Let Your Wings Take You Where You Want to Be

     Freedom is an ongoing motif Morrison demonstrates in her novel, The Song of Solomon. The novel begins with Robert Smith killing himself by jumping off a building, which is a representation of how he wants to escape from his life. You can draw a parallel between this and how slaves were being oppressed and their want to escape from their brutal lives. The letter that Mr. Smith wrote before his death said he would “take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings” (Morrison 1). Flying and wings remind you of a bird and its freedom. It can fly away whenever it wants and find a new life for itself, however it did not get better for the African Americas for a long time. In the novel Morrison makes Smith’s death seem like a heroic action because she compares him to Charles Lindbergh who is a nationwide hero for flying over the Atlantic. When most of us look at his death hero doesn’t even come to mind but what Morrison is trying to express is that he is a hero for his black community. Because of his death he allowed for the first black baby to be born which is very heroic but it did not get realized right away. Song is also a representation of the African American’s hope of freedom or it just simply makes them feel comfortable and unrestricted. “Their dilemma was solved when a woman suddenly burst into song” (Morrison 5). This is analogous to the times when slaves would sing songs of their homes and ancestors while they were in the cotton fields. It was a way for them to escape the horrific way they were being treated. This woman begins to sing when everyone is depressed by Smiths dead body and she tries to take some of the bad attention away and focus on the singing as an escape.