Sai's Blog Vol. 2

During the story of the Song of Solomon, Milkman is known to drink coffee d uring his life, mostly as a preferred drink over alcohol.  Such a drink may have many underlying meanings that can change throughout the novel, such as the already noted appearance that it had during the scene where Ruth is smothe red in tulips, symbol iz ing the detachment of reality and fantasy in that  scene .  Another notable appearance was when  Milkman was offered wither tea or coffee in Susan Byrd’s home, which may also be a symbol of reality in this scene, as  Milkman begins to further unwind the unknown questions of the Dead family and his people.   In the beginning of part 2, there is a scene where Guitar and Milkman are discussing the gold and Milkman’s quest to obtain it, but there is one minuscule detail during the scene, in w hich Guitar is  said to have been sipping tea in the conversation. The inclusion of this detail shows the diverging paths between bo...

The storyline of The Song of Solomon revolves around the dead family, a certainly peculiar family with strange history, mainly  revolving around Macon Dead II, as he controls his family to something skin to the slave plantations that has preceded him, mainly due to  his father being a product of slavery, making his concept of fatherhood similar to such  institutions   In the family, Macon acts as the head of the household, being the one who makes money off rent, while Ruth is left to  be confined in the household of her father, being the one who raises the kids. This has   some similarities with American slavery, as the  ban  of slave impor ts during the 19 th  century  created a system where women are emphasize d to have children. Macon dead also likes to have control his of children in order to  assist  him in his  business  plans. M ilkman is shown to be a helpful arm in his scheme, which contrasts with Rut...

In  Art  Spiegelman's  pair of graphic novels, Maus, he embeds many motifs as subtle reminders and continues alluding to the many themes of the  books, some reminding us of the links of the Holocaust and the present, shared trauma between the generations, or of the problematic past Vlad ek describes that scars him throughout the comics.  In the books, Vladek describes various occurrences of food and how such  necessities  were scarce and hard to find,  or how they were signs of potential survival.   In times of desperate hunger, Vladek relied on bread for him to get by, both before and during the Holocaust.  One such moment was when Vladek was hiding in the ghettos,  where  he had to ration out bread for his family after he couldn’t obtain  other sources of food.  After he decided to give out a piece of bread  to a  stranger , it was revealed that he was working with the  Nazis  and he was ...

In page 122 of Maus: And Here the Troubles Begin, the page beings with a snippet of and airplane blocking out the sun , followed by  Arties arrival in Florida to see his father. One big observation that is pulled out of this page is that the  sun in the first panel is also a spotlight, similar to the cover of the first edition of the book, as well as that, the sun  could be a Nazi flag, but with the swastika covered by the airplane prominently pictured. The image is  another hint of the scars that Vladek carries with him after the war, and that what the Nazi’s have done to his family is irreversible , even after all the years in America and being in Florida in the hospital.    The page also has many hints of smoke imagery embedded within the panels, such as  when the smoke from Art’s cigarette creates a divide between him and Mala, as Art cannot fully relate to Vladek’s troubles, while Mala herself is  a survivor of the Holocaust, the smok...