Living in the Past

Ever since the first assigned reading, I always remembered this one explicitly said statement,
"It was becoming a habit—this concentration on things behind him. Almost as thought there were no future to be had"(pg 35).

This was the chapter where he urinated on Corinthians. Once the memory ended with that statement, it surprised me of how 1. really relatable it is that Milkman focuses on the past rather than present or future but 2. how honestly shocking that this habit really does follow him everywhere throughout the story and how it all started with this one interaction between him and his sister.

In the next chapter, I remember him thinking about his mother's breastfeeding and walking against the flow of traffic. I kind of saw that as him being so immersed in that part of his past, that he's moving in the wrong direction compared to others because he's so focused on his past. Since no one was walking on the other side of the street, it was like that empty side consists of those who focus on the past and the side he's walking against had those who are in the present and look forward to the future. None of those walking were like Milkman, looking back on their past and being confused, which would've made him be the only one to walk that path of going a different direction.

At the end of Part I, that urinating scene is mentioned again. Lena talked about how the world revolves only around Milkman and how everyone surrounding Milkman had to give up something in compensation for his gains or benefits.
Part I ended with something he couldn't escape from, leading into the next part where Milkman starts to search for his past instead. Instead of being with people who make him look onto the past, he searches for it.

I find it so interesting that the author pulled that statement and demonstrated it by showing how the habit of looking onto his past was not all on him. From the quote alone, I would've thought that Milkman was just being a self-conscious teenager without much of a dream. But, after seeing all these moments where he's held back by these negative events in his past it's him that's not able to escape from the details of the past people keep bombarding him with.