柏油孩子中的象征主义

Chapter 1 Introduction
Toni Morrison (1931—) is a famous black woman writer American literary history in the 20th century. Her novels have great significance when scholars and readers explore existence condition of black people. She is the first black authoress who won such an honor. From that time, her books have been widely read. Her skillful depictions of black American helped her gain readers‟ and scholars‟ attention. Published in 1981, her fourth novel Tar Baby was one of her biggest achievements. She used a richer folklore into it than she did in the others. But the flexible description, faultless dialogue, and free imagination in Morrison‟s other works such as The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Sula were not used in Tar Baby. It is a complex, and exciting novel. And she was also regarded as an exceedingly gifted contemporary author.
Tar Baby tells the story of a love story between Jadine and Son. Jadine is a beautiful black model. Son is a handsome black man. “After the publication of Tar Baby, it was found on the best-seller list of New York Times. Toni Morrison was the first black woman writer to have this honor, so she was found on the cover of Newsweek.” (Samuels 75)
When readers study Tar Baby further, they will find that symbols play a significant role. Because symbols help the Morrison express her ideas to readers‟ minds. In Tar Baby, symbols are so widely used that they can be seen everywhere such as folktales, characters settings and so on. Symbols used in this novel have great functions including the understanding of the reality depicted in this novel and highlights the themes. These symbols show the complexities of the reality and underline the themes. Her adoption of symbols originated from her own black cultural heritage. Morrison is proud of her black culture and wants to spread the black traditional values and culture.
In this paper, the symbolism in Tar Baby will be deliberated. The symbolic perspective serves the themes. Morrison uses so many symbols that Tar Baby impresses readers both on technique and theme. This paper has five chapters. The purpose of these chapters is to discuss the rich symbolic meanings and functions of these symbols which Morrison used in Tar Baby. In Chapter Two, a brief introduction of symbolism will be given. In Chapter Three, the author will talk about a black folklore named “tar baby” and the symbolic meaning of this folklore in Tar Baby. In Chapter Four, the author will mainly talk about how symbolism is reflected in this novel in three aspects, including names, scene setting and characters description.
Chapter 2 A Brief Introduction to Symbolism
“The practice of using symbols is called symbolism. It is a literary movement that arose in France in the last 19th century and affected many English writers, especially poets of the 20th Century. Symbolism expresses the story‟s external action to the theme. They work through emotionally powerful symbols that suggest mood.” (Chadwick 37)
2.1 Definition of Symbolism
“Symbolism refers to movements in both literature and the visual arts during the late 19th Century.”(董强3) The Symbolists drew inspiration from the mid-century poetry and critical writing of Charles Baudelaire and also from the earlier works of Edgar Allen Poe. A number of manifestoes were published in the 1880s, including …Le Symbolism‟, by Jean Moréas in 1886. The styles of the Symbolist painters varied considerably, but they shared many of the same themes particularly a fascination with the mystical and the visionary. The erotic, the perverse, death and debauchery were also regular interests for the Symbolists. The leading figures of the movement included the two French men, Odilon Redon and Paul Gauguin, but Symbolism was not limited to France with other practitioners including the Norwegian Edvard Munch, the Austrian Gustav Klimt and the
British Aubrey Beardsley. The Symbolist movement was a reaction against the literal representation of objects and subjects, where instead there was an attempt to create more suggestive, metaphorical and evocative works. Symbolic artists based their ideas on literature, where poets such as Baudelaire believed that ideas and emotions could be portrayed through sound and rhythm and not just through the meaning of words. Symbolism moved away from the naturalism of the impressionists and demonstrated a preference for emotions over intellect. The Symbolist period contributed much to the development of the abstract arts of the 20th century, and is a crucial step in understanding consecutive periods. Famous Symbolist artists include Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon and Gustav Klimt.
2.2Symbolism in Literature
“In literature, the writer uses a thing to stands for another thing. The first thing just mentioned is called symbol.”(Darrell 103) Symbols can be all kinds of things, such as characters, objects, numbers, or colors. These things are used to represent the author‟s brief concepts about his or her literature creation. According to Griffith, symbolism is offering the reader a concrete object that actually has a broader, more abstract meaning to the story or novel. Examples of symbols are light, representing qualities such as purity and goodness; darkness, representing evil and evil doings; specific colors, representing a multitude of emotions from
love to hate; and locations, representing good or bad dependent upon how the setting is described by the author. As we all know, symbolism is the practice of representing and expressing mystical or abstract ideas by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. It is labeled one of the main features in the late 19th century literature writing.
