Pilate's Old Blues Song Analysis

of his ancestors if he did not reconcile his current self with his traumatic childhood. Much like the emphatic repetition of the “old blues song” that Pilate sings, in order to solve the mysteries of their family’s origin and carve a place for themselves in America, Milkman and his family uses music to heal themselves and eachother.
Music and musical terminology are used to promote healing in the novel; but the recurring use of Pilate's “old blues song” creates a vein of psychotherapy that is more individualistic and specific to her family. Creating a personalized traumatic narrative that covers a specific past experience of indisputable trauma is key in allowing “psychotherapy to work at the cellular level” (Vaughn 5). As blues singers were …show more content…
During her granddaughter’s funeral, Pilate’s performance shifts from an intimate whisper to a raucous call and response with the congregation in the chapel. The call and response dynamic began with “the rhythmically organizing work song to the quick, driving and ecstatic ‘shout spirituals’” (Caldwell 4). When Pilate turns to the congregation and projects her grief on the community by saying "my baby girl" (318), she shares Hagar’s afflictive history and the emotional damage Hagar’s death caused. Black music in the form of call and response not only bears helps to heal trauma, “but also implicates the African American community in the event” (Visvis 266). By sharing her pain and trauma, Pilate hopes to ameliorate her psyche of this emotional pressure in an effort to find closure. A true community looks out for every member and uplifts them in their darkest hour; the members of the congregation "who had the courage to look at her, shake their heads, and say, ‘Amen'" solidified the compassion and tenacity of the black community (Morisson 318). Call and response music requires memorable melodies and lyrics, it is specific recurring arrangement of musical notes. Elsewhere in the novel, notably during Pilate’s “old blues song” and Milkman’s visit to the South, recurring …show more content…
After Milkman leaves the arms of a prostitute named Sweet and decides to take a walk around time, he comes across a group of children playing a game that is soundtracked by a deceptively innocent song. The song tells the story of his family ranging from Jake and the Flying Africans tribe to Solomon and the Southern cotton slave plantations. Since Milkman healed himself of past instances of trauma, he was able to “listen and memorize it… close[d] his eyes and concentrate[d]” (Morrison 393). The song ends with “Solomon cut across the sky, Solomon gone home,” (Morrison 393) marking the final iteration of Pilate’s “old blues song.” Caldwell argues that the music of the African ancestors “is the music that helped create a new sense of community” for African-Americans and Black Americans (Caldwell 4). Milkman and his family have struggled since they started their family in Michigan; they were too “white” for the black community, but too “black” for the white community. In order to create an identity of who they were as a familial community, they first needed to understand how they ended up in Michigan. Milkman’s journey is often seen as a typical bildungsroman, but in actuality his journey symbolizes a coming-of-age for his entire family. Without music, Milkman may have never discovered the origins of his family; the