Pickpocketed Identities

What I find the most interesting in Song of Solomon is how the characters are named and the meanings behind their names. As a writer myself, I love considering every little detail (like the meaning of a name) when I write my own characters. Just recently I was trying to come up with a name for a character in my novel that I'm writing for my creative writing class, and I literally searched for names that had the meaning I was looking for. This is so fun to do as an author, because you hope eventually, you will have some smart readers that discover your secret. You hope that they figure out that the characters' names mean something and tell about who the character is. What is interesting with Song of Solomon though, is that Toni Morrison outright tells us how the characters are named, saying all their names "come from the bible" and sometimes even by "blind selection" if the namers were illiterate for instance. So Morrison doesn't hide the fact that all the characters' names are names that can be found in the bible (with a few exceptions), and the people of the bible's identities have been

pick-pocketed and given to her characters from the reader. What she doesn't say though, is if as the author, she gave certain characters their specific names from the bible for specific reasons. Somehow I have a hunch that she did. We already learned the story behind Guitar's name since his doesn't come from the bible, and we learned the significance of Pilate's name this past week in class. Some implied foreshadowing on our parts led us to believe that Pilate's name will have even more meaning, in addition to the irony it already contains, as we read further. This got me to wondering if all the other character names extracted from the bible shape the character's roles in the story according to their meanings as well. Let's take a look at Hagar, Reba, First Corinthians and Magdalene.

Starting with Hagar, I didn't even have to do much digging, and I was shocked at what I uncovered! Hagar from the bible lived with a couple named Abraham and Sarah and acted as Abraham's concubine - a woman that has sex with someone that she in not legally married to and possibly cannot get married to. This is precisely what Hagar is to Milkman in the novel! In Hagar from the bible's case, she could not marry Abraham because he was already married to Sarah. In Hagar from the novel's case, she cannot marry Milkman because they are technically cousins. Hagar from the bible also longed for a relationship like what we have seen Hagar from the novel seem to do. In the bible though, it turns out that Hagar's most intimate relationship is with God. Will we see Hagar and Pilate's relationship develop more? Hagar from the bible also got pregnant with Abraham because she was acting as a surrogate for Sarah who could not conceive, but desperately wanted a kid. Please tell me that Milkman doesn't get Hagar pregnant.

Next we have Reba (short for Rebekah). I skimmed several super long articles about Rebekah in the bible, and really couldn't find anything to connect her to Reba in the novel. Her time in the bible is rather extensive, as evidenced by the long articles about her, so she must've been important and influential, but how does this connect to Reba - if it does at all? Reba is one of the main characters in the book since she is part of the Dead family, so I think it is safe to say a lot more is to come from her. The only thing I found is that Rebekah saves one of her son's lives in the bible. Will Reba have to save Hagar's life? So far in the novel, we haven't been given any indication that Hagar will die. Grasping at straws here, I looked up the literal definition of Rebekah and it literally means "to captivate." So far I haven't found Reba's role in the novel super captivating, but like I said, I think we can expect a lot more from her. In the bible Rebekah is captivating with her beauty. All the articles I read about Rebekah made a point to emphasize that she was this gorgeous woman. I don't feel like it is emphasized in the novel that Reba is beautiful, but I assume she is because she is the daughter of Pilate who we know a little bit more about. We also know that Hagar is beautiful (at least to Milkman) and Reba is her mother.

First Corinthians is a little different because she is named after a book in the bible, rather than an individual. Could this alone somehow be significant? In thinking about that question, I was immediately taken back to when Freddie told Milkman to "ask Corinthians" about the recent murders. We are given the impression that Corinthians knows a lot more than the rest of the characters. So could her name imply that she knows a large, book-size amount of knowledge compared to the other characters? She does seem to be very smart, even informing her father that "negroes don't like water." Additionally, the book of First Corinthians addresses many issues such as lawsuits, sexual immortality, and arguments among the different people and groups in the bible. This further confirms the theory that Corinthians seems to know "the town gossip" if you will, that includes issues such as the book of First Corinthians in the bible does. The overall community in the bible actually had a negative impact on the Corinthian church, which leads me to believe that Corinthians may be negatively impacted by all that she knows. There is something quite eerie and disturbing about the fact that she knows something about murders and she's just a young child. That can't be good for her young mind. 

All I am really able to provide about Magdalene is some insightful foreshadowing because she hasn't played a very big role in the novel thus far, and therefore we don't know much about her. Could this be because her role will be huge later? Mary Magdalene in the bible was one of Jesus' most devoted and loyal followers. She was the first one to see Jesus' empty tomb, and therefore the first to know of His resurrection. She was then able to share that news with everyone. If Pilate is still acting as God in the novel, will Magdalene become closer with her? Will Pilate die like we have inferred and Magdalene be the first to find her and share the news?

Some of these are purely inferences or speculations, but I do think they help make the future reading we have ahead of us seem much more interesting. Toni Morrison is just amazingly good at developing the novel slowly and keeping the readers intrigued by not giving away too much information.