The Burden of Love in the Characters of Guitar and Milkman in the Song of Solomon

How Much Can be Carried?

Is it possible to love too much? In Song of Solomon, love and the burden of love is the primary influence on many of the character's actions. To start, we can take a look at Porter, one of the members of the Seven Days, an organization who claims to base their entire ideology and purpose on love. "I'll take hate any day. But don't give me love. I can't take no more love, Lord. I can't carry it. Just like Mr. Smith. He couldn't carry it. It's too heavy" (26) Porter declares. The question of how far one will go for love is a question that continues throughout the book, influencing Hagar and Guitar's actions and eventually causing Hagar's death. Many of each characters' actions are based on their idea of and perception of love and the burdens that follow with their actions in the name of love. The power of love consumes and injures Hagar, Pilate, and Milkman through actions of themselves and others believed to be helpful in attaining what they seek.

Guitar uses love as an excuse for attaining revenge. For him, love is a form of protection and violence. He swears off family and all traditional forms of love in order to stay with the Seven Days. "No love? No love? Didn't you hear me? What I'm doing ain't about hating people. It's about loving us. About loving you. My whole life's love." (159) Guitar declares, speaking to Milkman about the issue of living a loveless life. This quote can connect back to Mr. Smith's note from when he tried to fly but instead died. Logically speaking, it should be quite difficult to murder without incredible drive or hatred. Hatred can act as a driving force allowing for murder. However, both love and hate are powerful emotions and can easily be considered as different sides of the same coin. The Seven Days is made up of people who all hold a grudge of some sort against whites, but instead claim to be motivated by love. This love they claim hold for their race is enough that Guitar is willing to kill Milkman and does kill Pilate for getting in the way of his mission to attain love.

While Guitar seeks love for his race, Hagar seeks to give and receive love she believes is worth more than anything else. Hagar had always been showered with love from Reba and Pilate, who did their best to insure that she had everything she wanted so that she could be happy. As a result of them thrusting their love at Hagar, she becomes what Guitar calls a doormat woman. "The pride, the conceit of these doormat women amazed him. They were always women who had been spoiled children. Whose whims had been taken seriously by adults and who grew up to be the stingiest, greediest people on earth and out of their stinginess grew their stingy little love that ate everything in sight." (306) In a way, who she becomes is a creation out of the heavy burden of Reba and Pilate's love which they expressed by giving Hagar everything she wanted. Because Reba and Pilate were never willing to be tough and show hatred towards Hagar, she is unable to accept that she deserves anything but love and believes that to receive her love is better than receiving the love of anyone else, as that is what she had become accustomed to due to the actions of Reba and Pilate, all of which strived to shower her with love and get her to give them love. Thus, the burden of not being allowed access to the love she believes she deserves gradually cracks her wide open.

Upon Milkman refusing to continue his relationship with Hagar, Hagar snaps under the burden of her overwhelming love for Milkman that Milkman continuously rejects. "Totally taken over by her anaconda love, she had no self left, no fears, no wants, no intelligence that was her own." (77) She becomes completely consumed by love, as it is too much for her carry and she is unable to accept the fact that someone does not want her love. In a way, Hagar is taken over by her love for her love of Milkman. As a result, she turns to hate, aiming to make Milkman hate her instead so that he will continue to pay attention to her, as she decides that being hated is better than indifference. By the end of the book, Hagar decides that she is not loved by Milkman because of her appearance, and thus aims to change herself. However, this final pursuit of love, which, by this time, has become her sole purpose in life, is what then kills her as the burden of needing love that she cannot have finally devours her.

Love and the burden love haunts many of the characters in Song of Solomon and motivates them in their actions. For Guitar, it motivates him to kill in order to demonstrate his love of blacks to himself, ultimately resulting in him killing Pilate. For Hagar, the constant shower of love from Reba and Pilate burdens her with the need for love and the belief that her love is better than that of everyone else. Finally, her love for Milkman and its burden ends up killing her. Milkman ends up having to take the blunt of all this love, become the target as Hagar and Guitar tries to get the love they so desperately need. For all of these characters, they end up unable to carry love thrust upon them by others and love that they themselves hold, injuring themselves and others. Love and hate act as the same side of a coin, so how long can one hold on before snapping from love to hate? According the characters in Song of Solomon, love can switch to hate, which can then switch to murder, in a blink of an eye.

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