South in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon: Initiation, healing, and home, The

Milkman must still come to terms with a physical nature from which he has long stood apart and he must do so without his teachers' help. In order to heal his spiritual brokenness he must confront his physical limitations as he tries to keep up with the older men. After several hours of following the dogs, he gives up and reclines against a tree, only to find that he cannot avoid thinking about what has happened to him in Shalimar. He recognizes that he may have offended the men in Solomon's store, but he does not think he deserved their hostility. With all of its implications of privilege,"deserve" is the key word that triggers Milkman's recognition. The turning point in his journey of self comes when Milkman realizes that:

he thought he deserved only to be loved-from a distance though-and given what he wanted. And in return he would be . . . what? Pleasant? Generous? Maybe all he was really saying was: I am not responsible for your pain; share your happiness with me but not your unhappiness (280).

At this point, Milkman is still convinced that he has come to Shalimar either to find the gold or to be convinced that it has disappeared. As he sits in the silent darkness, he experiences a metaphorical death that releases him from an alienating self-centeredness, and provides for the concomitant acceptance of his responsibility for sharing both the joys and the sorrows of his family and friends. "

In this state of separation-apart from all safety and security, all external makers and markers of identity-Milkman realizes that all he has is "what he was born with, or had learned to use. And endurance" (280). As he listens to the dogs and men signaling each other, he begins to draw upon the sixth sense he did not know he possessed: "an ability to separate out, of all the things there were to sense, the one that life itself might depend on" (280-81). He learns that the men and dogs can talk to each other, and Milkman himself realizes that these are the tribal elders with all the wisdom of the world, "because if they could talk to animals, and the animals could talk to them, what didn't they know about human beings? Or the earth itself, for that matter" (281). Milkman is an initiate to the community of hunters. He tries to "listen with his fingertips," and that sixth sense warns him of Guitar's approach (282).

Like the hero of the archetypal folktale, Milkman must engage in combat with the villain-who in this novel is his best friend-and receive a brand or wound.12 His throat and fingers are cut, and as he succumbs to the sorrow he feels at dying, he relaxes his throat muscles. The last vestiges of his former self perish. With Milkman's spiritual rebirth into the community of the hunters, he can locate the baying dogs. His sixth sense is with him now: "He didn't miss; his sense of direction was accurate" (283). The men give Milkman a good-natured ribbing about tripping over his gun, but they offer no meanness this time, as they ask "Was you scared?" (284). Milkman's response reflects his new sense of confidence and belonging, as well as an almost literal truth: he was "scared to death" (284). When he leaves the woods with the hunters the next morning, Milkman is no longer alienated from the earth nor from his fellow human beings; he is "walking [the earth] like he belonged on it" (284). The men reward him with the heart of the bobcat, then send him to Sweet, "a nice lady up the road a ways. She'd be proud to take you in" (288). The encounter with Sweet is a healing experience for Milkman and signals Milkman's integration. In the course of the novel, Milkman has never volunteered to do anything for another person, but his love-making with Sweet is mutual and redemptive.