Milkman soared over the Red Sea, escaping the land of captivity and racing towards freedom. In his arms he bore Beloved, but as he flew on the weight of his burden grew until he could no longer hold her. Beloved slipped from his grasp; Milkman soared onward to his freedom. Beloved plummeted into the depths of the water below, no longer able to torment those who cared for her. Freedom presents itself in many different ways in Song of Solomon and Beloved; in both works the freedom that Morrison experienced influenced the same theme in her novels.
Sethe does not attain freedom by her escape from slavery; her murder holds her captive. Though Sethe escapes across the river from the land of slavery to the land of freedom, though she becomes physically free, her old captivity returns to haunt her. It first returns in the form of four horsemen with the intention of bringing her back into the slavery, and then once more after she chooses to kill her children - or attempts to, and once succeeds - rather than surrender them back to slavery.
Maddison relates the Middle Passage to the crossing of the Ohio River: the Middle Passage resulted in slavery and death, as did the cross over the river. Despite the freedom from physical slavery, “Sethe and Beloved are shown to remain enslaved in Ohio, on the "free" side of the river. There they are haunted by repressed memories of the unspeakable and unspoken past, especially the past of the Middle Passage as it is represented in the monster Beloved has become” (Maddison par 21). For years the death of her child torments Sethe, but when the child returns in living form, her “life” destroys more of Sethe as Beloved takes advantage of Sethe's love and remorse and becomes, in essence, a monster.
Pilate contrasts much with Sethe as the “freest” character in either of Morrison's novels. In Song of Solomon, freedom resembles flying, and Milkman acknowledges Pilate's ability to “fly” at the end of the novel. As a child, sadness and loneliness overwhelms Milkman when he realizes that he cannot fly. By the final page, however, he understands that one can fly in other ways than physically, that the freedom flying provides comes from within. When Guitar attempts again to kill Milkman but kills Pilate instead, Milkman, staring down at her, “knew why he loved her so. Without ever leaving the ground, she could fly” (Song of Solomon 340).
Milkman is influenced by the two extremes of the free Pilate and his father, who believes that “money is freedom… the only real freedom there is” (162). This claim presents itself in how Macon lives his life carrying only about his own success and that of his son. Milkman develops into the same man with an identical mindset. After Guitar confronts him, Milkman admits that “maybe Guitar was right - partly. His life was pointless, aimless, and it was true that he didn't concern himself an awful lot with other people. There was nothing he wanted bad enough to risk anything for, inconvenience himself for” (107). Except for money. Only when he and his father expect that Pilate has gold will he inconvenience himself. Only to retrieve the gold from Pilate's house and even the cave does Milkman risk anything.
He would too, perhaps, take a risk to fly. Even as a child, Milkman obsesses over flying. The knowledge that he cannot fly torments him and follows him throughout his life. When he returns to his father's homeland to the mansion of the man who killed his grandfather, he “never, not since he knelt by the window sill wishing he could fly, had he felt so lonely” (240). In Milkman's mind, flying is equivalent to freedom. Only when he loves enough to “risk anything for” is he able to soar with Pilate. At her death, he leaps at Guitar, realizing finally that “if you surrendered to the air, you could ride it” (341). Though the ending is left open about whether Milkman lives or dies, the novel does have closure in that Milkman is complete. He has abandoned the desire for the materialistic and come to love Pilate and his ancestry, Hagar, and Guitar.
Even in the midst of Guitars attempts to kill him, Milkman feels a renewed sense of love for his old friend, and he “thought he understood Guitar now. Really understood him” (282). Milkman feels a distance from Guitar since he learns of the Seven Days, shocked that Guitar kills innocent people. In time, Milkman learns that Guitar does not care about the possible consequences. Guitar argues that dying early doesn't worry him. He says, “how I die or when doesn't interest me. What I die for does. It's the same as what I live for” (160). Guitar lives for defending the rights of his race, his friends, and is willing to die for the same cause. When Milkman claims that Guitar is not acting on love, he replies “What I'm doing ain't about hating white people. It's about loving us. About loving you. My whole life is about love” (160). The concept of killing for love sees absurd, as Paul D claims that Sethe's love “is too thick” when Sethe tries to murder her four children so they will not be put back into slavery (Beloved 164). For Toni Morrison, “the central theme of all her work is [love],” which relates much to the theme of freedom. (Bakerman par 2). The love that these characters experience defines how they are free - or the opposite. Milkman's love for Pilate and his ancestry is freeing as he discovers who he is and that he can fly like his aunt, though in a way he never expected. Sethe's love for Beloved, however, confines her, closing her away from the rest of society.
Morrison's experience with freedom influenced the theme in Song of Solomon and Beloved, literal freedom as from slavery and the freedom Milkman eventually discovers at the end of Song of Solomon. After abandoning editing and concentrating solely on writing, Morrison declares how she “was happy, free in a way [she] had never been” (Beloved xvi, emphasis added). Morrison utilizes this freedom and joy in her works to show the beauty of freedom, mental, emotional, and physical, so that those who are free may surrender to the air and ride it.
