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Post by anaritter on Apr 24, 2014 4:53:04 GMT
I think that initially we at least feel sorry for, if not empathize with Ruth because Macon treats her so horribly and unfairly. But do Macon's story to Milkman and the speculations and incestuous allegations therein change the way we view Ruth, and is that fair?
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Post by amysohlberg on Apr 24, 2014 17:51:49 GMT
I am very confused about the way I view Ruth. After I read the first chapter, I had an image of her as an intelligent woman, dignified because of her educated father. When she describes her relationship with Macon, I definitely sympathize with her. She sounds beaten down and helpless: "She did not try to make her meals nauseating; she simply didn't know how not to." Regardless of anything she does later, it's clear that Ruth is a victim. Nobody should be abused by their spouse.
That being said, Ruth's sexuality is really messed up. Her "secret indulgence" of breast feeding Milkman way beyond his breast feeding age is selfish and creepy. As he breast feeds, she stares at him, "Staring not so much from maternal joy as from a wish to avoid seeing his legs dangling almost to the floor." She knows that what she's doing is wrong, but she does it anyway.
It seems like she searches for the love and affection that she should be receiving from her husband in other places, like her dad and her son. It seems like her relationship with her father was the only meaningful and fulfilling relationship with a male that she had in her lifetime, so she began to think of him as both a father and a sort of husband. Her perverted sexuality is by no means an excuse for Macon's abuse and I wholeheartedly disagree that there is "Nothing to do but kill a woman like that."
Although I find her actions disgusting, I think it's a result of the way she was treated by her father and by Macon. Although Macon uses the scene with Ruth and her father as an excuse for the abuse, I think when he punches her he does it so he can feel powerful. It's not punishment, he's just trying to have control. When I consider all these parts of Ruth, I end up with a kind of sickened pity for her. She's messed up, but I think it's because she has been used and abused her whole life, so she doesn't know what's right.
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Post by betsyrahe on Apr 25, 2014 2:03:38 GMT
I had a very similar reading as Amy. I at first like Ruth-probably my favorite character for a while- because she seemed an educated, dignified and sweet lady. However, discovering about her joy, or rather orgasmic pleasure, in breast feeding her son at a societal inappropriate age does and with the new knowledge that Macon has given us it's hard not to view her in a different light. Knowing about her strange infatuation with breastfeeding makes Macon's story about her incest believable. We know she is a sexual being and even Macon talks about the joy he use to have taking off her clothes. So what's wrong with being a sexual person-it's safe to say the majority of the world is because well we are all in existence. But, it's not that she's a sexual person is the problem with questioning her morality its who she finds pleasure in. I think it's gross and disturbing to all of us to even think about our parents having sexual relations with their parents(our grandparents). It evokes in immediate yuck face. So it's now hard to distinguish the good parts of Ruth that made her basically my favorite character and this new knowledge. Like Milkman It's hard not to think, " Goddam. What the fuck did he tell me all that shit for. " (76) I think as Milkman confronts his past and his new feelings about his mother the reader will as well.
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Post by sheridanf on Apr 25, 2014 3:14:14 GMT
You think you know a person, and then they go and make out with their dead dad. Yes, Macon's story definitely changes the way we read Ruth. That's sort of the point of his story, to make Milkman possibly reconsider his decision to protect his mother, and to make readers think, too. That's what this whole book has been. The Doctor is a well-known, important man with his own street name. Hey did you know he would have disowned his own children for the color of their skin? Macon hates his life and his wife and abuses her regularly. Also he saw his own father get shot when he was younger and cared for his sister on his own. Pilate's a bad woman, obviously- she makes wine and lives in a sketchy house. But she's never drunk her own wine, and she loves her family more than anything.