Many of the major writers of the period exploit symbols which are in part drawn from religious and esoteric traditions and in part of their own invention. Some of the works of the age are symbolist throughout: in their settings, their agents, and their actions, as well as in their diction.
Early in the development of the fictional narrative, symbolism was often produced through allegory, giving the literal event and its allegorical counterpart a one-to-one correspondence.
In the great literature work Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan uses a lot of symbols. He uses one thing to represent another thing. The protagonist Christian, to no one‟s surprise, stands for every Christian reader; his goal, the Celestial City, stands for Heaven; the places through which he passes on his way to Lucre Hill, Vanity Fair, stand for the temptations Bunyan felt that Christian readers were likely to encounter on their journey to salvation. Even the names of Christian‟s
fellow travelers, Mr. Feeble-mind, Great-heart, represent not individual characters but states of being.
To take allegory to the next higher level, we arrive at something that for want of a better term can be called symbolism. At this level, there is still a form of correspondence, and yet it is not so one-to-one, and certainly not so blatant. Whereas allegory operates very consciously, symbolism operates on the level of the unconscious. This does not mean that the author himself is unconscious of the process of creating symbolism, merely that we, as readers, accept its input without really understanding how it works.
Similarly, near the beginning of F. Scott Fitzgerald‟s novel The Great Gatsby, there is the famous scene of the Valley of Ashes where Tom Buchanan‟s mistress Myrtle lives. Although Fitzgerald never says so, it is clear that the Valley of Ashes represen ts the real state of Tom‟s soul; although to the outside world his residence is in a mansion on the beautiful bay at East Egg, where everything is opulent and expensive and tasteful, the inwardly rotten, spiritually desiccated Tom really “lives” where his “heart” does, in a grim ashen valley presided over by a billboard decorated with a huge pair of bespectacled eyes. The eyes represent God,
who sees Tom‟s actions and knows the interior of his heart, but ominously seems powerless to intervene.
Symbolism, therefore, is an integral component of fiction, because it enriches the narrative by pulling its message down to the level of our unconscious and anchoring it there.
Chapter 3 A Black Folklore on which the Novel is Based
The name of this novel “Tar Baby” comes from a famous black folktale. The writer of Tar Baby uses the name of that black folktale retells it in a new way. She wants to present the folklore in her novel to improve readers‟ understanding of the black past. In this chapter the author will discuss how Morrison narrates this traditional black folklore and makes it into a new pattern combined with modern society. The title “Tar Baby” has multiple symbolic meanings. The “tar b aby” story is an important symbol of black life and culture.
3.1 A Brief Introduction to the Folklore
To understand the novel better, readers must know something about a black folklore—tar baby, on which the novel is based. The folklore about tar baby stories has many versions. The most popular one is as following:
In one tale, Br‟er Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of tar and dresse s it with some clothes. When Br‟er Rabbit comes along he addresses the tar “baby” amiabl y, but receives no response. Br‟er Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the Tar Baby‟s lack of manners, punches it, and in doing so becomes stuck. The more Br‟er Rabbit punches and kicks the tar “baby” out of rage, the w orse he gets stuck. Now that Br‟er Rabbit is stuck, Br‟er Fox ponders how to
dispose of him. Helpless, but cunning, Br‟er Rabbit pleads, “but do please, Br‟er Fox, don‟t fling me in dat brier-patch,” prompting Fox to do exactly that. As rabbits are at home in thickets, the resourceful Br‟er Rabbit escapes.
It is significant to study deeper into the symbolic meanings of the title of this novel—“Tar Baby”. It can provide a further understanding of themes and characters in this novel.
3.2 Symbolic Meanings of Folklore in Tar Baby
Compared with the famous black folk legend, the name of this novel is identical with the folklore. The reason why Morrison chooses the same name to be the title of her fourth novel is it can help her express the themes more clearly, and make the novel more interesting.
It is a common sense that Morrison‟s literature creation of this novel is based on the tar baby folklore. So it has great significance to explore the folkloric patterns and its far-reaching symbolic meanings. From this paper, readers can infer a kind of relationship which is the relationship between the entrapper and the entrapped. Morrison use symbolism theory to expresses this relationship. This technique makes the title of this novel full of far-reaching symbolic meanings.
