Abandonment of Women

In Song of Solomon, women are those that are abandoned and left behind.  We see them imprisoned in their marriages and family life.  Morrison uses the relationship between Macon and Ruth to show how women are oppressed and how reliant women are on their husbands for support. 

Ruth’s emotional state proves the theme of abandonment of women through the watermark on the kitchen table.  “Some stable visual object that assured that the world was still there” (Morrison 11). She has been so emotionally abandoned by Macon that she needs an object to assure her that she is still alive.  Morrison states also on page 11 that “like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner,” she is comparing their marriage to a lighthouse and Ruth is the prisoner.  Marriage is about compromise, yet it always seems that Macon is the only decision maker and Ruth is just... there.  On page 35, the Dead family is going on a drive looking for beach houses, when Milkman needs to go the bathroom.  Ruth toyed with the door handle when Macon told her, “not you.”  She probably wanted to take Milkman to the bathroom, but since her husband said no, she just stayed there and listened to what she was told.  This passage shows how submissive and emotionally weak she is. 

Ruth has been so deprived of emotion and affection that she must resort to explicit things in order to feel joy in her empty life.  When Ruth was breastfeeding Milkman it was the only time where she felt the pleasure of love.