To the tune of his Guitar

                Guitar is an innately disturbing character. It is shown that he was built with extremism in mind by the parallels between his character and Malcom X who was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks by whatever means it took. Both were born in the year 1925, Macon refers to Guitar as "that red-head(ed)” and Malcolm X's nickname was Detroit Red, and both lived in Michigan for a good portion of their lives. Guitar’s deep involvement in racial politics parallels Malcom X’s beliefs and both lead similar lives down to the circumstance of their father’s deaths and political activist groups they chose to participate in.

The Seven Days could be seen as a version of the Nation of Islam that Malcom X was strongly involved with. The difference between these two groups is where a distinct split grows between Guitar and Malcom. The Seven Days society is forced to comply with a strict morale code that contains no reason other than simple math. Malcolm X ultimately became more lenient about his views on race, but Guitar is unable to move past his overly logical views and feels trapped into adhering to his group’s strict moral code. This disturbing meticulousness and mathematical perfectionism shows its true colors in his attempts to kill our hero, Milkman, leaving us with the terrifying character we know as Guitar. 

Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 20, 2017 at 10:49 AM

    This is really interesting, and I had never critically thought of that parallel. It is interesting to think about the way that we perceive Malcolm X compared to way that we respond to the characterization of Guitar. I think that this is provoking and interesting especially considering our (and Milkman's) harsh analysis of Guitar and his actions.

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  2. ajDecember 21, 2017 at 8:13 AM

    I think this is a really good blog post. Its also interesting to see other people's perspectives regarding radical groups like this. We see one of the main characters be involved with a terrorist group (Seven Days), and its generally perceived as justice against the white people. To us, it seems like unmerited killing. Weird that people justify murder if it leads to a greater cause.

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  3. MitchellDecember 21, 2017 at 8:28 AM

    To clarify, in the passage you refer to, Milkman is explicitly comparing Guitar to Malcolm X: he says that Guitar "sound[s] like that red-headed Negro named X" and then asks sarcastically if he'll be changing his name to Guitar X. This definitely associates the Seven Days with the Nation of Islam (Malcolm X's organization at the time), at least in Milkman's mind. But there are very significant differences between the "self-defense" posture of the NoI and this kind of random vigilante killing of innocents: Malcolm's rhetoric at times did demonize "white people" as a group or a historical force (with a good deal of documentable justification), but neither he nor Elijah Muhammad ever advocated anything like what Guitar is involved in.

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  4. NishantDecember 21, 2017 at 5:31 PM

    I like your parallels between Guitar’s life and that of Malcom X. On the positive side, in the process of growing up, Guitar developed conviction in his beliefs and picked an identity for himself. However, his membership in Seven Days secret society and his willingness to kill his childhood friend to obtain money to fund a murder shows the extent of his extreme nature. I guess that while Guitar’s life has many parallels to Malcom X’s life, his outlook differs in that he is unable to shake his race-related convictions.

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