This entire book murders the idea of simple characters and first impressions. People are complex, and changing, and strange, and paradoxical. They are not one thing. Is it fair to Ruth that her sexual relationship with her father might make some people forget the fact that her entire situation kinda sucks? No, not really. But then I ask, is it fair to readers that we decide a character is one way and discover later he/she is actually something completely different? Again, no, not really. But such is life, and it's our own decision what to do with the information we are given about others and how to judge. I hope by the end of Song of Solomon I can figure out how to judge these characters, but I'm pretty sure this book won't let me.
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Post by elizabethmeyer on Apr 25, 2014 3:23:46 GMT
I completely agree with Amy and Betsy. At first I liked Ruth.... and then everything just had to go and get so complicated! As Betsy said, I feel a little like Milkman. I didn't need to know all that about Ruth and now that I know, I don't want to know. As far as I'm concerned, people can do what they like just so long as it doesn't affect anyone else in a negative way. Ruth's... unusual actions and behaviors cross that boundary in some ways while only figuratively crossing them in other ways (she literally crossed into negatively affecting people because her son was affected for the rest of his life and she figuratively crossed the boundary when we as readers and Milkman found out about her actions and are now scarred for life). Had Freddy not discovered Ruth's secret about her son, Milkman's name wouldn't be Milkman. He'd be called Macon just like his father. Who knows? He might even be more like his father in other ways like behavior or anything else. But because Freddy saw what he saw and made up the name, Milkman got a negative nickname and now has to live with it. Also, between pages 77-78, when Milkman remembers being nursed by his mother, his mental breakdown about his parents (ok, admittedly mainly just his mother) just intensifies. Again, if Freddy hadn't talked.... so many things would have been different. But as for Ruth herself, while the breastfeeding thing is pretty odd, the thing with her father.... whether all that Macon said, or all that a reader can conjecture is true is sort of beside the point. The point has just become Oedipus... unfortunately. Whether Ruth actually did anything uncouth with her father, it seems that she had definite oedipal urges toward him. Luckily she didn't have to deal with any prophecies or anything of that sort, but it's still all a little too close to Oedipus' story for comfort. All the same, I still applaude Milkman for standing up to his father. As Amy said, "nobody should be abused by their spouse", and Milkman standing up to his father hitting his mother, no matter their pasts, is admirable.
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Post by jennyxu on Apr 25, 2014 6:50:19 GMT
Since Milkman is the main protagonist of this book, though the reader does get glimpses into the lives and actions of other characters, my relationship with Ruth Dead is much like Milkman's perception of his mother: "She was too insubstantial, too shadowy for love. But it was her vaporishness that made her more needful of defense" (75). Her character is not very developed, other than a general coldness, maybe some affection for Milkman, and the sexual relationship between her and her father, so it is hard as a reader to sympathize with her. But like Milkman also says: "He was a man who saw another man hit a helpless person. And he had interfered, Wasn't that the history of the world? Isn't that what men did? Protected the frail and confronted the King of the Mountain?" (75). I think sympathy for Ruth, as a reader, is an automatic reaction, just like Milkman's defense of his mother. She lives a miserable life, and even though Macon Dead has an excuse to see her as "disgusting", it does not change the fact that she has an abusive, uncaring husband. Her need to nurse Milkman even after an acceptable age makes her an unlikable character, yet adds to the sympathy that I feel as a reader towards her. Obviously, her strange relationships develop from some deep psychological need that Macon Dead does nothing to alleviate.
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Post by jessicalee on Apr 25, 2014 7:25:56 GMT
Although I didn't necessarily like the truth behind Ruth's character, I still feel a sense of sympathy towards her. Ruth is not capable of standing on her own as a person. She is defined by the parts she plays in other people's lives. So although I was pretty disgusted by Ruth and the Doctor's incestuous relationship, I pity her because her own husband no longer sees her as who she is but rather who she was in relation to her father. Furthermore, without Milkman, Ruth has no more men in her life who will give her affection, so she felt the need to keep him close and intimate with her by breastfeeding him past the normal age. Yes, this is strange and slightly disturbing, but to me it's quite sad that she relies on these men to make a name for herself.