In Tar Baby, a out-of-bounds area is intruded by a outlander who wants to get rid of his possession. Nevertheless, along with the plot develops, it turns into
more and more indistinguishable. It makes readers can‟t understand who needs rescue, who is the tar baby in reality, whose territory is being invaded, and who is trapped. In the novel, both Son and Jadine show characters of the tar baby, in some sense, both Jadine and Son as tar babies. They seduce each other with magical temptations. Jadine is a black lady, while she has been educated by the western values and standards, and finally adopted western culture as her culture in her inner world and the western life style in her daily life. On the contrary, Son stands for the black culture and traditions. From this perspective, they are the holder of two totally distinctive cultures. Jadine and Son play role of tar babies in this novel. Shortly before Christmas, they meet and then attract each other with nameless temptations. Then the black world and white world which respectively represent by Son and Jadine be intersections and begin to clash. Morrison sets her fourth novel interaction with the consummate folkloristic patterns. The abundant symbolic meanings of the title of “Tar Baby” enriched by this combination. From this perspective, “tar b aby” is a triumphant symbol of the relationship between entrapper and entrapped, and the antagonism of the white and black cultures. This symbol highlights the theme of conflicts of the worlds between white and black. It presents the predicament of the black community as well as the dilemmas of the black people.
Morrison refers to the tar baby story repeatedly, particularly in relation to Jadine and Son. They both play roles of enticement and the prey. In other words, the narrative perspective changes from Jadine as enticement, Son as Brer Rabbit, to Jadine as the prey while Son as the enticement.
From the perspective of Son, he says Jadine is a kind of tar baby, a black hearted production of the white. He says Jadine is set to assault black men. Because habitat of these black is down in briar patch. Sometimes Son regards Jadine as “advance bitch, public prostitutes”. (Morrison 172) When Son play a role of Br‟er Rabbit while, Jadine is a kind of simulate tar baby. In Son‟s mind, she is created by Valerian who pays for Jadine‟s education of her college life in Paris. She abandoned the black culture and traditions while she has adopted the western values and culture. So from this point of view, Son is the Br‟er Rabbit. Jadine is tar baby. In this novel, the imperious education, which he has opposed has not increased Son‟s support for his own people. In fact, he does truckle to Jadine‟s train of thought. However, Son also receives his share of criticism for his nostalgic, and impractical outlook:his naive idea toward money and his romanticization of Eloe. Jadine‟s pejorative view of their traditional black ways and his nationality makes Son feel unhappy and disappointed. She makes Son know his many imaginations about the wholeness of the past are false consciousness. In turn, she
hears scathing criticism of post modernity from Son. “There is nothing worth about appearing on the cover of a fashion magazine, nothing worth in being educated to forget where she came from, nothing merciful about her relationship to her aunt and uncle.” (Morrison 149) This deadlock between them is symptom of a larger crisis of the third world controlled by the first. However at the novel‟s end, Son runs away from Jadine‟s grasp. This forces Son as the Br‟er rabbit image in the tale.
On the other hand, Son plays a role of tar baby when his blackness has intersections with Jadine‟s life. Shortly before Christmas, Son appears in the island which Valerian and his wife live with their black servants. Even thought all person live in this island try their best to get rid of him, they cannot avoid the contact with him. They have to admit their own secrets which have been ignored in the past, after contacting with Son. As a holder of traditions, Son is tar baby-like: a swindler of many names, a piano player and a folktale spinner. Here Son, the immature wanderer is set figure of tar. He wants to make his own effort to take Jadine return to her blackness. Jadine‟s fall in the swamp foreshow her trip with Son to Florida, where she feels malaise by the women of Eloe. But Son is able to identify himself with the male represented by the horsemen, Jadine cannot identify with the women, the female equal person of the resisting ancestors. At the end of this story, Jadine
takes a role of the Br‟er Rabbit. As a result, she runs away to Paris where her briar patch is.
Jadine and Son are holders of black tradition in this story, and both see themselves as pulling the other from a viscous place.
In order to express the inextricable problem and situation, Morrison uses many literature writing techniques. The most important one is symbolism. The tar baby tale as a symbol is itself a kind of powerful expression. Morrison weaves the basic pattern of this tale into the novel and gives her work powerful symbolic force to reveal the themes.
Chapter 4 Symbolism Reflected in Tar Baby
The use of symbolism in the novel has a great function of bringing alive the characters and the place. Symbolism increases depth and meaning to the scenes. The adoption of symbols is one of the artistic features in Morrison‟s works. The scene settings and characters‟description in her works provide rich symbolic meanings, so those symbolic meanings make her novels distinctive. In this chapter, the author tries to reveal the cultural connotations of the names in three ways, people names, scene setting and main characters describing. All of them reveal certain cultural connotations.
4.1 Symbolism Embodied in Names
There are many values reflected in Tar Baby such as literary values of literature and values of black culture. Toni Morrison presents a lot of cultural materials in Tar Baby. Her wisdom is reflected in many aspects, such as people‟s names. These names make the novel miraculous.
