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   To start; I honestly enjoyed, song of Solomon, I found parts of it a little unclear, but I believe that will be cleared up in time. I attribute my confusion to the fact that I read it, and did all the summer work across three days. That being said, I found the text to be a quality piece filled with excellent subtext and symbolism. I wouldn't categorize this novel as excellent, or particularly inspiring, but would say it's more than simply good and also well written. 

   Firstly, I'm going to elaborate on some of the prompts... My opinions developed of Milkman and his sisters throughout the text. My angle on Milkman shifts from noncommittal, to disliking him. He's too apathetic and abuses his social status, which I specifically dislike. Arrogance and apathy aren't all that bad in my book, but under his circumstances it is, he has no accomplishments of his own to lead to his attitude. On the other hand, I grow to like him as the text develops. He becomes a sort of survivor. Or rather a man discovering himself, almost like he's in a coming-of-age story. Closer to the end, I start to dislike him again, though; I begin to see him as silly, too easily energized, and immature in an unusual way, taking stories too far.

Then the sisters...Magdalena call Lena doesn't get much time given to her. She's like a tertiary character, only appearing a couple times. She shifts from being a typical sibling to being 40 something years old and loathing everything about her life before then. She strikes me as annoying, irrelevant, and generally unpleasant. I understand that she gives a good insight into life in the Dead household, but she just kind of annoys me. 

Now we come to Corinthians who is equally unimportant for the early part of the text. She then becomes the start of a character in the small portion of the book dedicated to her. She feels rather realistic in that she gives up on waiting for life, and actually gets up and goes for what she wants. I have an urge to dislike her, because I feel like she should have done something earlier in her life, and then settles for a very low place in society. Sure, you can argue that she fell in love, and became happy, but that just strikes me as optimistic dribble. With her qualifications she should have been married off, and had children by age thirty, and the fact she fell so far from what should've been an easy life disgusts me a little. 

Here we come to Ruth Dead, the mother. Early in the text, and even midway she's vaguely important, but her character feels incomplete to me. She has an intense devotion to the males in her life, bordering on child abuse, and an Electra complex. I find her hard to believe when she tells Milkman about her father, but simultaneously find her hard to disbelieve. She comes off as a peculiar mix of disgusting, sad, empathetic, and stupid. Her role as a mother makes it hard for me to hate her, but taking a step back from that I can't help but be bothered by her.

Now for Macon Dead, the husband, and father of Milkman Dead. I really liked him for the most part, yes he was a little callous, and a jerk, but he had the right idea in what he was doing; In reality, status, and money have a huge impact on virtually every aspect of our lives. he was simply striving for as much as he could, not just for himself, but for his family, who unfortunately squandered all that he gave to them. Had he not been abusive towards his wife, I would have considered him a very wholesome, and kind character.

Guitar, well, had the greatest character development. We see him go from child, to young adult, to man dedicated to his cause, and ending as a delusional nutcase. I didn't really feel anything substantial towards him until he started talking about the seven days. At which point I felt a mild attraction to him... the whole vigilante justice thing is pretty cool to me, I have little faith in the justice system actually working, so I was really happy until I read on and saw that they targeted innocents. henceforth exposing the seven days as cult-like murders as opposed to vigilantes. At the end of the novel I was just kind of disappointed in his character as a whole. 

Lastly We come to Pilate's portion of the family. In short, I adored Pilate; she was honest, in my opinion, cared about her family, even the parts that hated her, and was willing to do whatever necessary to get what she wanted. She seemed like one of the best developed characters in the whole novel. To me she felt the most like a real person, with flaws, good points, and random quirks. Then her daughter Reba, I don't have much to say about her, the text itself called her simple, and her roles in the text were minimal. If I had to say I'd just say that I disliked her. Lastly Hagar was just annoying, She is just a spoiled child. She gets whatever she wants, just because she wants it, and then got upset when that changed. I called this an example of psychological reactance, but I feel like that's a bit of an understatement after finishing the novel. She's, to be blunt, an immature child that eventually quit life, because she couldn't handle reality.