I Ain’t No Baby

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Term Paper Title	I Ain’t No Baby
# of Words	1609
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	6.44

I Ain’t no Baby

Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon touches upon topics ranging from racism to relationships.  One such topic that’s discussed is self discovery, namely Milkman’s self discovery.  Milkman travels through a series of apocalyptic events that eventually allow him to remove his blinders and let him look at life in a mature manner.
     Milkman is introduced to the reader in the beginning of the novel as a naïve, shy child who is seen more than he is heard.  From early on Milkman encounters confrontational situations, such as demanding to be treated as an adult yet behaving as a child as shown in the following passage:
“I know I’m the youngest one in this family, but I ain’t no baby.  You treat me like I was a baby.  You keep saying you don’t have to explain nothing to me.  How do you think that makes me feel?  Like a baby, that’s what.  Like a twelve year old baby . . . Is that the way your father treated you when you were twelve?” (Morrison 50)

He does not comprehend the fact that he and his father Macon are virtual opposites of each other.  Milkman fears and respects his father at the same time, yet knows that because of his physical shortcomings he can never be like his father.  Because of this, he attempts to differ in every way he can.  Morrison explains that  “Macon keeps himself well-groomed and clean shaven, while Milkman desperately tries to grow facial hair.  Macon has a great aversion towards tobacco and alcohol; Milkman tries to put a cigarette in his mouth every fifteen minutes and keep a fifth of liquor in the toilet tank” (63).  Milkman’s immaturity is exposed here: rather than trying to improve on himself to be a better person, he decides to become the foil of the person he idolizes.
     He reinforces his image of being childish during a confrontation with his father.  During this incident, Macon hits his wife Ruth and Milkman retaliates by striking Macon.  When Macon comes to Milkman’s room to explain his reasoning on hitting Ruth, Milkman thinks to himself  “What the fuck he tell me that shit for?  Just come to me like a man and say, Cool it.  You cool it and I’ll cool it and we’ll both cool it.  And I’d say okay you got it.  But no.  He comes to me with some way out take about how come and why”  (76).  It’s not that Milkman is disgusted with what he hears as much as he just does not want to hear his father’s reasoning; to him it seems like just another lecture.  Rather than trying to comprehend why his father possesses these feel...

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