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Post by carolinedorman on Apr 25, 2014 19:56:23 GMT
Macon Dead essentially claims that he falls out love with with his wife because she reveals that she isn't who he thought she was. This coupled with Ruth's characterizations evokes a strong sense of sympathy towards Ruth. She is characterized as weak and fragile. She cannot stand up to her husband, she struggles with the most basic task of cooking, and she has difficulty seeing her son stop needing her for basic life functions. It is easy to sympathize with a weak character, however, I do not think it is possible to empathize with her (unless you are in the unique situation to have such unusual sexual tensions in a familial setting as she). In class, we discussed that empathy is understanding someone's emotions because you yourself experienced it. Macon fails to empathize with Ruth and this is why he 'falls out of love with her'. This brings up another question in the novel, "is it possible to love someone without being able to empathize with them?"
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Post by fionabyrne on Apr 28, 2014 4:32:57 GMT
My feelings toward Ruth Dead are similar to those which Jenny described: "though the reader does get glimpses into the lives and actions of other characters, my relationship with Ruth Dead is much like Milkman's perception of his mother: "She was too insubstantial, too shadowy for love. But it was her vaporishness that made her more needful of defense" (75). Her character is not very developed, other than a general coldness, maybe some affection for Milkman, and the sexual relationship between her and her father, so it is hard as a reader to sympathize with her. " I imagine the woman with an absent-minded, far away look on her face. I see her eyes cast low and she is smiling slightly, like she either remembered something bittersweet or is simple minded, you can't really tell. She knows her urges are wrong, against nature, but why then does she feel them? I've heard a gay person say that they would never have chosen that sexuality had it been up to them, the road is just so difficult. The difference is that Ruth's impulses are definitely wrong, so that's as far as my comparison with homosexuality goes. Ever since Milkman described his mother as shadowy, I have seen her that way and I wonder if she will depose into a character more substantial.
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Post by Lacey Doby on Apr 29, 2014 0:21:24 GMT
This Ruth character is so ridiculously wreathed in a permanent state of catastrophe. Bad things happen to her, like Macon hitting her or being caught nursing Milkman, and she never seems able to respond appropriately or confront these things head-on. The first 89 pages of the book set her up as the wife who was beat by her husband because of the nasty stuff she did with her dead father, but the reading we did reveals her side of the story; that she was kissing her fathers fingers and wasn't being perverted at all. We, as readers, are constantly being pulled this way and that in regards to how to perceive this character. At first we are sympathetic to her because of her unfortunate home situation, then we are disgusted by her because of what Macon explained to Milkman, then we are confused when she tries to alter Macon's story in such a way that could or could not be the truth. I would love to hear the truth about the deeper things that are going on in her mind and past, but I think the ambiguity is intentional and contributes a lot to the story. Ruth's alternate version of the same story reveals a lot about Macon's character as well as some fascinating undertones that a blatant explanation made by the author could not convey as well. Therefore, it is up to the reader, at this point, to make the judgment call on who to believe: the cruel man or the unreliable woman.
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Post by garygates on Apr 29, 2014 0:30:14 GMT
From reading up until page 89, I had no real appreciation or positive feelings towards any of the characters in Morrison's novel. To start with Milkman, I do sympathize with him and try to understand where he is coming from (what provokes his actions). He grew up in a difficult family: his parents have a strained relationship which has been beneficial to none of the children and their lack of genuine care and acknowledgement of Milkman make things really difficult for him. This being said, Milkman does not come across as caring enough to try to solve any of his relationship problems with his parents. If he were really trying to solve the domestic issues surrounding him I would have more respect for him as a whole, but instead he distances himself from them even further, thus making familial matters increasingly stressed and difficult. I dislike both Ruth and Macon Dead even more than their son. I understand that the two have had difficult upbringings themselves, but I hate the way in which they treat their children. Ruth always seems rather distant to me, and Macon is irrationally cruel and strict. Their relationship, although they did in fact marry, seems to have never really functioned and their lack of efforts to fix their children's lives (which have been hurt as a result of their actions) is nonexistent. Morrison does seem to want readers to empathize for her characters, as she employs the proverbial artichoke or onion technique where we start off with a superficial look at characters but then remove layers to finally find the heart and truth of the matter, but while this is an interesting approach, it has not left me caring that much more for either of the Dead parents, but rather showing me that they seem to still be lamenting in the past, as opposed to rebuilding and bettering their future.
