Although Milkman's entire voyage to the South puts his urban and social survivability to the test, it is not until he enters the forest that his true self is tested. At first, it is the very absurdness of his location that startles the main character, but as Milkman tries to recall the actions that lead to his current state, for the first time, he realises that there are two sides to a coin. On one hand, he perceived to have received a warm welcome in "Roanoke, Petersburg, Newport News", but on the other hand, the people whom he met may not have been friendly at all but rather "curious or amused". Like always, Milkman first rushes to accuse everyone around him: "What kind of savages were these people? Suspicious. Hot-tempered. Eager to find fault and despise any outsider. Touchy. Devious, jealous, traitorous, and evil. He had done nothing to deserve their contempt." However, alone in the midst of the forest, the main character is able to reflect upon his own mistakes ("He hadn't been alert early enough, hadn't seen the signs jutting out everywhere around him.") and realises his own foolishness. For all his life, Milkman has depended on the prestige and renown of his father and has raised himself above the worries of everyone else by saying that he doesn't "deserve" to be bothered by the entire spectrum of a person's feelings but would still like to hoard all the pleasant emotions.
Exactly because he finds himself alone in the wilderness, Milkman comes to terms with his own senses. He sees the effects of his alienation from the pure feelings of the heart and the basic senses a man posses to communicate with nature: "His watch and his two hundred dollars would be of no help out here, where all a man had was what he was born with, or had learned to use. And endurance. Eyes, ears, nose, taste, touch – and some other sense that he knew he did not have: an ability to separate, of all the things there were to sense, the one that life itself might depend on." Up north, Milkman and his family were enclosed in the cage that is their own home and comfort. Only by venturing so far away from what he originally thought was his home, the main character is able to find his true roots and purpose in life. Only outside the cage of his father's wealth is Milkman able to take flight and realise that it was not the gold he was after all along. Instead, he wanted to learn more about his family's past, because that would bring the one true spark of life in his entire existance.
Like Milkman, I've also had similar moments of realisation, but they tend to be spread over a larger period of time rather than remain concentrated in a single event. What drives me is deeply rooted in the past, but unlike Milkman, I do not feel regret for any of the things I've done. Instead, I harbour all of my experience, because it has made me who I am today. One aspect of my life I've recently realised the truth about is that if I want to achieve my dreams, I need to be constantly alert and to use all my senses. In a way, this is similar to Milkman's awakening of the senses in chapter eleven, because I too have come to realise that one needs to sharpen his/her instincts to perfection in order to successfully play out any situation.
1 comment:
Very interesting personal connection. You do a good job of analyzing Milkman's transformation, particularly his habit of blaming someone else for his problems. In this scene we get the first indications that Milkman sees that he has responsibilities to himself and other people.
20/20
Post a Comment