According to Joseph Campbell, the hero's journey consists of the following steps:

1. The Ordinary World
2. The Call to Adventure
3. Refusal of the Quest
4. Accepting the Call
5. Entering the Unknown
6. Tests and the Supreme Ordeal
7. Reward and Journey Home
8. Restoring the World

In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Milkman must take up a quest that eventually leads him to self-knowledge and a wider understanding and appreciation for his heritage and his family.

Early in the novel, Milkman (Macon Jr.) Dead has a somewhat strained relationship with his family. His name is a nickname for his attachment to his mother (he nursed until he was much older than the age most children stop nursing), and his father expects him to carry on his business even though Milkman is not particularly inspired by that line of work. In the first chapters of the novel, we see Milkman as a character who is not quite at home with himself. He has a hard time making sense of his connections to his immediate family, and he dislikes being forbidden to mingle with his father's sister, Pilate, and her family. He eventually rebels and starts a relationship with his cousin Hagar and begins spending more time at Pilate's house. Milkman is a character in what Campbell calls "The Ordinary World," but he must go on an extraordinary journey over the course of the novel.

Milkman embarks upon a quest to find gold, but what he ends up finding is much more valuable. It allows him to reconcile the tension within himself and between himself and his family. In Virginia, Milkman meets people who know his ancestry. He learns about his forefathers and foremothers, and he even learns the "Song of Solomon." He also taps into his great-grandfather's supernatural power: the power of flight. In the first chapter of the novel, we learn that a man trying to fly from the hospital building falls to his death on the same day Milkman is born. This revelation about Milkman's inner strength and ability brings the novel full circle. Learning about his heritage allows him to "Restore the World" and reconcile the parts of himself that were unstable or unknowable earlier in the book. As such, Milkman does go through a typical hero's journey in Song of Solomon.