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Post by austinellerbruch on Apr 29, 2014 1:25:09 GMT
I would not say that I despise Ruth as much as I pity her. Her disgusting actions and passive personality are a product of her unfortunate upbringing, so I do not believe we should give her all the blame. Her arrogant and pompous father (as Macon describes him) likely abused and took advantage of Ruth as she grew up in his household. Her relationship with her father, whatever it entailed, surely influenced her revolting impulses and passive behavior towards Macon's abuse of her. On the subject of Macon, I do not find his abuse of Ruth justified, as although she is a seemingly repulsive human being, he should not be punishing her for it. She bears a hard past, and punishing her for it provides no solution. Ruth's actions are repulsive, but I do not think that we should condemn her and/or punish her for their unfortunate bestowal upon her.
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Post by moreno on Apr 29, 2014 2:36:11 GMT
Jessica's comment made me think of Ophelia from Hamlet. As we disguised in class, Ophelia's character is molded by her interactions with the men around her. She does not stand alone, and is relatively (if not totally) insignifigant without her father, brother, and/or Hamlet. Ruth very much reminds me of Ophelia in this sense. She is not worthy without her father, she is not a wife without Macon, and she is not a mother without her children. From what I gathered, Ruth knows this, and everything she does is a desperate attempt to remain relevant. For instance, Ruth literally clings to her father (and his memory), she sets out pretty arrangements to please her husband (despite his rejection), and she breast feeds Milkman far past an appropriate age. Like everyone else, I felt sorry for Ruth at first. But her attempts to find meaning through the men/boys in her life annoys me. I so badly want her to stand up for herself or do something that makes her truly happy. aka leave Macon and stop trying to get the stain off the table.
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Post by samwerner on Apr 29, 2014 22:08:08 GMT
I am so incredibly torn over how I feel about Ruth after hearing Macon's side of the story. I feel terrible, as Morgan suggests, that Ruth appears to only try to remain relevant and find importance through her interactions with the opposite sex. That is partially in the hands of the author, and I dislike that the book portrays her as such, but in the light she is portrayed she doesn't garner much of my respect or sympathy. The incredibly perverse way in which her relationships seem to go only alienates me more. The one point of contention I have with convincing myself that Ruth is a woman with an abundance of issues is that the only reason any of her issues were exposed was through an act of saving face on the part of Macon. That doesn't invalidate the entire story, but Macon has an incredible amount of power in being able to expose what he chooses and the way he exposes it when it comes to Ruth's backstory.
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Post by robertxu on May 4, 2014 20:43:24 GMT
I have to agree with Morgan and Sam that Ruth is largely defined by her interactions with her father, and then her husband. Both of these key male figures in her life are very controlling/domineering. There were many "Ruths" during the time Song of Solomon was set: beautiful, educated and dignified, but ultimately limited in perspective due to various aspects of patriarchy in society. One quote I really enjoyed form Song of Solomon described Ruth as someone who "knew a lot", but ultimately understood little. It is unfair for Macon, or rather anyone, to judge Ruth when a lot of her flaws such as her incestuous relationship with her father and her need to breastfeed Milkman are a result of the sexist power structure that Ruth was raised in/continues to live in. Guitar makes a good point when he calls out Macon's bullshit to the local bar, Guitar says, "Forget it, Milk. Whatever it is, forget it. It ain't nothin. Whatever he told you, forget it" (Morrison 87). There is no justification for Macon punching Ruth. Ruth simply made a snide, off-the-cuff comment and protested her position in the power structure in the only way she knew how: by name dropping another man.
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