Reading Tar Baby with an ecofeminist lens
- Paige
- Sep 17, 2018
- 2 min read
The accounts of nature and the men who enter into these wild spaces for some kind of spiritual exigence are deeply embedded in the American canon, but these accounts often ignore the ways in which the wild and wilderness manifest differently depending on factors such as race, class, and gender. In an effort to address the inattention traditional American nature writers give to social and political matters that cannot be so simply abandoned even in the most wild spaces, Evelyn White’s 1954 essay, “Black Women and the Wilderness” details her long standing fears of the wild emphasizing the conflicting definitions of wilderness as pristine and exciting and wilderness as dangerous and lawless.
White connects her fear of the wilderness to the violent death of Emmett Till and the Birmingham church bombing both of which happened when she was a child. These instances of trauma remain with White as an adult and she is unable to retreat into the wilderness for the kind of spiritual healing talked about by Emerson and Thoreau among others. Instead her moments in nature are tainted with the idea that she could “be taunted, attacked, raped, maybe even murdered because of the color of [her] skin” (281). For White, even the landscape takes on a menacing presence as she describes “the mountains that loomed over the site like white-capped security guards” supporting an environmental imagination that is implicated in the everyday surveillance of blackness created by the institution of slavery and maintained in America by current policing practices (283).
Desiring to find peace in the wilderness, White forced herself to revisit and recreate memories of a past in which her “Ibo and Ashanti ancestors [...]were dragged from Africa and enslaved on southern plantations”—a place where burning crosses and white hooded men dominated the horizon rather than the picturesque sunsets featured in the works of many great nature writers (285). White imagines herself “captured in a swampy backwater” and “cradl[ing] an ancestral mother, broken and keening, as her baby was snatched from her arms and sold down river” an image that purposefully overlays nature and society (285).
White’s account emphasizes the ways that racial violence and trauma have marked wild spaces as sites of terror, but it also addresses the tensions of reconstructing a past that is essential to yourself when that past is no longer available. White’s inability to connect to nature during her moments in the wild are the result of racial terror and perhaps the subsequent rootlessness experienced by postcolonial subjects that have been denied access to rooted histories.
After reading the first few chapters of Toni Morrison's Tar Baby, consider how the themes mentioned in the passage above might inform our reading of the novel.
Some questions you might respond to are:
1. How is the novel already contending with the idea of wild spaces as sites of terror?
2. How can we talk about the postcolonial subject, diaspora, and rootlessness?
3. What histories are being explored in the opening scenes?
4. What are our initial thoughts about characters like Valerian and Jadine?
Taylor Mahoney
Section 0006
In the prologue of Tar Baby, the author uses personification to describe nature in a feminine way which is intriguing since usually something gender neutral is described in either a neutral way or in a masculine way. The author also portrays nature as a place of terror when describing the slavery on the island and the nature. Its described that the slaves were forced to basically ruin all the natural landscape on the island. The adjectives used to describe the island were very negative and furthermore portray the island and nature as a place of terror. The whole story really emulates racism and sexism within the island. Valerian, a rich white man, is illustrated…
Eric Kent - Section 0004
The island can be considered a site of terror. Valerian had to conquer and contend with the terror to make it livable. This could be compared to the use of slave labor to conquer and tend to a new land. He imported mongoose's to deal with the snakes and rats, and once conquered, he sold parcels of land throughout the island, profiteering. With having just read the first few chapters, the only sense of terror regarding the island that I can attach to any character so far is Son, although even that is vague because I am uncertain as to why he does not like to return to the island. I suspect we will l…
Alexandra Spencer
Section 0006
Toni Morrison begins Tar Baby with the prologue of a black man jumping into the ocean, getting tossed by the waves until he is eventually swept away by the strong current that surrounds him. The natural world is shown as something of terror as the man is taken away by the water. This is able to depict the relationship of nature to people of color, as felt by Evelyn White. Morrison goes onto describe the island and how it was built by slaves; those who tore it down and rebuilt it to what is being depicted in the book. This is a historic look back on the time when slavery was popular among colonists and those…
The novel is already presenting the theme of wild spaces and terror by creating an image of separation from the native Caribbean land and agriculture and structure of the home. It is a clear point that the yard and home is well kept “like a hotel” and has colonized the native land. The greenhouse is a great symbolism of fear of wild and foreign things as Valerian is most comfortable with the hydrangeas from home rather than expanding his horizon. This leads into discuss of the post-colonial subject as Valerian and his family are living in the Caribbean but have made almost every aspect of their lives similar to the home that they know. Valerian’s wife clearly feels rootless as…
Ashley Nolin Section 0004
Within the first two chapters of Tar Baby, Toni Morrison introduces the relationship between nature and people of color. In the beginning, Morrison elaborates on how the island that was once a beautiful paradise had become a "ravaged colonial habitat" through the rise of slavery 300 years prior. The now wild environment creates a place of terror among people of color.
Valerian's character is a prime example of post-colonialism with the non-native flowers he plants. This allows the reader to see how Valerian manipulates the environment, exhibiting how the native aspects of the land are pushed aside by non-native aspect.
My initial thoughts of Valerian is that he knows he is in charge and that he…