Tar Baby

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1981

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Frontmatter-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapter 9-Backmatter

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 6 Summary

Content Warning: These chapters contain scenes of child abuse and instances of racism and the use of slurs.

It is Christmas Eve, and spirits are high in the house. Valerian even apologizes to Margaret. She claims all responsibility for making Christmas dinner, and he asks her to make ollieballen, a traditional bread in his family, in addition to everything else. Their affection for each other returns, and they even had sex the previous night. Ondine struggles with being told not to do anything for Christmas dinner and is worried that Jadine is falling for Son, someone she sees as possessing an inferior status. She believes Valerian is keeping Son at the house to convince Jadine to stay and thereby keep Margaret from leaving.

Christmas arrives and no one, including Michael, comes for the festivities. With no guests and Michael’s absence, Margaret gives up on cooking, and Ondine finishes the meal. In the spirit of the holiday, Valerian suggests that they all eat together. Before dinner, Son speaks with Margaret, telling her that he knows she thought he wanted to attack her. She is caught off guard but wonders at Son’s height, believing that his being taller than Valerian scared her. She tells him how great Michael is and tells him that Jadine will be leaving soon.

At dinner, Margaret is upset about Michael’s absence, and Ondine is critical of her cooking. Tensions continue to rise when Son corrects Valerian over Gideon’s and Thérèse’s real names, and Valerian tells everyone that he fired them for stealing apples. Ondine is upset that she wasn’t told, and Son is appalled by Valerian’s actions and his assertion that he actually fired them because of the attitude they gave him. Son sees Valerian as a hypocrite, who takes and takes from the people around him and benefits from others’ work but will fire his staff for taking a few apples for their own holiday meal. Son’s ire grows as he witnesses Jadine defend Valerian.

Son challenges Valerian, questioning his decision and saying it was wrong of him to do and that Gideon and Thérèse were the ones to do the work to bring the apples to the island. He says Valerian did it so that Margaret could play cook. When Valerian demands he leave, Son refuses. Jadine’s continued efforts at peace fail, and Valerian is appalled that he is being questioned by his staff and by Son. Ondine demands more respect from Valerian, and Margaret and Sydney support her. Ondine is upset at Margaret’s invasion of her kitchen and the anger she often directs at Ondine. Valerian also demands that Ondine leave, and when she refuses, he fires her.

Margaret throws her glass at Ondine, and Ondine runs around the table and slaps her. They fight, and when they are separated by Son and Jadine, Ondine reveals that Margaret physically abused Michael when he was a child, sticking pins and smoldering cigarettes into his skin. Sydney leads Ondine out of the room, and Margaret, shocked, whispers that she loves Michael. Son and Jadine leave as well and go upstairs. Jadine asks Son to sleep beside her and nothing more. He repeatedly promises he will do nothing, and she repeatedly brings up that she does not want to have sex. When they climb into bed, she brings up his erection, and he promises again to do nothing. She cannot fall asleep, and Son tells her to close her eyes and imagine being a star and kisses her shoulder.

Chapter 7 Summary

Son is in New York City and is confused by the people around him, so different from those he knows in Eloe. He sees Black girls crying everywhere and Black men walking on tiptoes. He took Jadine’s ticket and Gideon’s passport, leaving two days before Jadine, who will soon join him. He checks into the Hilton and is nervous that he won’t be able to find her in the city and wonders if he even found the right Hilton. He fears his love for her and is dismayed by her commitment to Valerian.

Jadine is excited to be back in the city and she sees it as her true home. Their relationship is a whirlwind of passion, and being away from L’Arbe de le Croix only strengthens it. They let each other into their lives; Jadine tells Son about her mother, and he tells her of his time in the war. Jadine and Son sublet one of her friend’s apartments and Jadine begins introducing him to all her friends, all of whom lust after Son.

Despite some monetary success with modeling and odd jobs and a strong love, Son wants to leave the city and return to Eloe. Jadine left Sydney and Ondine under false pretenses, lying about meeting Son, and though her uncle and aunt are still employed, she promises to send for them whenever they want so that the three of them can start new lives together. Son and Jadine are deeply in love, rarely caring about money and rarely leaving the apartment. Jadine comes to feel unorphaned with Son, and as their love grows, they continue to withdraw from the world. Despite this, Son continues to insist on visiting Eloe, and Jadine finally agrees.

Chapter 8 Summary

On Christmas Day, after everyone leaves the table, Margaret explains to Valerian that she thought the pain she inflicted on Michael was “delicious” and didn’t think it actually hurt him. Valerian is in shock hearing this, and even after Margaret leaves, he stays at the table, all through the night. At one point, Sydney comes to ask if they are fired, and all Valerian can say is that he doesn’t know. When he leaves the table the next morning, Valerian feels as though he must cry for his son but doesn’t think that he has enough lifetimes to cry as much as he needs.

