Essay Questions

How does Morrison emphasize the conflict among nature and human progress in the prologue of ‘Tar Baby’?

The prologue of this novel accentuates a significant subject in Tar Baby: the conflict among nature and human civilization. Morrison builds up the conflict at first by exemplifying nature—that is, by giving nature human characteristics. Morrison portrays the quality of the water in the harbor as the emphatic push of a women’s hand. The water has a feminine name: the water-lady. Actually, the water-lady gives off an impression of being driving the man along a specific path because that the flow stays intense when the man attempts to fight it back to shore and sets the man free when he sees the boat.

Nature is by all accounts telling the man that he should swim to the boat and board it. In 'Tar Baby,' nature is not only a dynamic, predictable power; it has personality and wants, which it at that point demonstrations to satisfy. In the prologue, the man's craving to swim to the island, and nature's request that he cannot, reviews the contention among nature and human progress that will show up all through the rest of the novel.

How does Toni Morrison depict the key motif darkness of nature in the prologue?

Morrison depicts that black characters will in general have a closer relationship to nature. For instance, when the man bounces into the water, he is so dark to such an extent that he blends in with the waves. He associates as of now with the regular world in an immediate manner. Interestingly, the white women on the boat have unmistakably kept some distance between natures. On the boat, the man finds a beautifying orange tree, a natural item that has had its convenience reproduced out of it.

The women have cleaned fingernails and need suntan oil; they do not work, and they should ensure themselves against the normal power of the sun. Most strikingly, the women have not prepared supper and rather warm up takeout they brought from shore. The white, rich class has put some distance between the most natural of human capacities: arranging and having food.