Tar Baby

by

Toni Morrison

Ondine Character Analysis

Ondine is Sydney’s wife and Jadine’s aunt and adoptive mother. She has also been Valerian and Margaret’s cook for the past 30 years. At Christmas dinner, Ondine reveals that Margaret repeatedly and violently abused Michael when he was a child. When Margaret asks Ondine why she didn’t say something sooner, Ondine replies that she was afraid she would lose her job if she did and that she thought she might be able to protect Michael by staying silent. Ondine’s answer builds on the book’s wider examination of power, control, and complicity, showing how people who have been victims of abuse and mistreatment can become complicit in the abuse and mistreatment of others. Toward the end of the book, she confronts Jadine about her failure to care for Ondine and Sydney in their old age, claiming that Jadine has not become a proper woman or wife because never learned how to be a good daughter, an accusation Jadine resents and disregards.

Ondine Quotes in Tar Baby

The Tar Baby quotes below are all either spoken by Ondine or refer to Ondine. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Systemic Racism and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“[Valerian will] be here till he dies,” Sydney told [Ondine]. “Less that greenhouse burns up.”

Related Characters: Sydney (speaker), Valerian, Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Related Symbols: The Greenhouse
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“You the kind of man that does worry me. You had a job, you chucked it. You got in some trouble, you say, so you just ran off. You hide, you live in secret, underground, surface when you caught. I know you, but you don’t know me. I am a Phil-a-delphia Negro mentioned in the book of the very same name. My people owned drugstores and taught school while yours were still cutting their faces open so as to be able to tell one of you from the other. And if you looking to lounge here and live off the fat of the land, and if you think I’m going to wait on you, think twice!”

Related Characters: Sydney (speaker), Son/The Man, Ondine
Page Number: 163
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

Margaret serene and lovely stared ahead at nobody. “I have always loved my son,” she said. “I am not one of those women in the National Enquirer.”

Related Characters: Margaret (speaker), Valerian, Ondine, Michael
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s true, isn’t it? She stuck pins into Michael, and Ondine knew it and didn’t tell anybody all this time. Why didn’t she tell somebody?”

“She’s a good servant, I guess, or maybe she didn’t want to lose her job.”

Related Characters: Jadine (speaker), Son/The Man (speaker), Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Page Number: 210-211
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

He saw it all as a rescue: first tearing her mind away from that blinding awe. Then the physical escape from the plantation. His first, hers to follow two days later. Unless…he remembered sitting at the foot of the table, gobbling the food, watching her pour his wine, listening to her take his part, trying to calm Ondine and Sydney to his satisfaction.

Related Characters: Jadine, Son/The Man, Valerian, Sydney, Ondine
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

There was no way or reason to describe those long quiet days when the sun was drained and nobody ever on the street. There were magazines, of course, to look forward to, but neither Life nor Time could fill a morning. It started on a day like that. Just once she did it, a slip, and then once more, and it became the thing to look forward to, to resist, to succumb to, to plan, to be horrified by, to forget, because out of the doing of it came the reason. And she was outraged by that infant needfulness. There were times when she absolutely had to limit its being there; stop its implicit and explicit demand for her best and constant self. She could not describe her loathing of its prodigious appetite for security—the criminal arrogance of an infant’s conviction that while he slept, someone is there; that when he wakes, someone is there; that when he is hungry, food will somehow magically be provided.

Related Characters: Valerian, Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:

There was something so foul in that, something in the crime of innocence so revolting it paralyzed him. He had not known because he had not taken the trouble to know. He was satisfied with what he did know. Knowing more was inconvenient and frightening. […]

What an awful thing she had done. And how much more awful not to have known it.

Related Characters: Son/The Man, Valerian, Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Related Symbols: The Greenhouse
Page Number: 242
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Tar Baby LitChart as a printable PDF.
Tar Baby PDF

Ondine Quotes in Tar Baby

The Tar Baby quotes below are all either spoken by Ondine or refer to Ondine. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Systemic Racism and Power Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“[Valerian will] be here till he dies,” Sydney told [Ondine]. “Less that greenhouse burns up.”

Related Characters: Sydney (speaker), Valerian, Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Related Symbols: The Greenhouse
Page Number: 14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“You the kind of man that does worry me. You had a job, you chucked it. You got in some trouble, you say, so you just ran off. You hide, you live in secret, underground, surface when you caught. I know you, but you don’t know me. I am a Phil-a-delphia Negro mentioned in the book of the very same name. My people owned drugstores and taught school while yours were still cutting their faces open so as to be able to tell one of you from the other. And if you looking to lounge here and live off the fat of the land, and if you think I’m going to wait on you, think twice!”

Related Characters: Sydney (speaker), Son/The Man, Ondine
Page Number: 163
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

Margaret serene and lovely stared ahead at nobody. “I have always loved my son,” she said. “I am not one of those women in the National Enquirer.”

Related Characters: Margaret (speaker), Valerian, Ondine, Michael
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s true, isn’t it? She stuck pins into Michael, and Ondine knew it and didn’t tell anybody all this time. Why didn’t she tell somebody?”

“She’s a good servant, I guess, or maybe she didn’t want to lose her job.”

Related Characters: Jadine (speaker), Son/The Man (speaker), Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Page Number: 210-211
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

He saw it all as a rescue: first tearing her mind away from that blinding awe. Then the physical escape from the plantation. His first, hers to follow two days later. Unless…he remembered sitting at the foot of the table, gobbling the food, watching her pour his wine, listening to her take his part, trying to calm Ondine and Sydney to his satisfaction.

Related Characters: Jadine, Son/The Man, Valerian, Sydney, Ondine
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

There was no way or reason to describe those long quiet days when the sun was drained and nobody ever on the street. There were magazines, of course, to look forward to, but neither Life nor Time could fill a morning. It started on a day like that. Just once she did it, a slip, and then once more, and it became the thing to look forward to, to resist, to succumb to, to plan, to be horrified by, to forget, because out of the doing of it came the reason. And she was outraged by that infant needfulness. There were times when she absolutely had to limit its being there; stop its implicit and explicit demand for her best and constant self. She could not describe her loathing of its prodigious appetite for security—the criminal arrogance of an infant’s conviction that while he slept, someone is there; that when he wakes, someone is there; that when he is hungry, food will somehow magically be provided.

Related Characters: Valerian, Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:

There was something so foul in that, something in the crime of innocence so revolting it paralyzed him. He had not known because he had not taken the trouble to know. He was satisfied with what he did know. Knowing more was inconvenient and frightening. […]

What an awful thing she had done. And how much more awful not to have known it.

Related Characters: Son/The Man, Valerian, Margaret, Ondine, Michael
Related Symbols: The Greenhouse
Page Number: 242
Explanation and Analysis: