In weaving Song of Solomon, Tony Morrison admits that a challenge was shifting from a female to male locus. This shift highlights an important reality for the Ruth, Pilate, Reba, and Hagar -- that they are at once victims and agents in a patriarchal society.

The passage given on page 151 shows this juxtaposition of roles. Pilate, because of poverty, is forced to attach herself to a man, Macon. She falls victim to patriarchy, embodied by Macon's "unforgiving" and "truculent" nature. Pilate is forced to find refuge in the hardness and abrasiveness that is a male-dominated society. However, at the same time, she exhibits agency by agreeing to stay with Macon. She remains because Ruth, a fellow woman, is "dying of lovelessness." Pilate listens to her sister-in-law's life story. Listening shows agency. Here lies the irony -- while supposedly falling victim to systemic, family-embedded oppression, she rebels by simply being there.

The women of Song of Solomon live in sheer desperation, not necessarily material, but undoubtedly emotional. Ruth is desperate for mere interest in her life, and she gets that "cared-for feeling" from her father (and his grave). Her middle-of-the-night journey to his gravesite (how much more morbid can you get?) shows the desperation patriarchy causes. In order to feel human, to feel like she can go on living, Ruth must attach herself to a man, her father. But in doing so, she strikes against what's expected by journeying to visit him. She is both victim and agent. Irony once again -- out of loss of humanity and emptiness, agency and action.

Hagar is similarly desperate, and she resorts to violence to fill her inner void. When Milkman doesn't return her love, she freaks out. Confronted with a cultural system that only wants to silence and dehumanize her, she acts out of the most human of emotions: love, and what's more, love turned to violence.