Guitar Bains is Milkman Dead’s best
friend, and this has been the case for quite some time. They grew up together, and even at the age of
thirty years old still hang out regularly.
So, considering the strong bond that exists between the two characters,
it seems strange that Guitar would come to kill Milkman, even taking into
account the extensive changes that both of the characters experienced as they
grew up.
Even stranger is how these actions
contradict his earlier ones so much. For
example, Guitar didn’t react in a super negative way when Milkman told him
about the incident where he got Henry Porter kicked out of his house. That, to me, seemed to be a fairly major and
problematic event, since it put one of the members of the Seven Days in
jeopardy, and I would have expected Guitar to do something violent towards
Milkman then if at all.
I suppose it is likely that Guitar
became more and more suspicious about Milkman’s motives. I think that it is important to note that Guitar
never saw any of Milkman’s (rather sudden) character development, since it all
occurred after Milkman decided to go for the gold solo. I think that it would be reasonable to assume
that Guitar became to get more and more worried about whether he’d get his share
of gold. After all, doing something like
this for himself was new territory for Milkman. Would he suddenly forget his promise with
Guitar upon seeing the gold? Guitar had
no way of knowing.
Another interesting tidbit is how
Guitar puts down his rifle and decides to fight Milkman in hand-to-hand combat
after seeing him rise up and shout over to him.
I think that, since he knew Milkman for so long, he was able to spot
some semblance of change in the way he acted, and out of respect for this decided
to fight him fairly. I certainly could
have imagined it, but the way I read them, Guitar’s words “My man. My main man” seemed to carry an element of nostalgia.
But the book never explicitly mentions
his motives, both when he comes to shoot Milkman, and when he suddenly decides
to fight him hand-to-hand. What do you
guys think? What could be the reason
behind Guitar’s change of heart?
To me, I always thought that the reason Guitar wanted to fight with fists was because he recognized that Milkman had matured and finally turned into a man. Because of that, Guitar decided that he would respect that manhood and fight him hand to hand, an act that seems more masculine than shooting some weaponless dude.
ReplyDeleteI think Guitar's life is entirely decided on the basis of justice; he sees his murder of Milkman as justified because he stole the gold and reneged on his original promise of sharing the bounty. He decides not to kill Milkman with a rifle when he came at him unarmed because he saw it as dishonorable and therefore not justified in Guitar's ideology. Henry Porter might have deserved his eviction, in Guitar's eyes, because he didn't focus on the Seven Days and instead cultivated a relationship.
ReplyDeleteJustified? I think a better word is "not as bad". I don't see how murder can ever be justified. Also, justification because Milkman didn't give him the share of gold that he got is, to me, not a valid excuse.
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ReplyDeleteI think that one of the reasons that Guitar might have tried to kill Milkman is that he has always had some resentment towards Milkman because his life is so easy. His family has always done everything for him and he gets to enjoy a lot of other nice things because his family has so much money. Guitar, however, has had a hard life and has never had much money so the gold means a lot to him. So when he thinks that Milkman might break his promise to him, he probably gets really mad and completely loses all self-control because this gold will lead him to a better life and Milkman is taking that away.
I agree that Guitar's motives for wanting to kill Milkman are somewhat murky- the book doesn't really explicitly give us a reason. My personal opinion is that, similarly to how for Milkman, the gold ended up representing finding his family and heritage, for Guitar it began to represent Milkman's selfishness. It didn't matter whether or not Milkman actually found the gold or what he was actually going it to do with it; what mattered was that Guitar believed that he was going to/would have taken it without him, leaving him out in the cold, and this was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back after a lifetime of resenting Milkman for being selfish, even if they were friends at the same time. It's definitely an interesting quadrant!
ReplyDelete*quandary oops
DeleteI had not realized that they were going to fight hand to hand; I had thought that Milkman just decided to fly away like Solomon (Shalimar? Charlemagne?) had in the song. I guess it makes sense that they would fight it out as common men would, instead of it being a somewhat impersonal assassination of his lifelong friend.
ReplyDeleteI think that Guitar's motives at the end are that, while he still suspects Milkman of stealing the gold, he realizes that Milkman has changed as a person. Earlier in the book they were talking about what Milkman would do if were they were became Virginia and Milkman said he would leave. But at the end Milkman is facing the difficulty and Guitar recognizes that.
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