Active Reading Blog for Chapters 3-6 (:

Plot Summary: Chapter three introduces the conflict of Milkman's identity issue in greater detail. The fact that he sleeps with Hagar is mentioned in such a way that it is too be assumed they've been in an off and on relationship for twelve whole years. That apparently boosts his appeal level with other girls and his confidence. However, he is affiliated with his father in intimate ways, being his only son, and is thus rejected by his community as harshly as can be while still being respectful of Macon. Milkman is revealed to have one leg shorter than the other, which may symbolize his shortcomings with his father. President Franklin D. Roosevelt feels like more of a father-figure than Macon does because he has a physical flaw, whilst Macon seems perfect and impregnable. Milkman does everything in his power to be the exact opposite of Macon by smoking, parting his hair, and giving away his money, things abhorred by Macon, and yet mentally emulates him in many ways: he inherited a love of his expensive home, respect, purpose, and control. Milkman actually hits his father when he slaps his mother because of her innocent foolishness. An unexpected thing happens: Milkman gets a clue of what goes through his father's mind every day when he tells Milkman that Ruth had sexual relations with her own father and that there was a question if Lena and Corinthians were really his daughters. When Milkman goes to talk with Guitar in town about this new information, he hears about a group of white men who kill an innocent black kid and are simply let loose with no reprimands. Guitar brushes off the question of why it was so important that the men talk about it in great heated discussions, and he says that they both thought differently and therefore did not have to be in each other's confidences.
In chapter four, Milkman decides to end his twelve year relationship with Hagar because, like the rest of his life, his passions with her simply faded and had gotten old. This inflames her to the point of wanting to murder Milkman because while his love of her dwindles, her passionate flames get bigger and bigger with each day. Later, Freddie talks to Milkman in his office, hinting that Guitar might be harboring a suspect accused of killing a white man and that he should ask his sister Corinthians for more information.
Chapter five talks about the numerous attempts on Milkman's life and how Hagar comes every thirtieth to kill him with some sort of sharp implement, but can never carry out the deed. He stays at Guitar's house and, like clockwork, Hagar comes with a butcher's knife to slaughter him, but can't bring herself to kill her true love, the one who had betrayed her. He tells her to, for lack of better words, get over herself and forget him. In a flashback shown while he waits for Hagar, Milkman had followed his mom late at night to the cemetery of her father and had gotten the full story his dad had manipulated him into believing: that Ruth was incestuous and her husband was a saint. She just wanted to be cared for, and the only one who did that was her father, and the only bridge that would connect her back to her husband after the doctor died would be a child, so she got some herbs from Pilate to get Macon in her bed again. It was short lived because Macon tries to abort Milkman in every possible way until his sister intervenes. Back in the present, Ruth goes to talk to Hagar to tell her not to kill her son unless she wanted her throat ripped out, but here Pilate also intervenes and shares her personal history to distract her from Hagar.
Chapter six reveals all about Guitar's strange and mysterious disappearances and friends he hangs around with. He tells Milkman that he is part of a secret group of African American bent on randomly picking out white people and slaughtering them; one of them for every black person killed randomly. Murdering innocence is not an issue for them because they believe that every white man is evil. Guitar is one of the seven killers, and his day is Sunday.

Magical Realism: Milkman tells Guitar that he had a dream of his mother coaxing plants to life, making them grown so big that they could engulf her entire body in leaves and petals, and she'd be laughing and having fun with her garden. The thing is that the book says that it really happened, that it was not a dream. Another instance of magical realism is when Freddie tells the story of how his mother was frightened by a ghost-bull into labor and how she died after giving birth to him. Pilate mentions that she talks to her father's ghost on a regular bases, and that she talks to other ghosts occasionally.

Theme: A theme that seems to be recurring is still one of finding out who you really are. On the night Milkman hit his father in the radiator and he went to talk to Guitar in town, everyone on the sidewalk was going in the same direction except for him going in the exact opposite way. Milkman applied this as a metaphor to his life.


Quote from Ch 3, page 61: "It's sweet, divinity is." This is said in the context to mean the candy, but then I was wondering. Did Guitar also mean that the position of being the influential person in control was sweet and satisfying?

Quote from Ch 3, page 77: "You want to be a whole man, you have to deal with the whole truth." This quote really spoke to me because a lesson that all people need to accept. You can't make really big decisions with biased information and history. All the facts have to be out on the table.

Quote from Ch 4, page 106: "He remembered that long-ago evening after he hit his father how everybody was crammed on one side of the street, going in the direction he was coming from. Nobody was was going his way." This is the theme that seems to be underlaying all of the problems that Milkman keeps facing: either everybody else is wrong, or he is.

Quote from Ch 4, page 111: "He don't talk. That don't mean he can't." I personally liked this quote because it says a lot about the human psyche and how it functions in self-defense, or how people can just assume things without evidence.

Quote from Ch 5, page 141: "People die then they want to and if they want to. Don't nobody have to die if they don't want to." In the context of this book, I think that this quote will come into play in many places. For example, it already has ground with Mr. Smith, Dr. Foster, and Macon Dead I.

Quote from Ch 5, page 149: "Finally Pilate began to take offense. Although she was hampered by huge ignorances, but not in any way unintelligent, when she realized what her situation in the world was and would probably always be she threw away every assumption she had learned and begun at zero." This quote stood out to me because it show to practicality of Pilate and it was reminiscent of her namesake. Pilate was wise and practical as he weighed what the people wanted and threw what he knew was right out the window. Pilate seems to be just as intelligent, but focused on doing what was right...for her.

Quote from Ch 6, page 157: "White people are unnatural. As a race they are unnatural. And it takes a strong effort of the will to overcome an unnatural enemy." Such malice was expressed in more or less the same exact words, except the only people I usually heard it from was from the white population. It's...surreal for me to hear the thoughts of African Americans who lived in that time. It certainly is an eye opener.

Quote from Ch 6, page 161: "It's no about living longer. It's about how you live and why. Its whether your children can make other children. It's about trying to make a world where one day while people will think before they lynch." From my perspective, I don't think murdering innocent whites would have stopped lynching. By the good example of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it seems as though the most effective strategy was through peace.

Milkman: He is now an adult who has physical relations with many women, is capable of hitting down his father, making his own money, and deciding what he wants to do with the rest of his life...which he hasn't made much progress with. He has tried unsuccessfully to be unlike his father; he's more like him than he'd like to admit. He's still bored with life because he has yet found a way to fly.
Hagar: She loves Milkman very much: She gave him her entire heart and he just threw it away after he got bored with her. Milkman used her and she wants her revenge. This is where her namesake comes into play: Abraham took Hagar to bed but was thrown out after his ninety year old wife finally bore a child.
Guitar: He cannot stand any sweets/candy because his father was sliced up and the only payment they got was candy. He feels a lack of justice in his life and because of that, he joins the Seven Days.
Ruth: Ruth is still a clueless, selfish, self-centered, protective, and gentle mother. She cares for her son because he's the only thing that keeps her connected to her husband.
Macon: As he gets older, he gives the facade that he's a man not to be trifled with, which is probably good advice to follow. Milkman does stand up to him however, and hits him, which makes him proud. He's a twisted traditionalist. He's still Dead to everything but money.
Pilate: She is still the wise old woman archetype, never in short supply of advise or a moral lesson to be told through a story. She's as feisty as a cat and she's still as witty as she was in her prime. She knows who she is and she doesn't need the material things her brother does to have a happy living.
Seven Days: A black activist-type gang of only seven people, each assigned a day to select at random a white person to kill in revenge for a black person who was killed on their day. It's a way to keep the population ratios steady and normal.