Sula and the Song of Songs by Toni Morrison examine the ways in which black people in black cities with black ideologies can be physically and emotionally destroyed by the infiltration of all institutions that are orchestrated and controlled by white people. Morrison presents a new narrative that discourages the notion of “black stories” as a separate narrative genre and instead presents stories that exemplify a spectrum of black identities that exist in a peaceful state until something creates a radical shift in their functionality. In these two texts, this radical change is caused by forces that are beyond the control of Morrison's characters, and these forces create tensions so violent and futile that they require actions on the part of black characters to maintain order in the text. Both Sula and Song of Solomon serve as anecdotal accounts that accuse black people of subverting and avoiding the desires of capitalist, racist, and sexist institutions by using characters like Pilate and Shadrack to transgress institutionalized power structures and characters like Helene and Guitar. who submit to these same structures. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One character who clearly submits to the infiltration of white power into the realm of the black community is Guitar. As a member of the Black Power organization, entitled The Days, Guitar is responsible for enacting violence of equal force against any white person to replicate a form of punishment. Guitar clearly believes that his motivations and actions are clearly justifiable in contrast to the same violent actions carried out by white men. The guitar reflects: “'I'm not having fun; two, trying to gain power, public attention, money, or land; three, angry at anyone” (157). Although Guitar is attempting to justify his actions, he does so by presenting them in a way that separates him from the same modes of terror that exist in white power groups. The guitar therefore participates, unconsciously, in a system that it wishes to destroy. Although Guitar is clearly aware of the disparities in the value of black and white lives, his mission to kill whites demonstrates the opposite of his supposed intentions. Guitar Questions: “This means that a black man is a victim of a crime only when a white man says he is” (160). Guitar's understanding of the justice system is based on the fact that white bodies are perceived as more valuable than black bodies, but Guitar chooses to enact violence on white bodies to target his white oppressors. This violence takes into account Guitar's belief that white bodies are somehow worth more, so his murderous motivations will combat all the institutional oppression he faces. Although Milkman ultimately exists on a higher plane of life, free from oppression, Milkman and Guitar's attempt to steal Pilates' gold can simply be seen as a way in which these two men try to maintain the idea that money is power. The American Dream or in this case the White American Dream is the idea that everyone should have the opportunity to achieve success. Guitar and Milkman desire the dream's end result and try to target Pilate to achieve this ending. This desire for money is the result of the desire for some form of power within the black community. Throughout the book the desire for money is seen as something that exists in people who have no empathy with other black members of the community, such as Macon Dead. However, Morrison portrays Milkman's desire for wealth negativelyto the point of seeming perverse. “Milkman's enthusiasm was muted. Something perverse made him not want to hand over the entire score on a plate to his friend” (175). Milkman's greed is due to the fact that he adheres to notions of capitalism that he believes can ultimately give him something in his life that he never had: free will, ownership, and power. Ultimately, what these men want is to maintain control and power and invoke a sense of fear. In both Sula and Song of Solomon, black male characters seem to exist persistently on the margins of narratives, searching for a way in. Milkman and Guitar find that path through their understanding of terror as a means to be heard or seen as human. Morrison writes, “Now they were men, and the terror they had to cause in others, if only to feel it themselves, was rarer but no lighter” (177). For these two men, terror becomes the only means to understand the world, Milkman believes he can terrorize, or at least gain power and agency, by obtaining wealth and Guitar believes he can terrorize by replicating the tactics of the Ku Klux Klan. However, it is their subtle adherence to racist and capitalist ideologies that forces them to surrender to the truth rooted in their past. Although Milkman Dead appears to be the central focus of Song of Solomon, Milkman cannot obtain the truth or seek the truth without the help of Pilate who, according to Susan L. Blake in her essay “Folklore and Community in Song of Solomon, represents “ the community spirit inherent in popular consciousness” (78). It is through Pilate that Milkman is able to question his own motives and presumably fly away until the end of the text. The magical realist elements are not in question within the text, the only question Milkman and Pilate face is whether or not they can learn to understand their past as a way to push themselves into the future. Escape, physical or otherwise, becomes the way of definitively unifying one's roots with the truth of the story: the surrender of matter (greed, power, oppression) has yielded the ability to transcend everything earthly and Pilate is the way in which Milkman is able to discover this truth. In Sula there is no concrete manifestation of the truth through something like the ability to fly, the truth lies in the resistance to white infiltration and not just in the methods of escape implemented by the slave ancestors. Helene Wright represents the influx of white ideals and internalized feelings of inferiority that manifest through her insistence on being holier than she was in relation to other black citizens. Helene is devastated when she finds out about her sick grandmother because she feels she has to humiliate herself to return to a city with people who are darker and therefore less intelligent and cultured than her, but it is her perpetual adherence to racist stereotypes. that force her to become passive in front of white people. For example, when Helene is on the train and accidentally enters the white section, she becomes fearful, weak, and complacent. Nel observes: “Then, for no earthly reason, at least no reason that anyone could understand, certainly no reason for Nel to understand it or later, he smiled. Like a street puppy wagging its tail” (21). Helene actually submits to the white man on the train, but in doing so socially conditions Nel to do the same. Her submission goes beyond her experience on the train, Helene believes she is somehow better than other blacks because she is Creole and therefore a more educated woman with lighter skin. Her haughtiness presents itself as pride, and despite her self-perceived air of callous exceptionalism, Helene, “has only lost one battle: the pronunciation of her name. The people of.