806 Morrison, Toni
Because of race-specific gender expectations
formed by a racist society, Sula Peace’s insistence
that she should retain her independence and indi-
viduality, and her refusal to cater to the needs of oth-
ers, make her an outcast in the Bottom. The black
community’s suspicion and hatred of her are further
fueled by the rumor that she has slept with white
men. In light of the history of mass rape of black
slave women by white men, it is an unforgivable sin
for a black woman to have voluntary sexual relations
with a white man. It is for the same reason that
Helene Wright tries to suppress what she regards
as the wild blood of her Creole mother, who as a
prostitute had sex with white men, as Helene’s own
skin color proves.
Yet the color of their skin, a source of much
suffering and sorrow, seems to be also what gives
the characters their sense of self and of belong-
ing. For one, Shadrack re-recognizes himself for
the first time after the war when he sees his black
face reflected in water; he then goes on to establish
the annual ritual of National Suicide Day, which
becomes an accepted part of the life of the Bottom
and possibly is a celebration of slaves’ defiance of the
fear that permeated their lives. Sula sees Ajax’s black
skin and imagines alabaster bones and black loam
underneath. Even Hannah Peace and Plum’s death
by fire may commemorate the death by burning
experienced by many lynching victims. The three
Deweys adopted by Eva continue to play chain-gang
as adults. Thus, in 1965, Nel reflects that despite the
much touted social progress made on behalf of black
people, something important has been lost when the
black community of the Bottom disintegrated.
Tomoko Kuribayashi
morriSon, Toni Tar Baby (1982)
Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby updates the classic Uncle
Remus story about a doll made of tar used to trap
Br’er Rabbit. Full of references to tar—in particular,
the tar-like swamp into which Morrison’s pro-
tagonist, Jadine ( Jade), falls halfway through the
novel—Morrison’s text calls into question who is
tricking whom and what is at stake when the trap
is sprung. Most traditional readings of Morrison’s
novel interpret Jadine as trying desperately to escape
“the swamp” that is otherwise composed of aspects
of her own origins. By “escaping” to Europe and
modeling Eurocentric styles, Jadine feels as though
she is above the swamp women who seem to call
to her. However, in the end, it seems as though she
has not been trapped, or even tricked, by the tar-like
swamp at all, but by European standards of beauty
that cause her to forget her roots and her identity as
a woman of African-American descent.
Aimee Pozorskilove in Tar Baby
Without exception, Toni Morrison’s novels dra-
matize the effects of a love that is “too thick”—a
mother’s love or a lover’s love that is so committed
and intense that it threatens the lives of both lover
and beloved. Tar Baby showcases this love through
a mother and her child: the one, a former beauty
queen and lonely wife of a candy-store owner; the
other, a grown son who appears to resent his mother,
although no one knows why, exactly, except for
Ondine, the servant behind the scenes and running
the lives of this family.
Although the novel more explicitly focuses on
such themes as race, identity, and success, Tar Baby
opens and closes with a discussion of whether
Michael, the beloved son, will attend Christmas din-
ner with the Streets and their staff. As anticipation
builds for the arrival of Michael, so too does it grow
for the arrival of a camp footlocker, a locker that
becomes a symbol for Michael: closed tight, not just
to carry clothes, but also to carry secrets that he has
kept locked inside since childhood.
In addition to the footlocker, several other
details offered in the beginning of the novel sug-
gest that something has gone awry between this
mother, Margaret, and her son. Margaret’s eyes,
for example, are described as “blue-if-it’s-a-boy
blue”—not simply to emphasize Margaret’s marks
of beauty as valued by an Anglophilic world, but also
to emphasize her role and ambivalence as a young
mother: Her child was wrapped tight in a blue blan-
ket upon birth, and the pressure seemed to mount
from there.” Morrison’s novel seems to turn on this
tension—both through flashbacks of a tormented
past and through present-day conversations between
the wealthy white Margaret, lady of the house, and