When I first read the scene where we see Ruth breastfeeding Milkman long after he's too old for it, I wasn't really sympathetic to her. I was more... freaked out. If the author had written the scene differently, I would've seen it as more like a mother having different or more old-fashioned ways of raising her child. But, in that scene the author makes it clear that this isn't the case. Ruth knows that it's strange or even wrong. That's why she does it in secret. And we see in that scene that Milkman doesn't even really want to still be breastfeeding, so the problem isn't that Ruth can't get him to wean. Part of the reason I was weirded-out by this scene was that Ruth thought of it as her one secret pleasure during the day. This came across as creepy, but that was before I knew her backstory.
Now, after having class discussions and having read much more of the novel, I'm able to see this scene much more differently (one of the trademarks of Morrison's writing style). As a reader I now know much more about Ruth's life and am able to see her perspective much more clearly. Ruth is a very lonely woman, and I think this ritual of breastfeeding was a way for her to feel relevant, and connected to someone (namely her son). In her childhood, the only person she had was her father, who was quick to marry her off and didn't have as much affection for her as she did for him. After a few years, her husband distanced himself from her and she became isolated once again, especially since her father had died. Although they never had love, Ruth was desperate to regain some kind of affection and went to Pilate to get a sort of love potion. She then became pregnant with Milkman and I think she wanted to hold onto him as long as possible since he was really all she had, and she had gone through so much for him to be born. Thus, she continued the ritual of breastfeeding him long after it was necessary.
This is precisely how Morrison trains us to read her novels: we're constantly asked to go back over seemingly familiar material and reconsider it in a different light. And even in that first description of Ruth's "special time" with Milkman, I agree that there is some awareness on her part that what she's doing should be hidden (and as I mentioned in class, I read that as an extreme version of the commonplace dynamic wherein a parent hesitates to fully acknowledge the degree to which her children are growing up and leaving them behind). But this doesn't necessarily mean that she believes it's wrong--only that she believes it will be *seen as* weird or shameful or sick. And she's right. The reader is challenged here: do we want to side with Freddy, in his crass taunting of Ruth, or do we want to view this sad "small" woman with more compassion? What harm did she do him on her knees?
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