The Benefits of Failing to Meet Expectations
As addressed in the foreword, Morrison 's Tar Baby was inspired by the African survivalist folktale of the same name. Reading the folktale as a love story between the rabbit and the tar baby, she reimagines the story as a struggle between the natural traditions of our heritage and the more promising civilized progressions of culture. The vehicle of this struggle is Jadine. A proud and somewhat arrogant modern women, she is dogged by members of her racial community as an outcast. Her continual decisions avidly to reject and speak out against the expectations of her gender and race are the crimes which warrant her exile, and her mistreatment by her own community causes the struggle which is the …show more content…
Like other ideals espoused as traditional by the novel, the ideal of femininity and maternity in Tar Baby is much closer to that of early cultures than our own. As seen with the swamp women, motherhood is a source of power and pride for them because that is a role that only a woman can fulfill. She is the one who enables the continuation of her culture through reproduction and through the child’s education, passing on their stories and traditions to the next generation (Morrison 183-184). Jadine, having lost her mother at a young age, lacked a maternal figure to teach about her culture and her how to be a woman. For all her mature behavior, Jadine is actually very insecure about her ability to be a mother and a wife and that is the source of many of her fears throughout the novel. At one point she dreams about the women who bare their breasts at her contemptuously and pitifully tries to respond with “I have breasts too” to no effect (Morrison 258). The breasts are representations of their power as women and, in pushing them on Jadine, they are asserting their authority over her and mocking her. Jadine’s fear of the women is a manifestation of her feelings of inadequacies first as a mother, then as a woman. Jadine tries to compensate for this fear by disregarding or belittling other women like the woman in the yellow dress and Rosa …show more content…
Like his dreadlocked hair, to be black is to be ‘wild’ and unaffected by the culture of white men. This is evident in Son’s first descriptions of Eloe, a town solely comprised of black men and woman with no interference from the white community. Similarly, it is a very small and contained hard working community who earn their living through labor intensive work (Morrison 172-173). From Son’s diction in his description, it is evident that such a place is his ideal as a man well in touch with his cultural roots. His diction also indicates high praise for the work that the people of Eloe do, viewing jobs which are labor focused as being the ideal kind of work. This is further cemented when he and Jadine are later arguing about Son being out of a job and he insults Jadine for insinuating that the white collar jobs of New York are more difficult than those blue collar jobs that he is used to (Morrison 265-266, 268). Son clings to this rejection of white culture and traditional values as much as Jadine clings to the comforts that white culture allows her. To her, the expectations of how she should live as a black woman are ignorant and closeminded. At an earlier time, when Son proudly begins to share the story of his first hard-earned dime with her, she throws the sentiment back in his face and belittles him for being satisfied with so little (Morrison 170-171). In
As addressed in the foreword, Morrison 's Tar Baby was inspired by the African survivalist folktale of the same name. Reading the folktale as a love story between the rabbit and the tar baby, she reimagines the story as a struggle between the natural traditions of our heritage and the more promising civilized progressions of culture. The vehicle of this struggle is Jadine. A proud and somewhat arrogant modern women, she is dogged by members of her racial community as an outcast. Her continual decisions avidly to reject and speak out against the expectations of her gender and race are the crimes which warrant her exile, and her mistreatment by her own community causes the struggle which is the …show more content…
Like other ideals espoused as traditional by the novel, the ideal of femininity and maternity in Tar Baby is much closer to that of early cultures than our own. As seen with the swamp women, motherhood is a source of power and pride for them because that is a role that only a woman can fulfill. She is the one who enables the continuation of her culture through reproduction and through the child’s education, passing on their stories and traditions to the next generation (Morrison 183-184). Jadine, having lost her mother at a young age, lacked a maternal figure to teach about her culture and her how to be a woman. For all her mature behavior, Jadine is actually very insecure about her ability to be a mother and a wife and that is the source of many of her fears throughout the novel. At one point she dreams about the women who bare their breasts at her contemptuously and pitifully tries to respond with “I have breasts too” to no effect (Morrison 258). The breasts are representations of their power as women and, in pushing them on Jadine, they are asserting their authority over her and mocking her. Jadine’s fear of the women is a manifestation of her feelings of inadequacies first as a mother, then as a woman. Jadine tries to compensate for this fear by disregarding or belittling other women like the woman in the yellow dress and Rosa …show more content…
Like his dreadlocked hair, to be black is to be ‘wild’ and unaffected by the culture of white men. This is evident in Son’s first descriptions of Eloe, a town solely comprised of black men and woman with no interference from the white community. Similarly, it is a very small and contained hard working community who earn their living through labor intensive work (Morrison 172-173). From Son’s diction in his description, it is evident that such a place is his ideal as a man well in touch with his cultural roots. His diction also indicates high praise for the work that the people of Eloe do, viewing jobs which are labor focused as being the ideal kind of work. This is further cemented when he and Jadine are later arguing about Son being out of a job and he insults Jadine for insinuating that the white collar jobs of New York are more difficult than those blue collar jobs that he is used to (Morrison 265-266, 268). Son clings to this rejection of white culture and traditional values as much as Jadine clings to the comforts that white culture allows her. To her, the expectations of how she should live as a black woman are ignorant and closeminded. At an earlier time, when Son proudly begins to share the story of his first hard-earned dime with her, she throws the sentiment back in his face and belittles him for being satisfied with so little (Morrison 170-171). In