has closed off his future as well. The boy wants to learn more and to "touch" that past, and he can do this through Pilate and through the song she sings.
Pilate's song is the central metaphor in the novel, and it is this song which encourages Milkman in his quest and so which brings past and present together. This is the role of women in the family--they link the dead with the living and so overcome time.
Morrison, Toni, Song of Solomon. New York: Signet, 1977.
2. Toni Morrison and Malcolm X both show a concern for the way education could but has failed to help blacks achieve more in American society.
Morrison in her novel Song of Solomon uses the history of one black family as a way of commenting on the history of blacks since the Civil War, and the main character of Milkman goes on a quest for his past, discovering how the women of his family have been ill-served by the world, by the men in their lives, and by himself because he has not known of their sacrifice or their reality. The events occurring to Milkman's family, an
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