Flying Away
The biggest theme throughout the book is flying. It represents liberation from one's situation and Milkman is shown throughout the book to be slowly edging towards that goal of flying away from his immaturity and father. Its not only Milkman we see flying, we also see the myth of Milkman's great grandfather flying away. For Milkman, flying away meant leaving Michigan and discovering his past so that he would have a chance to finally develop into an adult. For Soloman flying away meant escaping his slave masters and returning to Africa. As you can see flying away is very beneficial to Milkman and Soloman but when it comes to the women that love them it isn't. Hagar and Ryna, Milkman's and Soloman's lovers were abandoned. When Soloman flew away, he left his wife and children behind in slavery and tasked Ryna with raising their 21 children. This is obviously unfair to Ryna and so she ended up going mad. Even though it was Soloman who abandoned Ryna, he ended up being...