Circe

In Song of Solomon, names play a really crucial role in shaping the narrative. There are few characters that have a name that don't have some deeper significance to them. One of the characters that we briefly touched on in reading this book was Circe. She's pretty clearly named after the character Circe from the Odyssey. I thought I'd expand on this connection a little more on this blogpost.

         According the Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew landed on Circe’s island and were met by Circe and a couple of wolves. The wolves draw an immediate connection to Circe from Song of Solomon’s dogs. In the Odyssey, Circe invites members his crew into her palace and gives them a feast of wonderful foods that they all enjoy. However, unbeknownst to the crew, the food was laced with a magic potion Circe created that turned all of the crew members that ate the food into pigs. There was one member of the crew who thought that the free feast was kind of suspect, so he didn’t eat when Circe offered him food. That guy snuck away to warn Odysseus about Circe. Odysseus is about to go in and recklessly try to fight Circe, but the god Hermes intercepted him and advised him to take caution, as well as giving him a herb that would counteract Circe’s magic. Odysseus ends up sleeping with Circe and gets her to change his men back into people. They stay on the island for another year, feasting and having a good time all the while. At the end of this year, Odysseus sets off and Circe advises Odysseus on where he needs to go next.

         Dropping in a character with a mythical name further solidifies the connection between part two of Song of Solomon and the classic hero’s journey. Having the character be from the Odyssey in particularly makes sense because that is archetypal hero’s journey. Similar to how Circe, thought initially daunting, provided refuge for Odysseus and his crew for a year. This is similar to how Circe in Song of Solomon comes off as scary but ultimately gives Pilate and Macon a place to stay after their father died. Circe in Song of Solomon tells Milkman how he can find the cave he is looking for, which is similar to how the original Circe told Odysseus where to go to continue his adventure. Both Circes advance the protagonists story forward by giving them a location to visit. It’s interesting that a major lesson that Odysseus learns from Circe is to have caution when going into dangerous situations. One might think that by invoking the myth of Circe, Morrison would have had this be a lesson for Milkman to learn but by the end of the book, Milkman throws caution to the wild, stands up and runs at Guitar, who, for all Milkman knows, is still holding a gun. This could be Morrison further playing around with the typical hero’s journey and subverting the readers expectations.