Previous
Chapter 7
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
Back on Christmas night, after everyone has left the room, Valerian talks to Margaret about her abuse of Michael. She says that she knew hurting him was wrong but that it felt “delicious” to do it. Valerian tells her that he can’t listen to any more of what she’s saying. At that moment, he feels like he only has two options: die or go to Michael. Sydney comes into the kitchen hours later to find Valerian still sitting there. He asks Valerian if he is going to fire him and Ondine, and Valerian says he doesn’t know.
Margaret’s use of the word “delicious” to describe her abuse of Michael is unsettling. Importantly, it also contributes to the novel’s biblical imagery. In the biblical narrative of the Fall, Adam and Eve are driven to eat from the tree of knowledge by temptation, or by a desire to taste something “delicious.” That idea of deliciousness also points to how Valerian gained his fortune. Namely, he made candy that would be as “delicious” as possible, and he abused or oppressed countless people in pursuit of that deliciousness. Increasingly, the narration makes clear that the so-called paradise Valerian has constructed on the island is only a paradise for those who cannot (or refuse to) see the ugliness and oppression that lies beneath the veneer of “delicious[ness].”
Themes
Margaret wakes up early the next morning. She’s relieved to have been caught and publicly humiliated. Gradually, she tells Valerian more about her abuse of Michael. She says that it didn’t happen as often as Valerian might think and that she loved Michael more than she could say. She tells him it was out of her control. Privately, she thinks that she did it because she couldn’t bear Michael’s infant neediness. She found his implicit trust that someone would meet his every need oppressive, so she pierced that trust with violence. One day, she goes to Valerian’s bedroom and locks the door behind her. She says she’s just spoken with Michael. Valerian is furious. Margaret says that Michael is fine; he wasn’t damaged by what she did. Valerian says that she is “monstrous.”
Margaret’s private thoughts about her abuse of Michael point to the high expectations society places on women, and on mothers, in particular: Margaret struggles to sacrifice her own personhood to serve others. Elsewhere, Margaret also establishes that she wanted to have a child in part to try and make Valerian happy, pointing to how Valerian’s expectation of Margaret’s subservience contributed, if indirectly, to her abuse of Michael.
Themes
Another day, Margaret asks Valerian to hit her. She thinks it will ease the grief they both feel. Valerian refuses. On the first day of the new year, Margaret goes into the kitchen. She tells Ondine that she knew Ondine knew about her abuse of Michael. She asks why Ondine never told anyone. Ondine says that she was worried she and Sydney would lose their jobs if she said anything. She says she also sometimes worried that if she were gone, there would be no one left to watch over Michael. Margaret says that she and Ondine should be friends in old age. She says there’s no one else around, so who will they be friends with? Ondine is taken aback, but she also slightly smiles.
Ondine’s explanation for why she didn’t tell anyone about Margaret’s abuse of Michael points to how systems of oppression maintain power by turning oppressed peoples against one another, with victims of injustice too afraid to speak up for fear of losing what relative power they have gained. Ondine’s idea that her silence might somehow help Michael shows how she tries to rationalize her complicity, as Margaret’s abuse of Michael continued while Ondine remained silent without any apparent protective interventions from Ondine. Ondine’s continued employment in the household may have provided Michael the relative relief of Ondine’s comforting presence, but ultimately it allowed Margaret’s abuse of Michael to persist.
Themes
In the greenhouse, Valerian wonders how he could have not known about what Margaret did to Michael. He thinks that, before he knew of the abuse, he was innocent but that his innocence was “revolting. He “had not known because he had not taken the trouble to know,” which makes him feel guilty and ashamed.
In the greenhouse, a symbol of the Garden of Eden, Valerian contemplates the nature of innocence and its relationship to ignorance. Ultimately, his comments point to a subversion of the biblical narrative of the Fall, which values innocence. In the novel, innocence—not knowledge—is sinful and shameful.
Themes
Get the entire Tar Baby LitChart as a printable PDF.
