Song of Solomon is a novel of finding self, but in this, one must first find a niche, a home, a family within a group of people. Morrison repeats the coincidence of belonging and finding a sense of self throughout the novel. One of the first instances of this can be seen in Milkman’s mother, Ruth. She had a niche and a comfortable sense of self with her father; however, this was overturned with his death and the complete disintegration of her marriage. With her loss of any connection, intimacy with anyone, she, too lost herself, becoming “a frail woman, content to do tiny things,” with no real life or sense of purpose because she had lost “the only person who ever really cared whether [she] lived or died” (64, 124). Pilate, on the other hand, seems to be an outlier in this novel due to her seeming wisdom, confidence, and self-assurance; however, she too needed acceptance before she could embrace herself in entirety, including her absent naval. The island people of Virginia provided this to her by showing her an ever-accepting family by “watch[ing] over her and [giving] her fewer and lighter chores as her time drew near,” despite her unusual choice not to marry the father of her child (147). Once the island people showed her such kindness and acted as her family, she was able to move on with her own, new family to satisfy that need, now that she knew how to partake in the love, strength, and acceptance necessary for life. Milkman follows her lead in the most obvious example of a sense of place and family being necessary in order to know and accept yourself. Milkman’s journey through this is far more focused on in all the steps, as in a very chronological order he went from being completely disinterested in himself, wandering aimlessly through life from one party to the next to inadvertently delving into his families past until he understood his family and where he stood in it, finally finding interest and purpose in life again. He first really admits this interest…
