his way to the cave. Milkman is taunted by the paths that he should have taken, not a situation a traditional hero would find themselves in. 

Milkman's story is framed like a hero's journey, but Milkman himself makes it impossible for anyone to take him seriously in that role. 

Two Forms of Alienation

In the Wide Sargasso Sea the narrators both feel alienated wherever they are in two ways: they are unfamiliar with their surroundings and they are disliked by the people around them. Antoinette's alienation comes from her history and her family's history in the area. she feels alienated because her family is ostracized by both the white and black inhabitants of Jamaica, and because she personally is disliked by just about everyone--even her own mother. Rochester experiences something similar in part two, where he feels looked down on by everyone, which is caused by his marriage with Antoinette and the history surrounding her family. He even has similar problems with a parent that doesn't seem to care for him.

They both also experience alienation that comes from being in an unfamiliar place. Rochester spends his entire time in Jamaica disoriented and uncomfortable, unable to deal with the abundance of nature and color surrounding him. He also compares his experience to a dream, but not a good dream--he does not feel at home in any way. Antoinette also has to deal with this kind of unfamiliarity. In part one, she is sent to stay in a convent, and doesn't feel at home at all. Then in part three, she is taken to England and feels even more alienated even having a similar dream-like experience to Rochester's and describing it as 'card-board' (although by this point in the novel she isn't completely stable mentally, she also compares England to a dream in part two while she still is).

The isolation that both characters feel ends up contributing strongly to the unraveling of both characters' minds. Once Rochester's paranoia is vindicated and he realizes that he is being laughed at his situation rapidly declines resulting in his thought process resembling Gollum's more than what we had come to recognize as his own. Similarly, once Antoinette is isolated in England in Rochester's attic, she starts to fall apart and resembles the narrator of the yellow wallpaper quite strongly.

Meursault is a Reptile

Reptiles and being 'cold-blooded' are often associated with a lack of empathy and feeling-- Meursault also shares these traits. When his mother dies, he lacks any kind of recognizable emotional response other than his frustration with having to go to her funeral. This doesn't necessarily mean that he's behaving abnormally, he could just be in shock. However, as the story continues no evidence of any kind of normal human emotion surfaces. Meursault continues to show a lack of empathy and emotion through his response to Raymond's mistreatment of his "mistress" (basically ignoring it), and how little he feels after having killed the Arab. He also doesn't seem to be able to relate with anyone else in the novel, observing their emotional responses in a detached way that would seem to indicate that (while does sometimes say he can understand people's point of view) he doesn't empathize with them, like when he was unhappy with the crying woman at his mother's funeral. Meursault's detachment from the rest of the population coupled with his lack of emotions relate strongly to the traits associated with being reptilian. 

Meursault seems to also share a reptile's passiveness and responsiveness to physical stimuli rather than mental or emotional stimuli (that he generally just doesn't respond to). His behavior on the balcony represents this idea well as Meursault is content to just sit on his balcony for hours, not reflecting on anything, simply watching-- he only responds to physical things such as the soccer team yelling, or his own hunger. Similarly, a lizard basking on a rock is content to stay there for long stretches of time, detachedly observing the things happening around it without passing judgement-- things happen around it but unless it's hungry or their is a loud noise it won't. 

His response to temperature, in particular heat, is also something that he shares with reptiles. From the funeral scene right at the beginning of the book, to the scene on the beech where he murders the Arab, Meursault is very conscious of the temperature, and examines it in a way that he doesn't seem to examine anything else around him. His behavior is also largely controlled by the temperature in a similar way to a reptiles. If we return to our friend the lizard, if the temperature were to suddenly drop, he would become lethargic, similar to Meursault's ability to calm down and reflect on his execution when he is in his relatively cool temperature cell. The lizards would also be much more energetic if it was warm in a similar way to how much more active Meursault was on the beech. 

While Meursault obviously isn't actually a lizard, these similarities combined with the fact that he killed the Arab in 'cold-blood' (a metaphor which is hard to ignore in this context), show a strong relationship between Meursault and our scaly friends. Also, standard disclaimer: I'm not sure if this is important or if Camus intended it but I thought it was interesting. 

Gregor's Undying Nightmare

From the very first sentence of his story Gregor Samsa has been in a nightmarish scenario. From the surreal qualities of his work and home environments, to his transformation into a bug and the side effects that come with it, the world he lives in is filled with dream-logic. Then, in the final scenes even though Gregor has already died, the nightmare continues in the underlying menace of his parents behavior. Examining the final scene after his death it is not difficult to imagine that the nightmare remains his, despite his death. The tone stays the same as when the story was told from Gregor's point of view, despite his death and the events that follow would certainly be nightmarish for Gregor.

Gregor's personality, and his sense of self worth and purpose, are completely defined by his role as the 'bread winner' for his family. However, in the final scene his family moves on without him, completely self-sufficient, even making a dig at his ability to provide for him by judging his apartment choice, portraying him as having held them back in their eyes. This is a nightmare for Gregor in itself. His family's lack of sorrow, and even relief at his passing would have caused no small amount of distress for Gregor, especially since it meant that he really wasn't an important member of the family to his family members.

