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Hagar is Reba’s daughter and Pilate’s granddaughter, and she is a few years older than Milkman. Milkman is initially drawn to Hagar, as she and her family exude a tender, welcoming, and connected energy that is a happy contrast to the cold, abusive atmosphere of Macon Jr.’s household. Hagar, who is then a young woman while Milkman is still a boy, isn’t interested in Milkman at first, but the two eventually begin a romantic relationship. However, as Milkman ages, he begins to buy into his father’s warped worldview, becoming increasingly obsessed with status and wealth. The power dynamic of his relationship with Hagar shifts, and Milkman gains the upper hand. The two continue an on-and-off relationship that spans well into Hagar’s thirties. When Milkman breaks up with her officially via a letter, Hagar suffers a psychological break. Here, Hagar’s name becomes important to her character arc—she is named for the biblical Hagar, the handmaiden who bore children for Abraham in place of his wife Sarah, who was infertile. In Milkman’s eyes, Hagar is little more than a sexual object, which he can use and cast aside. She will never, in his perception, fulfill the role of a wife.
Milkman has allowed Hagar to waste her youth in an uncommitted relationship, never actually intending to marry her. He callously uses and then abandons her, showing her no empathy. Milkman’s sense of his own high status in comparison to Hagar has roots in both his class and his gender. In his eyes, his money and his maleness both make him superior to Hagar and entitle him to use and treat her in whatever way suits him. Hagar’s downward spiral and eventual death symbolize the damage that Black women suffer at the hands of Black men. Milkman drains Hagar of her love, kindness, and sensuality, using her to build up his own self-confidence and reputation, and leaving her with nothing. The women in Song of Solomon suffer great pain and mistreatment due to misogynoir, and that pain and mistreatment is often doled out by Black men whose own journey to liberation and success comes at the expense of their female partners and family members. While many of the novel’s women are abandoned and abused, some of them—namely Hagar and Pilate—even die due to the cruelty, violence, and selfishness of the men in their lives.
