30 arpents
“When he looked at the house – one of a dozen scattered over the emerald hill – and discovered that the 30 arpents he’d remembered from his childhood belonged, like the emerald hills, to the Frenchman who lived in Guadeloupe and that except for the kitchen garden and the village garden on the riverbank there was no land to care for, only this laughing, lying crone with a craving for apples, he wasn’t even angry.
-Tar Baby, page 108-109
After returning to Isle des Chevaliers after living in the United States, Gideon returns to the family home under the guise of “handl[ing] family property” for Thérèse, by which he comes to understand “she must have meant herself because when he got there that’s all there was left” (Tar Baby 108). Before …show more content…
In contrast to Jadine, it also appears to refute the legitimization of external validation in favor of self-knowledge, rooted in heritage and community.
“Americano. Cierto Americano. Es verdad.”
When [Son] thought of America, he thought of the tongue that the Mexican drew in Uncle Sam’s mouth: a map of the U.S. as an ill-shaped tongue ringed by teeth and crammed with the corpses of children.
The Swede roared by the Mexican was suddenly quiet, and later handed him the drawing saying, “Americano. Cierto Americano. Es verdad,” and maybe it was so.
-Tar Baby, page 167
Son is told this shortly after killing a fish by applying brute force, “holding the tail down with his knee, bash[ing] with his fist the snapper’s head” (Tar Baby 167). The attribution of “certainly American” (“cierto Americano”) to Son seems to be in large part because of the brutality associated with his killing of the fish, as being similar to that of America’s treatment of the
“When he looked at the house – one of a dozen scattered over the emerald hill – and discovered that the 30 arpents he’d remembered from his childhood belonged, like the emerald hills, to the Frenchman who lived in Guadeloupe and that except for the kitchen garden and the village garden on the riverbank there was no land to care for, only this laughing, lying crone with a craving for apples, he wasn’t even angry.
-Tar Baby, page 108-109
After returning to Isle des Chevaliers after living in the United States, Gideon returns to the family home under the guise of “handl[ing] family property” for Thérèse, by which he comes to understand “she must have meant herself because when he got there that’s all there was left” (Tar Baby 108). Before …show more content…
In contrast to Jadine, it also appears to refute the legitimization of external validation in favor of self-knowledge, rooted in heritage and community.
“Americano. Cierto Americano. Es verdad.”
When [Son] thought of America, he thought of the tongue that the Mexican drew in Uncle Sam’s mouth: a map of the U.S. as an ill-shaped tongue ringed by teeth and crammed with the corpses of children.
The Swede roared by the Mexican was suddenly quiet, and later handed him the drawing saying, “Americano. Cierto Americano. Es verdad,” and maybe it was so.
-Tar Baby, page 167
Son is told this shortly after killing a fish by applying brute force, “holding the tail down with his knee, bash[ing] with his fist the snapper’s head” (Tar Baby 167). The attribution of “certainly American” (“cierto Americano”) to Son seems to be in large part because of the brutality associated with his killing of the fish, as being similar to that of America’s treatment of the