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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tar Baby, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Systemic Racism and Power
Expectations of Womanhood
Colonialism and Enslavement
Toxic Masculinity
Innocence and Guilt
Summary
Analysis
Fog sweeps into the island as Margaret, Valerian, and Jadine sit down for dinner. Sydney clears the table after the first course, but Margaret hasn’t touched the food. Valerian then criticizes her for not eating at the pace of the meal. Jadine replies that the meal goes at his pace, not hers. Margaret is still sometimes self-conscious about eating near Valerian, afraid she’ll make a mistake of etiquette. She is eating salad when Valerian shouts, What’s wrong with you? Margaret looks down and sees the salad spoon and fork still on the table, which she has forgotten to use. The table goes silent for a moment before Jadine asks about Christmas. Margaret says Michael is coming. She says that to entice him to come, she invited Michael’s former teacher, the poet B. J. Bridges.
Valerian continues his pattern of belittling and controlling Margaret. Notably, that belittlement is again based on Valerian’s assumption of class superiority. He wields class as a form of power that he uses to shame and then subjugate Margaret. Valerian’s controlling behavior, coupled with his unprovoked and unpredictable anger, reveals the toxic masculinity that defines his relationship with Margaret. In response, Margaret attempts to change the conversation, revealing a propensity to avoid direct confrontation with Valerian.
Themes
Valerian says that Michael still won’t come, and he says that Margaret is foolish to think he will. The two bicker about whether a line of poetry was written by Bridges or not. Margaret says that making the trip to the island is a hassle, and she asks Valerian why he makes the family come to him for Christmas. Jadine doesn’t know what to do, so she looks at her plate. She thinks that Valerian and Margaret’s issues are typical of a marriage with their age difference—he’s in his 70s and she’s in her 50s, and they’re at different phases in their lives. But their fights seem to have been growing increasingly hostile.
While Jadine thinks that Valerian and Margaret’s issues are typical of marriages with significant age gaps, the passage seems to suggest that there’s more going on between the couple. Valerian almost constantly belittles Margaret, and Margaret responds by acting cruelly toward people like Ondine, who as Valerian’s employee has less power than Margaret. This dynamic points to how victims of mistreatment can perpetrate the very systems which oppress them, rather than fighting to dismantle those systems.
Themes
Valerian says he married an idiot, and Margaret says she married a fool. She then spills wine before leaving the room. Jadine tells Valerian that he shouldn’t talk to Margaret like that, and Valerian says they’re really fighting about Michael’s visit. Margaret’s afraid he won’t come, and Valerian is afraid he will. He says that Michael has refused to grow up—he’s a perpetual adolescent, and Margaret foolishly taught him that poetry and property are irreconcilable. Michael also constantly moves from advocacy for one social cause to another. Valerian says that Margaret was hot and cold while Michael was growing up—sometimes she would be a doting mother, and other times she would neglect her son. More than once, Valerian returned from work to find Michael hiding in the cabinet under the bathroom sink.
Valerian’s change in behavior after Margaret leaves is striking. Moments after stoking a fight so intense that it caused Margaret to leave the table, he calmly explains the root of the conflict to Jadine. That change in behavior suggests that the root cause of Valerian’s cruelty toward Margaret comes from a belief that Margaret should be subservient to him. His remarks about Margaret’s shortcomings as a mother build intrigue, leading readers to wonder whether live in Valerian’s paradise has really been as innocent as Valerian would like to believe it’s been. Finally, Valerian’s dismissive characterization of Michael’s advocacy work hints at his own sense of entitlement. He seems to consider it foolish or unworthwhile to fight against injustice.
Themes
Now, Valerian says, Margaret is ready to be the mother she should have been to Michael when he was younger. That’s why she wants to move closer to him. But Valerian thinks as soon as Michael comes to trust Margaret again, she’ll abandon him. Valerian hasn’t seen Michael in three years. Jadine struggles not to yawn while listening to Valerian. Then Margaret comes into the dining room and screams. She yells that there’s something in her closet, hidden in her clothes. When they ask what it is, Margaret says only, “Black.” Jadine asks if she means that her closet is dark, and Margaret shakes her head. Sydney grabs a gun and runs up to Margaret’s room to see what it is. He returns to the gun with a pistol pointed at a Black man with dreadlocks.
While Valerian is keenly aware of Margaret’s issues as a parent, he also reveals that he hasn’t seen his son in three years, raising questions about his relationship with Michael and about his own possible shortcomings as a parent, And, tellingly, Valerian is much more willing to analyze Margaret’s issues than to examine his own. Margaret’s reaction to the man she finds in her closet points to her deep-seated racism. When she tries to tell the others about the man she found, she articulates her fear by describing the man’s “Black,” skin.
Themes
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