Song of Solomon

Morrison seems to be emphasizing the distinction between Pilate and Macon. A distinction that also separates the two types of blacks in the 1900's; the content blacks, and the Uncle Tom's. Macon assimilates to white culture by craving material possessions and looking down on the less financially stable blacks. Milkman, as you find out rather quickly, strongly abhors this characteristic of his father, but as you find out later, he can't escape it himself. Milkman has a deep infatuation with flying and becomes obsessed with flying away and possessing the gold left behind by Pilate (two things that contradict each other). He even admits it when he states, "All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down." Milkman believes that it is his family that is weighing him down, but in reality it is his obsession with material possessions. The Sunday car ride is a metaphor for the family being trapped by and ensnared by their longing for material riches. In an attempt to distinguish himself from his father, he in turn becomes more like him. "Milkman feared his father, respected him, but knew, because of the leg, that he could never emulate him. So he differed from him as much as he dared. Macon was clean-shaven; Milkman was desperate for a mustache. Macon wore bow ties; Milkman wore four-in-hands. Macon didn't part his hair; Milkman had a part shaved into his. Macon hated tobacco; Milkman tried to put a cigarette in his mouth every fifteen minutes." The narrator lists ways in which Macon and Milkman are different, but they are very trite differences, most about appearance. Morrison furthers this notion by adding words like "as much as he Dared" and "Milkman tried to put a cigarette in his mouth" to invalidate the trivial differences between father and son. Chapter 3 also tosses the ideology that your possessions and appearance don't define you, but how you react to your environment does. Milkman proves to be like his father, whereas Pilate is quite the contrary. Pilate lives in Southside, the impoverished "black" part of town, yet is content with her humble life-style. She is a wine sales-woman who rarely yields a substantial income. Macon is parsimonious with his money, while in contrast Pilate is a very compulsive consumer. Immediately following the collection of her profit, she buys food and her family eats it all, conserving nothing.

Canto XXI-XXIII

"Upon the ground, where he was crucified By three stakes. When he saw me there he squirmed All over, and puffing in his beard, he sighed; Fra Catalano, observing this, explained: 'The one impaled there you are looking at Is he who counseled the Pharisees to bend The expedient way, by letting one man be put To torture for the people. You see him stretch Naked across the path to feel the weight Of everyone who passes' and in this ditch, Trussed the same way, are racked his father-in-law And others of that council which was such A seed of evil for the Jews."(Canto XXIII. 106-118)

This encounter not only gives insight on the bibles most defining moment, but it also serves as another example of how the punishments of hell are fitting of the crime. The man mentioned above being crucified, is Caiaphas (the high priest at the time of Jesus's trial). At first I believed this quote to be an allusion to Pontius Pilate, but the excerpts, "by letting one man be put To torture for the people," and "his father-in-law And other of that council" made me change my mind. I found this out by looking up Jesus's trial in the Bible. Caiaphas according to scripture, advises a council of chief priests and Pharisees that it is expedient that "one man should die for the people [so that] the whole nation perish not" (John 11:50). This helped solidify my argument, but I was still not satisfied; I needed additional fortification, for I was still skeptical of what "and in this ditch, Trussed the same way, are racked his father-in-law And others of that council which was such A seed of evil for the Jews," meant. After some extensive research on Caiaphas (meaning a phone call to my dad) I found out that Caiaphas's father-in-law, Annas (My dad was unsure on the spelling) and other members of the council set out the crucifixion of Jesus. Knowing this, you then see the elaborate metephorical connections and how his punishment is annalogous to his crime. He was a hypocrite, preaching prudence but not showing it, so Dante notes that he resides in the Sixth circle; because he called for Christ's crucifixion, he himself lies crucified; and because his actions contributed to the suffering of one for the sins of many, he now is stretched "naked across the path to feel the weight of everyone who passes." This is true justice.

"Does have a place where you can cross at will. It was yesterday, five hours later than now, That the twelve hundred and sixty-sixth year fell." (Canto XXI. 109-111)

This quote, yet again alludes to the earthquake that happened when Christ died (mentioned two posts before this one). Based on these words, if I analyzed this passage correctly, the present day in the passage, is good Friday, or the day after Jesus died. If you look at the text, you can tell the exact time and date in which Dante narrated these events.

Canto XVIII-XX

"No tears for pain--how much the look of a king He still keeps! He is Jason, who took the ram Of Colchis by courage and canny reckoning. He passed the isle of Lemnos after the time when its bold, pitiless women killed every male; His deceitful gifts and fair words overcame The young Hypsipyle there, who'd had the skill To deceive the rest. He left her great with child, Forlorn; and such guilt brings him torment in Hell, Avenging Medea as well. With him are sealed All this who cheat such ways: let this suffice for the first valley, and knowledge of those held between its jaws."

