Black Women’s Self-Image in a Patriarchal Society

In the novel, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison reveals the suffering of American black women, mainly in their struggle to be socially accepted during the era of 1960s. While black women have to conform to the social norms of gender roles culturally rooted in a male dominant society, they also have to endure the discrimination of the mainstream white culture.

Hence, black women find themselves trapped as their existence becomes merely associated with orthodoxy to dictated norms, mainly subservience to male's authority.

Black women are expected to look attractive to their men who solely view them as replaceable objects. In Song of Solomon, Morrison reflects on the double burden American black women encounter as they strive to survive in a conventional male dominant culture. The novel takes place in a nameless town in Michigan. Black women there experience oppression and alienation when their men flee in pursuits of their self-discovery and ancestry. Women live in distress due to lack of self-confidence and deprivation of love while their men have freedom to adventure.

Get quality help now

Doctor Jennifer

Verified writer

Proficient in: Bible

5 (893)

“ Thank you so much for accepting my assignment the night before it was due. I look forward to working with you moving forward ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Hence, women's love to their men becomes an obsession since men's presence in their lives represents social acceptance, good self-image, and emotional comfort. Hagar, Milkman Dead's lover and cousin, suffers and dies in agony when Milkman abandons her. Hagar's love for Milkman portrays the inevitable tragic destiny of black women who love their men with obsession and eventually face abandonment. In Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison depicts how Hagar's obsessive love for Milkman positions her as a submissive black female whose lack of good self-image brings her doom in a patriarchal society.

In Song of Solomon, Morrison illuminates on Hagar's subservience to black male's desires and inevitable self-destruction in her love relationship with Milkman Dead. Hagar falls in love with Milkman since she was 17 years old. Yet, this love affair inflicts pain on her when Milkman loses interest in Hagar's excessive love and abandons her, leaving money and a letter of thankfulness.

Hagar loses hope and lives in self-denial. When she sees her image on the compact mirror, Hagar is shocked to realize the reason Milkman denies her love: “I look awful. No wonder he didn't want me. I look terrible...I need to get up from bed and fix myself up. No wonder…”No wonder… Look at that. No wonder. No wonder' (308). Hagar’s mumbling of “No wonder” many times and confession that she looks ugly reveals her frustration with her appearance and her lack of self-worth. Furthermore, the “No wonder” reflects on Hagar’s emotional dilemma in her submissiveness into love as a black female in a male dominant society.

Hagar mistakenly believes that her physical appearance must be the real reason behind Milkman’s tiring of her. She is the product of a patriarchal system which expects women to meet men’s expectations by always looking beautiful and desirable. Dismayed by her curly hair, Hagar believes that buying cosmetic products will make her look pretty and will bring Milkman back to her: “Hagar couldn't get the teeth through her roped and matted hair...I need shampoo, then. Real shampoo. I can’t use Mama’s soap...Oh my God. No wonder. No wonder” (309). In her anguish, Hagar believes that purchasing good products will do magic to her hair and will make her look beautiful in Milkman’s eyes.

Her shopping adventure highlights on Hagar’s endless attempts to bring Milkman back: “The cosmetic department enfolded her in perfume, and she read hungrily the labels and the promise...Myrurgia for primeval woman who creates for him a world of tender privacy where the only occupant is you” (311). Hagar believes there is an alleviating magic in fragrances that can be used as love spells to attract men. Blinded by her obsessive love, Hajar does not understand that men like Milkman in her society are adventure-seeking rather than marriage committed. Yet, her obsessive fancy in possessing her man gives Hagar a feeling of security that she is socially accepted and sexually desired as a female. Hence, Hagar represents subservient black women whose lack of self-worth brings their downfall in a male-dominant society.

Not only does Hagar represent the emotional dilemma black women encounter in their subordination in a patriarchal society but she also symbolizes the burden of the racist white mainstream culture on black women’s lives. Feeling desperate to to look beautiful and attracts Milkman, Hagar goes mad in her shopping adventure, mainly in the cosmetic department: “Like a smiling sleepwalker she circled...clear counters covered with... Lipsticks in soft white hands…. Faces in ecstasy” (311). Hagar sees the archetypal beauty in women with white soft skin who look alluring in lipsticks. In despair, she thinks that wearing makeup will make her look desirable to Milkman. Yet, Hagar encounters the inner struggle of a black woman who feels that white female beauty will always conquer: “He don’t like hair like mine... Silky hair the color of a penny...He loves silky hair… Penny-colored hair...And lemon- colored skin….And gray-blue eyes… And thin nose” (311). Hagar hates the physical traits and her dark skin color which reminds her of prejudice against her race. She believes that Milkman denies her love because she does not have gleaming blonde hair, light skin color, and blue eyes like a white female.

Hagar is a victim of a society where social discrimination of black women is prevalent. Hence, she falls under the spell of the white culture which considers having shiny golden hair, light skin color, and colorful eyes as the perfection of beauty. Hagar believes that Milkman has abandoned her because of her awful appearance and physical features, mainly her frizzy hair and dark skin color that contradict with the expectations of the white's beauty norms. She eventually loses sense of self-worth when she recognizes that she cannot meet expectations of the set-up white beauty scale. Hence, Hagar symbolizes inner conflict of racial discrimination black women experience in their submissiveness to men’s desires.