Home. For me, it lies in a yellow house tucked against the woods, smoke curling out of a chimney and yellow lab lolling lazily (she’s a little chunky) in the front yard. I can draw up the image in a moment, the high wooden ceilings, the dark, scratched floors covered with sun-bleached rugs, the sun (or lack thereof) pouring through enormous windows; my mother dances through the kitchen, the feral cat that lives in the backyard curls up on a deck chair, my dad’s glasses are found (found as they are often lost to him) somehow buried under a slightly disheveled copy of the Times on the counter. Continue reading “What’s in a Home?”
The Mysterious “Zoot Suit” Man
One element of Toni Morrison’s Home that I found particularly interesting was the appearance of the zoot suit-wearing ghost-like figure seen by Frank throughout the novel. This mysterious man appears to Cee as well, after Frank has brought her along to provide a proper burial of the bones of a man who had been forced to fight his son to the death, solely for the entertainment of a white crowd. Morrison seems to emphasize the importance of a proper burial for transitioning to an afterlife, and the timing of the ghost-like figure’s appearance at Frank and Cee’s burial seems to be a representation of this proper transition.