"Girl, ain't nobody gonna let you starve. You ever had a hungry day?" Pilate asked her granddaughter. "Course she ain't," said her mother. Hagar tossed a branch to the heap on the floor and rubbed her fingers. The tips were colored a deep red. "Some of my days were hungry ones." With the quickness of birds, the heads of Pilate and Reba shot up. They peered at Hagar, then exchanged looks. "Baby?" Reba's voice was soft. "You been hungry, baby? Why didn't you say so?" Reba looked hurt. "We get you anything you want, baby. Anything. You been knowing that." Pilate spit her twig into the palm of her hand. Her face went still. Without those moving lips her face was like a mask. It seemed to Milkman that somebody had just clicked off a light. He looked at the faces of the women. Reba's had crumpled. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Pilate's face was still as death, but alert as though waiting for some signal. Hagar's profile was hidden by her hair. She leaned forward, her elbows on her thighs, rubbing fingers that looked bloodstained in the lessening light. Her nails were very very long" (Morrison 48-49).
This passage struck me as an important one because for the first time in this novel we see a family truly cares for each other. These women are depicted through stories told by characters as unsavory and dirty bootleggers. Pilate's own brother who cared for her as a baby refuses to speak to her and refers to her as a snake. However, in this passage, we see that the three women truly care for each other and seem to be more of a family unit than Milkman's family could ever hope to be. While Macon Dead rides around in his fancy car with his big house, he despises his wife and strikes fear in the hearts of his children. He only cares about how he appears to others and having possessions. The view from inside Pilate's home seems to turn the tables and show that Macon is more deserving of criticism than his sister is.
Also, relating to how hostile Macon Dead's home is, we come to see that his wife Ruth only has two activities that get her through the day; looking at the water mark on the kitchen table and breast feeding her 12 year old son, Macon (Milkman) (11-15). Clearly, the breast feeding is unusual but we also come to find out that she also had a questionable relationship with her father (kissing him goodnight on the lips at age 16 and the incident with her father's dead body). This would seem to point to the fact that Ruth is sick and has mental issues, but I can't help but think that Macon has had something to do with her actions and if so it would then seem that he has a way of pushing all family away from him and turning feelings that were once love into disgust and disappointment.
What is Toni Morrison saying about the concept of family in this text?
How do you feel about Ruth and the aforementioned activities she has been involved in? Do you feel that Macon is related to these issues at all?
I feel like Macon weighs heavily on Ruth's actions of breastfeeding her twelve year old son. She doesn't receive the attention and love that she needs from her husband, so she reaches out for it from other sources. Her husband doesn't appreciate her womanhood and her body, so she finds pleasure in breastfeeding her son. She enjoys the intimate connection that breastfeeding provides because it makes her feel feminine and needed to be able to perform this act. Macon is constantly telling her she is doing things wrong or threatening her, so by carrying out this act, she is able to feel rewarded and take pleasure in herself.
ReplyDeleteI find the action of Ruth lying naked next to her father's dead body very disturbing. She has a very intense desire to be very close and intimate with the men in her life. It seems like she yearns for acceptance and approval. Her father was the only man who really listened to her, and I think his death was very painful for her. I think she lays next to him naked because she wants to feel the closeness of him as much as possible even though he has passed away.
I agree that this passage illustrates the closeness that Pilate’s family possesses that the Dead family lacks. It’s also revealing in the fact that it is the fist time that we see that Hagar is spoiled. She has never gone hungry a day in her life when her family obviously has financial issues; they would have starved if Reba hadn’t won 100 pounds of groceries. Her family is entirely devoted to her happiness and she has always been the center of universe of the people around her. Morrison is saying that in a true family, Pilate’s, the members devote their entire beings to the welfare of their family, even if they hurt themselves in the process.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the idea of family in this novel, I have noticed the different levels of compassion and closeness between the Dead family and Pilate's family. During many of the scenes, such as this one, we see Pilate's family doing things together, just like a typical family would do, and in general, the Dead family is very distant and Milkman feels like a loner and distant from his family. I think this has a lot to do with Ruth's unusual relationship with her father, as she seemed to do things most people wouldn't do, and I believe that affected the distant relations between every member in the Dead family.
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