Song of Solomon

Milkman needs somewhere to spend the night, so he goes to Guitar’s place. Guitar is agitated because he knows that for the past six months since Milkman sent Hagar the break-up letter, Hagar has been trying to kill Milkman on the 30th of every month. It is the 30th, and Guitar worries that Milkman is not being more careful. Milkman acts indifferent to his fate, which makes Guitar worry about his safety. Eventually, Guitar leaves.

As Milkman waits for Hagar to attempt to kill him again, he remembers events from a week ago, when he saw his mother leaving the house at 1:30 in the morning. He decided to follow her to see where she was going so late at night. She traveled by bus and then train until she arrived at the last stop, where she disembarked and walked to a nearby cemetery where her father is buried.

Milkman confronted her once she exited the cemetery, accusing her of being inappropriate with her dead father in life and in death, saying, “You come to lay down on your father’s grave?” (123). Ruth explained the past to Milkman differently from her husband, insisting that she was not inappropriate with her father. Instead, she explained the misery of her life, having been forced into a constricted childhood and adulthood. She felt the only person in the world who cared about her life was her father. She then explained how Macon tried to kill Milkman before he was born because he didn’t want to have a baby. Pilate helped protect Milkman from both Ruth and his father.

When Milkman hears Hagar break into Guitar’s room, he does nothing to protect himself; he is ready to die because he no longer wants to continue living like this. Hagar attempts to strike him with her knife, but all she can do is make a small cut in his skin. When he sees she cannot kill him, holding the knife over his head but unable to bring it down again, Milkman tells her that she should “drive that knife right smack in your cunt. Why don’t you do that? Then all your problems will be over” (131). After those brutal words, he turns away from her.

When Ruth discovers that Hagar has been trying to kill Milkman, she goes to Pilate’s house and threatens Hagar to stay away from Milkman. Hagar replies that she will try her best but can’t guarantee anything, acknowledging her lack of control. Pilate separates the two then pulls Ruth into a private conversation to distract her.

She tells Ruth how she survived after her father died and her brother left. She discovered different communities who took her in, but once they discovered that she had no navel, she was always ostracized and made to leave. She learned to hide her smooth stomach, even during sex and while giving birth. When her daughter Reba was born, Pilate was relieved to see she had a naval. Eventually, she stopped hiding her lack of a naval, no longer worrying about what others said. She decided to ignore convention. Only much later, when Reba had her own daughter, did Pilate seek to find her brother Macon.

Guitar explains how he found Hagar at his place and took her home. He questions Milkman, asking what he did to make Hagar act in this desperate way. Milkman gets defensive, saying that, as his friend, Guitar should understand what he’s been through with Hagar. He then pushes Guitar, asking him to share his secrets with him because he knows that Guitar is hiding something important.

Guitar agrees to share his secret, but only if Milkman understands the seriousness of it. He says he will be killed if others find out about the secret. After Milkman swears to keep the secret, Guitar explains that he is part of a secret society called the Seven Days. If a Black person is killed by a White person, then a Seven Days member must kill a White person, any White person, preferably in a similar manner to the way the Black person was killed. Milkman protests, asking why he kills innocent people. Guitar explains that no White person is innocent. Even White people who seem to be advocates for Black people will kill a Black person if the circumstances are right.

Guitar explains that the Seven Days, which started in 1920, focuses on population numbers. People can average “five to seven generations of heirs before they’re bred out. So every death is the death of five to seven generations” (154). The Seven Days is responsible for keeping the ratio of White people to Black people the same so that the Black population won’t dwindle and disappear. Guitar takes no joy in his job and in fact hates the job, which makes him scared. But he says the job is necessary for the survival of their race. When Milkman insists that the justice system should address this issue, Guitar says there are places where “the judge, the jury, the court, are legally bound to ignore anything a Negro has to say” (160). He has no faith in the justice system and instead chooses to take matters into his own hands.