Africa
Essays

There has been much discussion on the issue of the United Nations and most importantly on the necessity of this global organization. Most of the opponents of this global forum have argued that the organization has…

The educations system in the United States is said to be, many times, unique. This education system seems to stress practically over everything else, and this is something good, but many times, other ideas may benefit…

Strategic Plan Assessment for Rashid Hospital

What things would I eliminate from the Declaration of Independence? And why? If I were a member of the Continental Congress of the United States in July of 1776, I would have insisted that the document reflect slavery.

As with any style of dance that stems back a century or more in time, controversy exists about the exact origination of the Afro-Brazilian dance and martial arts called capoeira. However, scholars do agree that it is a…

¶ … Edgar Allan Poe's short stories. This theme is "burial and redemption." Indeed, the theme of burial occurs in several of Poe's short stories. While expanding on this central theme, reference will also be made to…

As consumers watch television, read magazines, and peruse newspapers, most expect relevant advertising. For instance, parents reading baby magazine often see advertisements for baby swings, pre-schools, or infant…

Though it is a small area, the Levant has played host to some of the most monumental events in history. The origin of three of the world's major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the area is of interest to…

Timber is the major product currently harvested from forests. Timber is used in a variety of products ranging from houses to paper and paperboard products. Long ago it seemed as if the supply of wood from forests was…

Abstract Wile Sula is the most moving of Morrison's works for me, I have found myself coming back over and over to Song of Solomon: first, for the fierce wisdom of Pilate, which I wrote on in Listening to Our Bodies; then for the wisdom and clarity and originality of Morrison's analysis of masculine archetypes and how they underlie men's individuation; and finally, for lessons about women's life stages, since the novel gives a cross section of women on the boundary line of passages into various new life stages (Smith, 1995). Like her other novels, Morrison's Song of Solomon crosses several generations; the major action of the novel takes place when all the women have grown middle-aged or old. Although this novel develops in depth Morrison's vision of masculine archetypes, the portraits of the women are as strong and compelling as her more centrally feminine previous novels; as Gloria Snodgrass Malone says, "men [are] more prominent in this novel, but women bear the brunt of suffering." The female figures are for me more memorable than the males. And although the novel's protagonist is male, he is finally redeemed by the strength and spirituality of several women in his family and the witch figure Circe, whom he meets on his journey South. Milkman is thirty-one when this happens (Cowart, 1990). The older women in his family are his mother, Ruth, sixty-two, and his aunt, Pilate, sixty-eight; these women comprise the portraits of women in the last stage of life, well past middle age. His sisters, Corinthians and Lena, are forty-two and forty-three respectively, thus moving into middle-age during the last section of the novel, as does Reba, Pilate's daughter, although her age is never actually given. Hagar, Milkman's cousin and lover, dies at thirty-six, apparently unable and unwilling to move towards middle-age. But before examining the women's life stages in depth, we need to set the stage with Morrison's development of masculine archetypes (Novak).