Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- When Milkman returns home at the end of the novel, after Pilate locks him away in the cellar, he arrives at his house with only a box full of Hagar’s hair, and "almost none of the things he’d taken with him" (2.15.334). How are we meant to feel about materialism, the art of owning things, after reading this book?
- All you need is love. Please don’t start that again. All you need is love. Love is just a game. Oops, in our excitement to pose this question, we got a little Moulin Rouge-y. Shmoop loves love. What is the definition of "love" in the world of Song of Solomon?
- What vision of America does Song offer?
- What do we learn about race and America through this book?
- Names are just sounds attached to things, allowing us to differentiate between objects, places, or humans, and to organize our lives, right? What is the significance of a name? What can it do, and what can’t it do?
- What is the significance of color in Song?
- What exactly does Milkman learn when he goes to Danville and Shalimar?
- In ten words or less, tell us what this story is about.
- How would one go about skinning a bobcat?
- What’s up with the ginger smell?
- If you had to trade places with one of the characters in this novel, whose life would you choose?
- Google-map the route Milkman takes across the country.
- We’ve failed many a geography quiz in our day. It’s those Midwestern states whose names seem to run out of our brains. What is the significance of Pilate’s geography book, and of geography in general?
- How does Toni Morrison create sentences in Song of Solomon?
- What’s with all the flying?