payment page
Reba is Pilate’s daughter and only child. She is also Hagar’s mother. She, Pilate, and Hagar share a home together, making money by selling cheap wines. Their all-female home creates a stark contrast against the otherwise male-dominated world of Song of Solomon. However, despite the deep love and connection within their household, the women suffer great amounts of pain, and Reba is no exception. Lacking the intelligence and depth of her mother and daughter, Reba often finds herself in fleeting relationships with strings of abusive, neglectful, and selfish men. However, despite Reba’s attraction to these terrible men, it’s clear that her loyalty lies with the women in her family. Her mother and her daughter are her true life partners, which makes their deaths all the more tragic. By the end of the novel, Reba’s family unit has been destroyed, and she is the sole survivor of a once vibrant household.
Reba’s luckiness—perhaps her most defining characteristic—adds to the magical quality that surrounds the Dead women, and often saves them from tough financial situations. She wears the symbol of her luckiness—the ring she won at Sears—around her neck. It is one of the few pieces of wealth that she will never give away to the transient men in her life. That she only sells the ring when Hagar begs for new clothes to impress Milkman shows Reba’s devotion to her daughter but also exemplifies that negative male influences have still indirectly invaded their family dynamic. The loss of the ring marks the start of the Dead women’s destruction at the hands of Milkman and other Black men.
