Magdalene called Lena tells Milkman that "When you got grown enough to know the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford, everything in this house stopped for you" (215). It got me thinking about Macon Dead II especially in light of the story Lena tells Milkman about going to the ice-house. She sets it up as "You see, he took us there so they could see us, envy us, envy him...And when he talked to the men, he kept glancing at us, us and the car. The car and us" (216). What Lena interprets as a being more about making the poor Blacks jealous, I would say is really more about Macon. He missed that maturation step where he could tell the difference between a woman and a two-toned Ford. The reason that Macon is so domineering is because to him there is no difference. Women (and really I would say men too) are just objects that he drives until a newer model comes out and then he either trades them in or leaves them sitting in the garage. If you will indulge me with this metaphor...look at Ruth. She was the big name import brand that made all the other guys stand in awe as he paraded around with in. Soon though, the mouth agape factor wore off, and she needed a a lot more TLC than was expected. Macon keeps her confined within the home, never really taking her out anymore, forcing her to sit and waste her life away. Because Macon sees the people around him in near car-like roles, he just fills them up with gas every now and then and thinks they'll be fine.
Like a lot of gearheads, we see Macon try and pass this on to his son. We see how intent he is that Milkman develop the same feelings towards other people as Macon feels himself. He is insistent that Milkman work with him at Sonny's shop, even making him the guy to collect all the rents so he experiences that feeling of superiority. Macon wants for his son to inherit everything, the business, his personality, and with that the "cars." Where conceivably, are Lena and Corinthians going to live in Macon's mind? Probably in the house, like they have for the first forty five years of their life, making them Milkman's responsibility. This really is just a spin off of the old slavery rooted idea that people can be property, only for Macon they aren't just generic property they are cars. Look back throughout the book and there are a lot of cases where cars come into play along with the notion of Macon--and Milkman--being Black on the outside but really with the "heart of a White man" (266). The literal cars are a status symbol for Macon, by making people into car-like figures he is further classifying them, and then Morrison is showing us then, that this takes on the added level of a racial pride aspect to go with class identification. This could then be rooted down to "Brand Loyalty."
This is indeed a harsh assessment of Macon's treatment of Ruth--but his treatment of Ruth is pretty harsh, so that's appropriate. It makes a lot of sense: he likes her for what she represents, the "step up" socially that he needs, but when he falls out of love (as you say, she requires too much maintenance, as a 3D human being . . .), it's so *total*, as if he doesn't look back and needs nothing further from her.
ReplyDeleteThe story is sad on both sides here--Macon is an unhappy man, despite all his accomplishments, as he has a family home that is both overpopulated and emotionally bereft. But Ruth gets the worst of it, if only because she doesn't even HAVE this other public sphere to move about in. Her life is so much "smaller" than his, and her loveless marriage thus seems even sadder.