Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon is the coming-of-age story of Milkman, an African American man who grows up in Michigan during the forties, fifties, and sixties. Milkman goes on a search for gold, but ends up finding his heritage and the meaning and significance of his own life. During the course of the novel, several characters act as either aids or hindrances to Milkman: Ruth and Macon hinder his progress by providing false, conflicting, confusing, or upsetting information, whereas Pilate and Susan Byrd aid him by supplying the raw information to base his hypotheses and conclusions on.…
