Diving Deep

Dive into a situation where money didn't buy happiness in the short run. Where buying luxury brands didn't prove your status. Where our clothes had no correlation with our happiness. Where buying bigger and more extravagant houses had no effect. This situation seems highly impossible, especially in our current generation where many of our actions are altered to fit the desires of others. However, in the "Song of Solomon", a book full of magical realism, Pilate continues to make the impossible possible. Pilate Dead's presence is one that no one would hate on. Even though she isn't physically the perfect, ideal figure, she lives this joyful perfect life that everyone in the novel aspires to have. She has "peace, energy,[and] singing" without spending money on any "articles of comfort"(301). Though surrounded by other characters who are willing to kill friends for gold, Pilate isn't influenced by their actions. Instead, she influences ...

Dive deep into your life. Your motivations, short term and long term goals, relationships, etc all constitute your bigger identity. So summed up, your life is just a journey to find who you truly are. Finding this identify isn't a race to see who find it first but an exploration that never ceases.  In the Song of Solomon, in addition to Milkman's journey of learning about his family, Milkman goes through a journey of stealing a bag of "wealth", having a fling with Hagar, and growing up. The latter is , however, the most significant. It's seen that Milkman not only has physical changes but also mental ones. His left leg becomes to "look just as long as the other", enabling him to have a balance between both legs. This balance symblizes Milkman moving on from his childish perspective to his wiser one. His youth and adulthood "meet each other on a...equal standing"(39) just like the boiled egg.  Through learning the unique stories about h...

Not having belly buttons, believing in ghosts, and having wings, characters in The Song of Solomon are portrayed with a combination of mythical and realistic elements, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy for the readers.  During my first read of "her smooth was as smooth and sturdy as her back, at no place interrupted by a navel"(27), I ignored this detail, thinking it was not important.I just thought maybe Pilate ends up being some unusual person. But after a second read, I wondered how not having a belly button was possible. The biggest physical similarity between all humans is most likely our belly buttons because our belly buttons are what define our birth. Although not having a belly button is possible through medical issues, it is such a rare case that an average person wouldn't know that it's even possible without researching about it.  Also, since Pilate doesn't have a navel, it symbolizes her uniqueness and provides foreshadowing for her ...

Everyone has inevitably felt gloomy or calm on rainy days while feeling happy and hopeful on sunny days. This natural human feeling is portrayed as an aura throughout The Great Gatsby.  "And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer" (Gatbsy 4). In this quote, summer is referred to as an exciting new start. However, after reading the novel, I've come to realize that sunshine really means intense and heated; the day of Tom and Gatsby's dispute was "the warmest, of the summer" (114). However, when the sun begins to set that night, the real problem occurs: Myrtle's death.  Fitzgerald incorporates weather in a way that mimics the atmosphere of the scene.  When Gatsby and Daisy finally have a reunion at Nick's house, the awkwardness and sadness between them are very evident. You can probably gu...