Hagar

1) Fact: Hagar is Milkman's cousin and ex-girlfriend.
2) Hagar is torn between love and hate: although Hagar tries to bring herself to kill Milkman every month, she cannot bear to let go of him because he is the only feeling of home in her life.
3) Biblical allusions are very much present through the names of the characters in the novel. Hagar's character, much like the one in the Bible, was forgotten and abandoned by Milkman when he stopped loving her.
4) "Being five years older than [Milkman] was and his cousin as well did nothing to dim [Hagar's] passion. In fact her maturity and blood kinship converted her passion to fever, so it was more affliction than affection. It literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another day without his presence, her heart beat like a gloved fist against her ribs. And in the morning, long before she was fully awake, she felt a longing so bitter and tight it yanked her out of a sleep swept clean of dreams." (Morrison, 127)
5) Morrison uses Hagar to display the painful side of love and human desire and to show how her sense of complete dependence on Milkman, despite his ignorance of her feelings, drives her to confusion and madness. Her madness is the result of the totality of her love.
6) Something that is both confusing and interesting about Hagar is that the madness that comes from the absence of Milkman in her life leads her to try to kill him although she is completely in love with him. It's paradoxical because her painful love is what makes her try to kill him, but she could only possibly kill him if she hated him, but her feelings are the exact opposite.