Our identity is one of the only things we have to call our own. Through a period of a life time ones identity becomes less and less ones' own. This deterioration of identity usually calls for a search, a true calling, to find out who you are, today this might be called a mid life crisis. This crisis of identity and its search is evident with Macon (Milkman) Dead in Toni Morrison's' Song of Solomon.

Milkman for his entire life had been living in his fathers shadow; the notorious tenant owner and resident of Not Doctor Street. Macon (Milkman) struggles with the fact that he does not receive respect in his town for being a man, but for the influence and money which is father has obtained. Milkman's struggle begins as most midlife crisis do when something completely life shattering about the past is brought forward. For Milkman...