This is an allusion to Jason and the Argonauts (we saw this movie in Latin 3). Jason was a womanizer, he was notorious for sleeping with other women while on his adventure to get the Golden Fleece so he could become the king of Iolcus. The first mention of Jason's sex life in the text is noted in "He passed the isle of Lemnos after the time when its bold, pitiless women killed every male; His deceitful gifts and fair words overcame The young Hypsipyle there, who'd had the skill To deceive the rest." This is an allusion to when Jason and his crew landed on Lemnos, an isle of only women, because Hypsipyle (the Queen), convinced every woman to kill their husbands in their sleep. During the visit of the Argonauts the women mingled with the men creating a new "race" called Minyae. Jason fathered twins with queen Hypspyle. This is why Dante writes, "His deceitful gifts and fair words overcame The young Hypsipyle there, who'd had the skill To deceive the rest," she overcame the rest of the men prior to Jason, by killing them. Jason then fled from Lemnos leaving Hypsipyle pregnant ( "He left her great with child, Forlorn"). The last affair Dante mentions is Medea, who helped Jason obtain the Fleece, by providing him with an ointment that protected him from the oxen's flames and a potion to make the Dragon fall asleep. But Jason soon after cheated on Medea, by forming an engagement with Creusa. Madea mad at this, killed their two children, and poisoned Creusa. Jason broke the vow to love Madea. Jason then died alone and unhappy. The manner of his death was due to the deities cursing him for breaking his promise to Medea. This is why he went to hell, "such guilt brings him torment in Hell, Avenging Medea as well. With him are sealed All this who cheat such ways: let this suffice for the first valley, and knowledge of those held between its jaws."

Cantos VI-XII

Justice in Inferno I think is continually portrayed as a matter of precise, almost mechanical, order, as evidenced by, "It comes before him, and confesses all; Minos, great connoisseur of sin, discerns For every spirit its proper place in Hell, And wraps himself in his tail with as many turns as levels down that shade will have to dwell," (Canto V. 7-11) as Minos punishes men based off tail. Not only is God's justice coldly impersonal and utterly without pity, its severity is almost incorrectly matched with the deed. It seems like the degree of evil and torment that Dante encounters escalates as the story progresses, enabling Dante to go into increasingly significant shocks.

"You may be thinking about this ruined terrain guarded by the feral rage that I defied And quelled just now. Know then: that other time I journeyed here, this rock had not yet slid It must have been a little before He came to Dis, if I have reckoned rightly, to take the great spoil of the upper circle with Him--when the deep, fetid valley began to shake Everywhere, so that I thought the universe Felt love" (Canto XII. 31-36). When Virgil tells Dante of "this ruined terrain" and "rock [that] had not yet slid," he alludes to the earthquake that is illustrated in the Bible "All mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a furnace and the whole mountain and earth shook with a violent earthquake." This earthquake in my dad's words, "happened after Jesus's crucifixion." When Virgil says, "this rock had not yet slid It must have been a little before He came to Dis" he means that the rocks had not fallen before God first descended to Dis. The Earthquake my dad spoke about, was believed to be the after-effect of God descending into hell to free some biblical characters mentioned earlier in Cantos IV (Noah, Moses, Adam, Abel, Abraham, King David, and Jacob), this is what he means when he refers to God taking "the great spoil of the upper circle with Him." Virgil continues this notion by stating "When the deep, fetid valley began to shake Everywhere, so that I thought the universe Felt love: the force that has brought chaos back many times over, say some philosophers. And at that moment this ancient rock, both here and elsewhere, tumbled to where it now appears." Virgil logically tells Dante that the earthquake that shook, quaked not only hell, but the whole universe (outside hell) as well, implying that Jesus's death affected Heaven, Hell, and Earth.

Canto I-V

Dante's inferno begins, "Midway on our life's journey, I found myself In dark woods, the right road lost. To tell about those woods is hard-so tangled and rough" (Canto I. 1-3). This first stanza I think summarizes the intricate allegory that Dante is going to unfold throughout the poem. Dante links his own personal experience to that of all humanity by saying, "our life's journey." The dark woods symbolize sinful life on Earth, and the “right road” refers to the virtuous life that leads to God. Dante is in a deep internal conflict, describing himself as lost and on the wrong road. The right road symbolizes the holy path of righteousness. The leopard or fraud came and "stayed before [his] face." Next a lion or anger, came "...at [him], his head high as he ran. (Cantos I. 25-39)." Lastly the she-wolf or incontinence "whose leanness seemed to compress All the world's cravings, that had made miserable." These are the internal sins that haunt Dante and prevent him from traveling the "right path."
Reader' become interested in the mystery surrounding the women mentioned by the narrator. "Lucy, the foe Of every cruelty, found me where I sat with Rachel of old, and urged me: 'Beatrice, true" (Canto II. 79-81).
Virgil is also a poet and tells Dante that "the good of intellect" is something he values, and something seldom seen in hell and that they commit to nothing. "Chose neither side, but kept themselves apart-now heaven expels them, tot to mar its splendor and hell rejects them, lest the wicked of heart" (Canto III. 34-39). Dante feels bad for the lovers and states, "Francesca, your suffering makes me weep For sorrow and pity-but tell me, in the hours of sweetest sighing, how and in what shape or manner did love first show you those desires so hemmed by doubt?" This shows how Dante acknowledges the lovers sin but still weeps for them out of pity. While the punishments suffered by the damned may be “just,” the text nevertheless emphasizes the pity and fear felt by the character Dante when witnessing them.