In the following essay, Matus considers the significance of father figures, and particularly the theme of the loss of fathers, in Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon (1977) is a novel about fathers, or more specifically, the loss of fathers. At its heart are two revelatory incidents of traumatic loss which govern the novel's investigation of the history and future of African American men in relation to society and their own families. A brother and sister, Pilate and Macon Dead (the second), witness their father being shot to death by greedy white neighbours who resent his prosperity and covet his land. But this father himself experienced the traumatic loss of his father, who, legend has it, decided to fly away from America and his condition of enslavement. He attempted to take his baby son Jake with.....
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