Toni Morrison's congenial acquaintance rape in Song of Solomon - Entrepreneur Generations

Re-teaching Song of Solomon this year has made something crystallize for me that hadn't until this year, despite teaching the book for nearly a decade: there is pretty incontrovertible evidence that Porter rapes Corinthians in Chapter 8.

Noting reflection and change have always been one of my favorite parts of re-reading literature. Sometimes, it's an entire take on a character (I was annoyed with Holden Caulfield when I first read him at age 17; I identified with him at 23; and I felt profound sympathy for him at 28), or an entire take on a book (the realization that To Kill a Mockingbird documents Jem's coming-of-age much more than Scout's).  Books change for us, of course, because we change. And we change because we learn more about the world.

That couldn't be more true than with this experience in Song of Solomon. 

Perhaps my favorite chapter of Morrison's brilliant novel (one of my favorite books of all time, to teach or just to read; it's even tattooed on my arm) is Chapter 8, which departs from the main narrative of Milkman and focuses mostly on the minor character of First Corinthians, Milkman's older sister, who has seen very little time on the page up until that point. Indeed, after this chapter, Morrison only makes a couple of brief mentions of Corinthians in the second half of the novel after her starring role in Chapter 8.

The chapter mostly details Corinthians' sweet burgeoning relationship with Porter, a charming man who drops a greeting card on the bus for her, which begins a long and slow flirtation with her. Corinthians is 44 at this point, and has never had a relationship; Morrison implies she is nearly a virgin ("well, almost all, and almost pure", she writes, narrating Corinthians' thoughts), and has stayed in the house with her domineering father and lifeless mother her entire life, save for four years at Bryn Mawr. After some weeks of their flirtations, Porter grows frustrated with Corinthians refusing to come to his house because she fears her father, and the two have an argument: "I don't want a doll baby. I want a woman. A grown-up woman that's not scared of her daddy" (196). Corinthians retorts: "You mean like those women on the bus? You can have one of them, you know" (196). Corinthians slams the car door in anger and walks home, only to find herself running back towards Porter's car in one of the novel's most memorable scenes. She clings to the hood of the car until he lets her back in.

He drives her to his house, and leads her to his one-room apartment:
      Corinthians saw only the bed, an iron bed painted hospital white. She sank down on it as soon as she got into the room and stretched out, feeling scoured, vacuumed, and for the first time simple. Porter undressed after she did and lay down beside her. They were quiet for a minute, then he turned over and parted her legs with his.
      Corinthians looked down at him. "Is this for me?" she asked.
      "Yes," he said. "Yes, this is for you."
      "Porter."
      "Instead of chocolate creams in a heart-shaped box. Instead of a big house and a great big car. Instead of long trips..."
      "Porter."
      "...in a clean white boat."
      "No."
      "Instead of picnics..."
      "No."
      "...and fishing..."
      "No."
      "...and being old together on a porch."
      "No."
      "This is for you, girl. Oh, yes. This is for you."
      They woke at four o'clock in the morning, or rather she did. When she opened her eyes, she saw him staring at her and those were either tears in his eyes or sweat. It was very hot in that room in spite of the open window.
      "The bathroom," she murmured. "Where is the bathroom?"
      "Down the hall," he said. Then, apologetically, "Can I get you something?"
      "Oh." She pushed a few strands of matted damp hair from her forehead. "Something to drink, please. Something cold."

After this night at Porter's house, Corinthians is able to conquer the "velvet rose petals" that have haunted her entire life. This incident is never mentioned again, and Corinthians and Porter end up together by the end of the novel: him resigning from his position in the 7 Days and her moving out of her parents' house.

In a novel much about love, the Porter/Corinthians relationship feels like it could be the only longterm successful romantic pairing. He saved her from her life in the Dead house. She saved him from a life of killing white people as part of the 7 Days group.

But their relationship is consummated with a rape.

There really isn't any other way to describe what happens above, is there? A woman says "no" four times in a row while a man is inserting his penis into her. There is no consent.

In the last two years in particular, students have asked me about this scene. I have stayed neutral on whether it was rape, perhaps because it took me so long to pick up on it. I thought Corinthians was simply saying "no" to the various things Porter was mentioning.

But come on. It's rape. One of my students this year was matter-of-fact about it ("yeah, he raped her.") and I stopped trying to explain this relatively minor moment in a riveting novel any other way. I agree. It's rape. It's a testament to our students' growing perceptions of what rape is that now, in 2016, they are bringing it up, or they are certain. In 2007, when I first started teaching the novel, I remember none of this talk about this moment.

It doesn't matter that Porter was a charming man, and that he endears himself to the reader by "rescuing" Corinthians from the Dead household. Or that a woman in Corinthians' state probably never would have given explicit consent, or that this moment for Corinthians propels her to escape her oppressive family home.

Do I think that Toni Morrison, when she wrote Song of Solomon in 1977, intended for her readers to think that Corinthians was raped? I am not sure. Culture's views on rape and rape culture have changed dramatically since 1977; mine have changed much even over the last 10 years.

Is Morrison describing the rape in such an offhand way a critique of rape culture - that this sort of thing can happen so often and so easily that we (especially me, a white male) barely notice? Or did she just intend for Corinthians to get f***ed violently to wake her up from her haunted stupor? Would she want Porter vilified? He's a minor character drawn with many layers, a foil for Guitar who never can find love; Porter can and does find love in Corinthians. It's pretty moving. Or is this situation another example of a powerless woman in the novel (all the female characters, except for Pilate and, arguably, Sweet, later, have very little agency).

I'm not sure about any of this, but it definitely has got me thinking a lot. But what I am sure of, now, is that Porter rapes Corinthians in Song of Solomon, and my very slow realization of that says a lot about me and my awakening to rape culture.

from Epiphany in Baltimore http://ift.tt/2cPlA81 Toni Morrison's congenial acquaintance rape in Song of Solomon - Entrepreneur Generations

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