Even before Milkman was born he was surrounded by his crazy parents. Ruth, who is already crazy because Macon refused to sleep in the same bed with her, goes to Pilate and asks for a potion or drug that will allow her to sleep with him again. Pilate agrees and Ruth becomes pregnant. Macon, who is totally confused as to why Ruth is pregnant, tries to make her abort the baby. I'm pretty sure normal people don't ask their sister-in-law for a potion to have another child. On top of this Ruth is crazy to start with, she had a "different" relationship with her father that made us all super uncomfortable. Macon refuses to love Ruth because she had this odd relationship, but this refusal only causes more problems later on.
Macon is not with out his own set of problems. His past seems to be a mystery for the most part. Milkman knows that he murdered a man in a cave when he thought the man was a ghost. Again this is totally insane, but with all the other insanity going on we sort of pass this an average thing people in this novel would do.
Now Hagar's type of craziness is a little different than the others because it was provoked. A good portion of the fault is assigned to Milkman. He broke off a lifetime relationship with just a letter and a wad of cash. However, there ways to communicate that do not involve killing your lifelong friend.
Milkman leaves his home to "find the lost gold", and at first it seems like it will just be another errand for his father. His whole life his father would tell him to do something, and the naive young little boy would go off to complete his father's work. However, part way through his journey Milkman becomes his own man. He realizes the reasons people dislike him, and the reason why Hagar is trying to kill him. The book becomes a coming-of-age novel. I think we see Milkman make the first steps to becoming his own person and escaping all the craziness that has been placed around him. Milkman has journeyed away from all the craziness and is now discovering and uncovering his past. Instead of this quest for gold Milkman's motive switches to finding out about his family. His ancestors seem to be heroic and well-respected, almost the opposite of his current family. Milkman is driven away from the craziness so that he can embrace his past and finally get rid of the insanity that surrounds him. (I haven't finished the book yet, but I guess I will find out if Milkman really does "solve the puzzle" of his past and get away from all the crazy people in his life.)
You made the point that Hagar's craziness was provoked, but I kind of think that both of the other characters, Ruth and Macon, feel as if their craziness was also provoked. Macon's by his lack of comfort with Ruth and her father's relationship and her father's stinginess, Ruth's by the trauma that was caused by Macon and his distance. I think it's important to note that even though Milkman is surrounded by craziness, there were specific causes for how the characters were feeling.
ReplyDeleteIn Part I Milkman definitely wanted to get away from all the craziness of his past. But in Part II, it doesn't seem like running away is as big of a concern. In fact, Milkman gets even more involved, traveling to the places of his ancestors and trying to dig up his family history. Does he think old craziness will diminish present craziness?
ReplyDeleteMilkman really does seem to be just a man surrounded by people who want to talk about their past. It does make for an interesting coming-of-age moment towards the end because he has spent most of his life being told about other people instead of actually living his own life. His family and family did have legitimate reasons for sharing their feelings with him because they felt like he deserved to know.
ReplyDeleteI wrote on my blog about the ambiguity around "crazy" in this novel--it's not necessarily a bad thing, when Milkman's bland, complacent life is the model for "sanity." Everyone around him is expressing passion of some sort, even if it's weird, destructive, or obsessive in some way. At the end, I don't know if he "escapes" the craziness of his family: he's actively embracing the idea that his ancestor literally spun around one day and flew back to Africa. And with it, he accepts all the other supernatural aspects of Pilate's "crazy" story, and ends up affirming her as the most important influence in his life. And his leap at Guitar, his embrace of the consequences despite the risk, could be seen as a "crazy" move--and it's also his most heroic, self-assured moment in the novel.
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