When Margaret wakes that morning, she finds the house quiet, with each couple isolated together or apart. Throughout the day, she begins telling Valerian what happened. She speaks of how their infant son’s trust drove her to the abuse, and how the pressure of his dependence on her impacted her feelings towards him. Her abuse of him filled her days, and she even began to look forward to it. When Valerian finally stops dodging Margaret and comes to speak with her, she tells him that she phoned Michael and that he sent cables to alert them to his absence but that the messages never went through. Valerian is appalled that she can even speak to Michael, and though she assures Valerian that she stopped the abuse once Michael could fight back or tell, he demands that she leave the room.

Later, Margaret asks if Valerian is angry that Michael never told him what was happening, and Valerian can only ask why Michael loves her so much. She tells him that it is because she loves him. Margaret goes to apologize to Ondine as well and asks why Ondine never told on her for her treatment of Michael. Ondine responds that she did not want to risk losing her job and hoped that she could help Michael in her own way. Ondine tells Margaret that she should have stopped herself from hurting Michael, and that it should not have been her responsibility to do so. Margaret wants them to be friends again in their old age, although she believes Ondine is much older when she is only three years Margaret’s elder. Ondine tells her it is almost too late.

Valerian returns to his greenhouse but doesn’t tend to it, letting the island exert control again. He realizes that he is willfully innocent, never knowing what happened to his son because he never paid close enough attention to see the signs. He finds himself guilty of innocence, and guilty of not caring closely enough for his son when he was a vulnerable child.

Chapters 6-8 Analysis

As Son weaves various stories of who he is, the household of L’Arbe de la Croix is thrown into disarray, with each member under new stress caused by interactions with Son and exacerbated by the holiday season. Michael’s expected arrival adds tension to the house, as Margaret holds high expectations for him to come, with everyone else bracing for the fallout of his likely failure to appear. Margaret’s near obsession with her son is known to all, and each household member, informed by their unique relationships with Margaret, has their own opinion of why. Ondine, who knows more of Michael and Margaret’s relationship than anyone else, sees Familial Expectations Between Generations as Margaret’s motivation: “She’s got a lot of cleaning up to do with Michael. It’s sitting on her heart and she’s never going to have no peace until she cleans it up. She’ll trail him to the end of the world and God himself knows that is exactly where she out to be” (192). Margaret loves her son, but her complicated past with him leaves her with unresolved feelings. These feelings are made worse by her dislike of the island and wish to escape it. She sees a new life with her son in the US, and Ondine sees Margaret’s desire to be with Michael as a means by which Margaret can resolve her own anxiety and guilt.

The tension that builds throughout the novel at L’Arbe de la Croix finally breaks at Christmas dinner with an argument that pits each member of the house against another. Michael does not come, devastating Margaret, but the real fight begins over Valerian’s firing of Thérèse and Gideon. Sydney and Ondine are shocked and express their disappointment at not being informed sooner, while Son takes issue with Valerian’s hypocrisy. In the midst of this argument, Jadine sides with Valerian, confusing Son:

Jadine who should know better, who had been to schools and seen some of the world and who ought to know better than any of them because she had been made by them, coached by them and should know by heart the smell of their huge civilized latrines (204).

Son’s bewilderment stems from The Intersection of Social Class and Race. Son believes that because Jadine is funded, educated, and included by the Streets, she should know better than anyone this hypocrisy firsthand. He fails to see how her time with them, interacting with and supported by the upper class, instills the same values and beliefs in her. She agrees with Valerian because she sees the world and the matter at hand in the same way and because she feels pressure to fit in with her patrons. She strives to join the ranks of the upper class through her education and fashion modeling career, and her vision of success involves a life more like Valerian’s than like that of her aunt and uncle. Son believes that because she is a Black woman who spends time with rich white people, she should be more inclined to sympathize with Gideon and Thérèse.

Despite his confusion and dismay with her, Son and Jadine spark a relationship, falling in intense love and fleeing L’Arbe de la Croix for New York City. Their love grows and blooms before Obligation and Betrayal in Romantic Relationships drives a wedge between them. In the early stage of their relationship, their notion of obligation towards each other is one in which they unconditionally support each other. Their expectation is that the other will make them feel safe and loved. Jadine feels this for the first time in New York City, and it represents a turning point in her life:

Gradually she came to feel unorphaned. He cherished and safeguarded her. When she woke in the night from an uneasy dream she had only to turn and there was the stability of his shoulder and his limitless, eternal chest. No part of her was hidden from him (229).

Jadine feels whole with Son, safe in the knowledge that it is his duty to be there for her. Their dependence on each other grows, and their feelings of obligation towards each other deepen. Jadine feels unorphaned because she does not feel as if she must hide anything from Son and is confident in his ability to make her feel safe and seen. As their lives together progress, the expectations each has of the other begin to conflict with this obligation, leading them to betrayals that will permanently shatter their relationship.