On Toni Morrison's Growing Novel "The Song Of Solomon"

Toni Morrison is a famous contemporary American black famale writer, who plays an important role in the American literary history. Toni Morrison’s work is deeply rooted in the unique history and culture of the black nation, with a strong historical charm and profound cultural connotation, to transmit a deep African voice. At the same time,Toni Morrison concernes about adolescent problems and the black culture inheritance, which makes the work has more far-reaching social significance.Song of Solomon is Toni Morrison’s only novel that has a male protagonist. The work was pubulished in 1977, Toni Morrison’s third created, by which Toni Morrison won the National Book Critics Circle Award and American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, and ascended to be one of American contemporary greatest writer. Song of Solomon uses the old legend “Black can fly” as its story line and giving us black descendant Milkman’s upbringing experience, showing a magnificent picture of black survival. In the Song of Solomon, we can not only see confusion and pain during Milkman growing up, but also can see the growth and transformation after Milkman go through all the ordeal.This thesis mainly analyzes Song of Solomon from the perspective of Bildungsroman,it’s divided into three parts. The introduction part introduces the major works of Toni Morrison and the recent research status of domestic and foreign academic circles on the Song of Solomon briefly. The second part is the main part of the thesis, it is divided into four chapters. The first chapter introduces the definition of Bildungsroman, studies the Bildungsroman of the western cultural tradition, briefly describes the origin, development and rheology of Bildungsroman; at the same time,it points out that Song of Solomon is a typical Bildungsroman from the story context. The second chapter to the fourth chapter from the Bildungsroman constitute on Song of Solomon, analyzes the growth experience of the protagonist Milkman, pointing out that lives in spoil family but his physical and mental requirements are ignored, all these cause Milkman’s indifference to his life, his family, his love and his compatriots. At the beginning of growth, Milkman’s life must be speedily put right. The third chapter analyzes the images of the leading person, pointing out that Milkman’s growth affected both by parents’ negative influence and Pilate and Guitar’ positve impact, but also by inspiration of the Natural Gods. All of these guides play different roles on Milkman. The fourth chapter mainly analyzes the use of “Epiphany” in Song of Solomon, and points out that Milkman finally achieves the real growth and the true sence of maturity after epiphany. The conclusion part through overall grasping the Song of Solomon, emphasizing the viewpoint of this thesis, revealing the practical significance of the work.