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Chapter 10
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
Meanwhile, Son arrives in Dominique to try and find Jadine. First, he looks for Gideon and Thérèse. He recalls looking at the photographs that Jadine took in Eloe, In the photos, the town and the people all look miserable and shoddy. In the market in Dominique, he finds Thérèse, who brings him to see Gideon. Son tells them that he’s trying to find out if Jadine is at L’Arbe de la Croix and if she’s not, where else she might be. Gideon says that Alma Estée, who works at the airport, saw Jadine leave on a plane about a week ago. Son doesn’t know what to do or think. Alma Estée tells him that when she saw Jadine in the airport, she was with a white man with blonde hair and blue eyes, and they kissed outside the women’s bathroom.
Son remains single-mindedly focused on Jadine. That fixation led Son to break into the Streets’ house in the first place and now leads him on an obsessive quest to get Jadine back at any cost, pointedly ignoring Jadine’s own wishes and agency. When Alma Estée tells Son about seeing Jadine in the airport, she invents a paramour for Jadine, seemingly trying to upset Son to get back at him for treating her as inferior to Jadine.
Themes
Son tells Gideon that he’s going to go to Paris to find Jadine. He says he’ll get her address from someone at L’Arbe de la Croix. Gideon says that they won’t give it to him, and he should just let Jadine go. Thérèse says that she hopes Son goes to L’Arbe de la Croix and kills the people there. Son asks Gideon to take him there, and Gideon says he won’t do it just so Son can destroy the place. Thérèse says she’ll take him. Gideon says it’s too dark for Thérèse to navigate the crossing, but Thérèse and Son set out with a flashlight. The trip takes longer than it seems like it should, but eventually Thérèse says they’ve arrived at the back side of Isle de Chevaliers.
Son’s fixation on Jadine drives him to the point where he is ready to wreak havoc on L’Arbe de la Croix. Previously, Sydney also threatened to kill Son if he returns to the house. Both ideas point to the inherent destructiveness of toxic masculinity, as Son’s misogyny led him to abuse and rape Jadine and kill his first wife. Now, that toxic masculinity seems like it might bring Son to destroy L’Arbe de la Croix or to his own death.
Themes
Son has to climb the rocks in the dark to reach the shore and then he’ll have to make it at least ten miles across the island to find the house. Thérèse says that now Son can make a choice; does he really want to do what he plans to do? She then tells him not to go to L’Arbe de la Croix. Instead, he should forget Jadine, who has lost her connection to her “ancient properties.” She tells Son that he should join the mythical horsemen of the Isle des Chevaliers. Son hauls himself onto the rocks. Thérèse tells him that the men on horseback are waiting for him in the hills. He can choose to go to them to get free of Jadine. Son climbs the rocks onto shore and begins to run through the forest.
Thérèse’s idea that Jadine has lost a connection to her “ancient properties” points to the idea that Jadine’s choice to seek power and control via her proximity to Valerian (and the legacy of colonialism he represents and has contributed to) has led her astray. In this way, she becomes complicit in that legacy herself. Thérèse then encourages Son to seek out his ancient properties and join the ranks of the island’s mythical horsemen, suggesting there is a way to find freedom from the immoral, destructive, and self-serving power structures of colonialism by embracing a connection with understandings of the world that are expansive and rooted in myth and deep history.
Themes
