Family, whether realized or not, is permanent. Generations come and different traits are passed on, yet as different members of families marry into others, their own respective family unit remains. They can never break that thread of relationship. They are completely and irrevocably tied by blood to their family tree. This family tree is, however, a tree, and this allows for different and metaphorical branching, in addition to the physical branching of the tree in childbirth. While the line is passed on to the next generation, that person may decide how much of their family's heritage they will bear on their shoulders, and whether they will conform to their family's ideals and way of living. This is precisely the choice proposed to Milkman in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Likewise, the entire line of Buendias in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude is shown as a whole conglomeration of family traits, including both strengths and weaknesses. .
Milkman's filial struggle to be accepted by his father begins before he even enters into this world, as Macon Dead forces his wife to attempt an abortion of their child, Milkman. His struggles continue into adolescence, when he finds his father intimidating and unworthy of his respect. He obeys his father when need calls for it, but by the time he is fourteen, the only similarity he finds that he shares with his father is "his love of good shoes and fine thin socks. And he did try, as his father's employee, to do the work the way Macon wanted it done" (Morrison 63). Milkman resigns himself to his work as his father's son, and their similarities abruptly end there.
Although their similarities disappear, Milkman never confronts his dissimilarity to his father with wholehearted devotion until his body and emotions do it for him. Their familial discrepancy comes to light as decks his father for his father's mistreatment of his mother (67).