His parents thoughts toward his sister are also consistent with Gregor's point of view, and a nightmare for Gregor. The parents only see his sister as a vessel for economic gains through marriage, and are almost parasitical in their observations about her. They seek to take away the future in something meaningful and stimulating like music that Gregor had sought to provide for her, replacing it with a marriage to presumably someone who she would not love, but who would be wealthy and important in someway. This scenario would also be nightmarish for Gregor, as he loved his sister very much, and it also aligns itself with Gregor's view of his parents as people who use others for their own gain, as he observed them doing to him.

These aspects of the final scene combined with the fact that the tone remains the same throughout, suggest that instead of ending the nightmare and having a happy ending for the family (as the surface of the final scene would have you believe), Gregor's nightmare adapts. Gregor's nightmare becomes more like one of those dreams where he isn't actually present in the situation and has no power to affect it, but is still able to observe it. Sort of like in movies where the main character has a flashback and it seems like they are there in the moment, but they aren't actually a part of anything that's happening around them, but in this case Gregor isn't self aware enough to realize that he's there, only enough to experience the ominous feeling that he gets from his parents' behavior.

Jake should be Spanish

Despite the way he favor irony, Paris and the culture surrounding it are not good for Jake. Throughout the novel the facade that Jake puts forward is one of stoicism and irony, but it obviously isn't who he is or what he should be doing. Spanish culture seems to be much more relatable  to Jake, and seems to make him much happier. Brett also seems to be a representation of Parisian culture in the novel and helps to illustrate why it is not good for him. 

Take Brett for example, she almost epitomizes the Parisian culture of the time period, which seems to be what Jake idealizes, but his relationship with Brett is obviously unhealthy. This becomes even more clear when, while she is gone and he is in Spain, Jake seems content for the first and only time in the novel. The contrast between his emotional health in Paris and Spain is highlighted by how well he sleeps and how he feels before and during going to bed in the two countries. In Paris,  when his unfortunate relationship with Brett is not something he can ignore, he often sleeps extremely poorly and spends long periods of time thinking about his situation with Brett, sometimes crying because of it; not what you would expect from a person in a healthy relationship. In Spain, when Brett is removed from his thoughts, he is placid and his only thoughts before going to sleep are that "It felt good to be warm and in bed", he is content. 

Jake's love of bull fighting also represents both how Spanish culture is a better fit for Jake, and that Paris is unhealthy for Jake. Jake's love of bull fighting seems to stem for it's tradition and it's passion, which are also seen in other elements of Spanish culture (i.e. the peasants with their more traditional approach to drinking); when he is in these settings he is much happier. This would seem to indicate that he would fit well into Spanish society, and that he would be content with it. However, when Parisian culture comes into the equation in the form of Brett, he goes back to being unhappy and loses touch with his values. Instead of being placid and happy like he had been before, he became unhappy and corrupted Romero, who basically symbolized everything Jake loved about bull fighting. Basically, Parisian culture is harming Jake's life. 

The Doctor

In both Michael Cunnigham's The Hours (and the movie adaption directed by Stephen Daldry) and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, the disconnect between what the various doctors think will help and how Septimus and Woolf respond to that plays a very important role. In both cases this disconnect makes the doctors ineffectual and ultimately helps contribute to the suicide of their patients through their inadequacies. 

 In The Hours the doctor is the one that prescribes Woolf's isolation and 'rest cure' in the country (which is supposed to give her mind time to recover away from the city, and all of the sensory stimulations that the doctors believe led to her mental issues). However, Woolf hates the country and her condition only grows worse as they spend more time there, ultimately ending in her suicide, despite the fact that Woolf did enjoy living.

Similarly, in Mrs. Dalloway one doctor believes that Septimus is simply not masculine enough to deal with his scarring from being in the war and prescribed bromide, which doesn't do anything to help him, and the second, Sir William Bradshaw prescribes the 'rest cure', which doesn't even get put in effect in this case.  The inadequacy of the doctor also leads to the suicide of Septimus even though he, like Woolf did not actually want to die. 

Given that The Hours is written at lest partially about Woolf while she was writing Mrs. Dalloway, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to say that Woolf was drawing on her own experiences with the inadequacies of the treatment of mental health issues to argue that they need to be improved through Septimus. 

Urge to Kill

What I found most interesting about Baker's style was how he attempted to compliment his humor. He attempted to change from simply being funny through Howie's enthusiasm for, and over-complication of every day things combined with his ridiculous trains of thought, to a completely random, dry humor. This kind of relates to Mr. Mitchell's comment about how Baker is sort of like a stand up comedian, in that he takes an idea and just builds on it and runs with it to see where it takes him, in this case he's complimenting that with something similar to gallows humor.

An example of this is Howie's table of thoughts and how often they occur on pages 127 and 128. In his list of thoughts he mentions the "urge to kill" occurring multiple times. This thought is obviously supposed to be funny, and is a perfect example of this gallows humor-like voice from Baker. This statement is very dry but also too negative (especially for Howie) to be serious coming from a mentally stable person like Howie.

I found sections of almost Kurt Vonnegut-esque humor like this both interesting and confusing because it seemed out of place at the same time as fitting with Baker's goal of comedy. It really didn't seem to fit my image of  Howie at all and I found that confusing, but it was also revealing to me - we don't really know that much about Howie's personality other than his enthusiasm for life, so perhaps this gallows humor matches him perfectly.