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MonkeyNotes-Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
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After the foray into Jadine's mind, one is told about Valerian and
Margaret, their backgrounds as well as their fears and desires.
Valerian is revealed here as a man who followed in his family's
footsteps and inherited the candy factory in Philadelphia that he
ran for most of his life. All he looked forward to doing was retiring
and he finally got his wish at sixty-eight. He then bought an island
in the Caribbean where he would retire and die. Valerian is an
escapist. He wants to live in a world of his own creation, therefore
he has bought the island and indulges in his pastimes, impervious
to the world around him. As long as he does no harm, he thinks he
is a good man. He is a querulous and paternal old man who
patronizes his wife and his servants. His wife Margaret faces the
problem of forgetfulness. She is presented as a beautiful white
woman who did not have much to do after marriage and so she had
a child when she was very young. She invests her whole being in
her beauty, which her husband married her for and does not know
anything else. People around her think that she does not make a
good mother but Margaret is convinced that she does love her son
truly. The conflicts and insecurities that Toni Morrison mentions in
connection with Margaret help the reader later to understand why
this woman had tortured her son.
In contrast to Margaret, Valerian and Jadine, Sydney and Ondine
get better sleep. They too dream but can turn to each other for
security. They do not have the neuroses that their employers do.
Morrison has contrasted the husband /wife relation of Margaret
and Valerian with that of Sydney and Ondine. While the former do
not sleep together, the latter do. At the end of the chapter, it is
night and everyone finally falls sleeps. Toni Morrison ends the
chapter on a mysterious note. It is mentioned that when they sleep,
they hear no footsteps in the dark. It is later learned that the
occupants in the villa had not heard Son prowling around the house
at night. He is the refugee who reaches L'Arbe de la Croix and
sneaks into the house for food.
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