WATER: AN INSURMOUNTABLE BARRIER

See how I explore environmental racism through the motif of water within Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon.

In his 1921 poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes expresses, “I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans” (Hughes). Hughes establishes the link between water and the traumas associated with slavery: the Missippi River has an embedded association with slavery, as it was vital in transporting slaves and cash crops throughout America. Akin to Hughes’ purpose in the use of the Mississippi in his poem, Toni Morrison utilizes water to convey trauma in her own 1977 novel, Song of Solomon. This novel tells the coming-of-age story of protagonist Milkman Dead as he discovers his identity through his home in Southside, Michigan, and his ancestral roots in Shalimar, Virginia. Morrison’s depiction of the African-American experience portrays the copious obstacles encountered by African-Americans. Morrison utilizes the motif of water, both broadly and in the lives of individual characters, to symbolize the barriers African-Amercans face in achieving self-actualization, revealing the dark reality of living as an African-American in the mid-1900s. 

In Morrison’s typically esoteric writing style, the water source that serves the Southside community is a representation of the barrier this community faces in self-actualizing. Southside, set within Michigan and reminiscent of Detroit, is a predominantly African-American community. Morrison uses grotesque diction to describe the water from a nearby lake, which exudes an odor “sharp enough to distort [the] dreams” of Southside residents (Morrison 185). This distortion of the dreams of the Southside community manifests into the formation of the Seven Days, a group that applies a radical reverse-racial prejudice towards white people in its quest to “keep the ratio the same” (155). Thus, the murky water in Southside serves as tangible evidence of the gap between the current flawed state of Southside and the necessary rebirth and purification of this city—as clean, pure water traditionally symbolizes. This word choice is accompanied by Morrison’s description of a “ginger smell” that originates from the lake water which is “full of mill refuse and the chemical wastes of a plastic manufacturer” (185,184). This descriptive language invoking waste from production is reminiscent of the disposable way that African-American labor was used for industry dominated by white men. Paradoxically, the African-American is forced to pollute and damage the water that supplies his own community. Thus, it is the African-American community that is left to suffer under the hands of the white man—evidenced by the government officials—presumably white—who “saw to it that ‘Doctor Street’ was never used in any official capacity,” representing white suppression of African-American culture (2). Due to the foul water near Southside, it is no surprise that “Negroes don’t like water,” as Milkman’s sister Corinthians so pragmatically states (35). Water is a vital aspect of human survival, but under the white man, the African-American has learned to despise such a resource. Corinthians’ comment foreshadows much of water’s role in the rest of the text and represents the unified African-American experience with water. 

Morrison utilizes the motif of water, both broadly and in the lives of individual characters, to symbolize the barriers African-Amercans face in achieving self-actualization, revealing the dark reality of living as an African-American in the mid-1900s. 

Morrison’s motif of water extends to Macon Dead ll’s wife Ruth, elucidating her lack of completeness. Ruth, “like a lighthouse keeper drawn to his window to gaze out once again at the sea,” is enthralled by the presence of a “large water mark” left over from a vase on the table that was “filled every day during [Ruth’s fathers’] life” (11, 12). Morrison vividly delineates this watermark to emphasize the distance between Ruth’s current loveless marriage and the life of sexual fulfillment and love she desires—in fact, Ruth’s passion in obtaining love prompts her to constantly seek out her father’s grave, unbeknownst to her family. The fact that this watermark becomes “more pronounced as the years passed,” as opposed to the typical faintness that comes with aging, parallels the distance between Ruth and her idealized life: as Macon becomes more emotionally distant, the watermark demonstrates the widening distance between the life Ruth has versus the life she wants (12). Despite the fact that Ruth has inherited immense wealth, Ruth still faces the barrier that water represents, which in essence precludes Ruth’s self-actualization and emphasizes the universal struggles that plague the African-American community despite one’s wealth or status. 

Finally, Milkman’s personal journey is significant in understanding the relationship between water, flight, and freedom in the African-American experience. Milkman visits Circe’s home seeking gold to purchase “boats, cars, [and] airplanes,” among other items (179). Upon Circe relaying that Jake Dead has been buried in a nearby cave, Milkman ventures into the wilderness and encounters a river. Here, water functions as a literal barrier between Milkman’s lack of spirituality and his connection to his African-American ancestry and community. This river physically damages Milkman’s material goods—Milkman’s watch is “splintered” and “bent” from the water in the river—and thus, makes Milkman’s journey more difficult (250). However, unlike the Southside community and Ruth, Milkman manages to overcome his personal barrier of water—he encounters the river again, but now the crossing is “laid across with boards,” permitting Milkman to “[walk] across the homemade bridge” (253). The crossing of this personal barrier allows Milkman to recognize the greater injustices of the larger barrier at play.

Milkman’s personal journey is significant in understanding the relationship between water, flight, and freedom in the African-American experience.

As Milkman begins unraveling the many secrets of his family history, facilitated, in part, by this successful journey across the river, he also learns the true story behind Solomon’s flight. Milkman discovers that Solomon used flight as a means to escape slavey and return across the Atlantic Ocean to his ancestral home, Africa. The water of the Atlantic Ocean is the original barrier between the life African-Americans had as slaves versus the freedom they needed for self-actualization. Milkman’s journey across the river serves as an almost full-circle fulfillment of Solomon’s tale, evidenced by the dream Milkman has after encountering the river, where “part of his flight was over the dark sea,” implying Milkman’s metaphoric journey across the Atlantic (298). By overcoming the obstacle of water within his own journey, Milkman achieves a connection with his African-American heritage—represented by Milkman’s integration into the tribe of hunters in Shalimar. Now, Milkman recognizes the all-ecompassing barrier of water, which anchored his ancestors to slavery and inhibited their journey back home. Accordingly, Milkman now rejoices in his ancestral song—Milkman claims the song is “[his] my game now”—revealing Milkman’s embracement of his history and understanding of the role water plays in it (327). However, Milkman can only dream of crossing such a generational barrier. As the mundane reality of this novel reveals, overcoming such a barrier is no easy feat. 

In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, the motif of water functions as a barrier to the self-actualization of individuals of the African-American community. Robert Smith’s realization “that only birds and airplanes could fly,” which makes his attempted flight crossing Lake Superior impossible, portrays water as an insurmountable barrier to African-Americans (9). Water, literally speaking, is a foundation in achieving self-actualization, as Maslow emphasizes in his Hierarchy of Needs (Mcleod). Thus, Morrison selected a resource as vital as water to convey the barriers within the African-American community. While colossal bodies of water are now crossable with the advent of advanced transportation, the barrier of water, as symbolized by Morrison, remains as alive as ever for African-Americans.

Ryan Bernstein for "Air That I Breathe" // 1 February 2021

Works Cited

Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44428/the-negro-speaks-of-rivers. Web. Accessed 1 Feb 2021. 

Mcleod, Saul. “Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.” Simply Psychology, Simply Psychology, 29 Dec. 2020, www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html#:~:text=Self%2Dactualization%20needs %20are%20the,most%20that%20one%20can%20be. Web. Accessed 1 Feb 2021.

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York, New York: Vintage International, 1977.