In part one, we realize the slightly subtle as well as not subtle interpretations of masculinity present in the book. In Milkman’s own family, there is a huge discrepancy between husband and wife as well as between himself and his sisters. Milkman does not have any significant relationship with his sisters and his own father does not see a purpose in them other than getting them married off to wealthy men in college. Macon’s own relationship with Ruth is harmful and his perception of her and her “weakness” as a “vile” woman helps de emphasize her significance as a person and continues to define his idea of masculinity- one that is defined by the things he owns as he tells Milkman, “... the one important thing you’ll ever need to know: Own…show more content… The people Milkman “defended” were hardly people to him, hardly people he thought about just as Macon Jr. hardly thinks of his tenants and his wife as people. Even Guitar shows this ideal of masculinity when he speaks of the universal wrongness in killing a doe as well as when he expresses his possessiveness of the entirety of black women. These men’s dehumanization of the people they take of advantage of, and therefore transformation into objects that help them attain masculinity and the dominance they think are associated show the harmful effects these preconceptions have on the people closest to them as well as foreshadow the journey Milkman must embark on and illuminate the fairness of Pilots’s beliefs in