It is important to know why this great black authoress uses these names in her novel. In other word, it is the first step to understanding the real connotation of Tar Baby. In order to have better understanding of this meaningful novel, understand the symbolic meanings of People‟s names play an indispensable role.
“People‟s names are the labels of people. In fact, name is a very crucial reflection of culture. These names become summon of character.” (王守仁,吴新云76)
4.1.1Jadine Childs
Jadine Childs is one of main characters in this literature work. She is a fashion and beautiful model, as well as a skillful painter and actor. Morrison gives Jadine a meaningful name. This name can help reader know well about Jadine‟s personality.
Her family name is Childs. “As we all know everyone‟s family name has a certain meaning. And it is a general accepted opinion that family name in English is related to their ancestors. There is no doubt that naming a person is a very important part of culture.”(王莉亚88)
In reality, the name “Childs” is a kind of symbol of “Child”. There are many inevitable connections between her forefathers and her family name. From Jadine‟s last name readers can be aware of Jadine is the progeny of her forefather.
Most couples have their own children because children are the continuation of the parents and ancestors. Jadine‟s parents gave birth to Jadine, while she lost her parents when she was a little child. It implies that in some sense the link between them is cut except the ties of blood. She lost her parents and her ancestors who can teach her the culture of her own. Even though Jadine has an uncle and an
aunt to rely on, they can‟t provide her with enough knowledge of black culture. They never pay their attention to her gr owth as a black. They don‟t tak e the role of parents very well. As a result, Jadine grows up as if she doesn‟t have parents and ancestors.
The second meaning of Jadine‟s family name is in the eyes of adults, a child is immature and childish. Jadine is immature to accept her role as an African American. As a niece, Jadine rarely takes the responsibilities to take care of her uncle and aunt and the family responsibilities. So Jadine rarely grows up, just like an immature child. Her family name implies that Jadine needs to learn many things to be a real woman, a real mature and attractive black woman. How to identify her real black woman identify in black culture is quite important for her.
4.1.2 Valerian Street
Valerian Street dominates the other characters in this novel. He is wealthy, white and old man. He lives together with his black servants. He employed most of the black characters, including Sydney, Ondine, Gideon and Therese. Valerian‟s name is the symbol of control, superiority. He plays patron to Jadine, paying for her education in Paris, and also sometimes acts like a father figure to Son. He plays a role of monarch in this novel. He wants to controls everything around him, such as all his servants and his wife. These economic connections make the other
characters subservient to Valerian. They must listen to what he says, because he controls the purse strings.Valerian, his name is profound in meaning. It originates from the name of a Roman clan. Valeo is one relative of Valeriu. It means “to say good bye” Another meaning of this word is“to have power”, “to be vibrant” and “to be worth”. In Tar Baby, Valerian Street is retired. He doesn‟t to be the forceful and vigorous capitalist any more. The characters in Morrison‟s novels are always having complex features. Take the name of Valerian as an example; superficially, he is a symbol of control, superiority of the white force. However, the symbolic meaning of the name of Valerian Street, the character himself is a kind of failure. As Tar Baby continues, Valerian loses power and control. Readers can find that Valerian does not control anything. By the end of this story, he has weakened to the point of vulnerability and senility. The news about his wife Margaret abuse of their son totally incapacitates Valerian, in part because he realizes just how little control he ever exerted over people in his life. He was a powerful businessman, but he lacked the power to create a loving environment for his wife and son, and he was powerless to stop Margaret‟s horrible te ndencies. At the same time his servants are not obedient all the way. In some sense, Valerian is a kind of loser, not accord with the meaning his name symbolizes. So in this sense, the symbol itself is an irony.
4.2 Symbolism Embodied in Scene Setting
In Morrison‟s fourth novel, the most episodes take place in a small island located Caribbean and New York City. The full name of this small island is “Isle des Chevaliers”. As it mentioned in this novel, the turbulent love between Son and Jadine mainly occurs in New York City. To be important elements in Tar Baby, these scenes are not leisurely described or selected at liberty. They provide significant backgrounds for the story and have abundant symbolic meanings. So it is of great significance to discuss how the symbolism reflected in the scene setting of Tar Baby.
4.2.1 The Greenhouse
At the beginning of this novel, an unidentified sailor leaps overboard and finds himself caught in the undertow. Unable to reach shore, he boards a small boat and hides from the people on board. Then the boat lands at a private island where Valerian Street lives with his wife. The name of this is Isle des Chevaliers. On this island there is a greenhouse In Tar Baby, Toni Morrison described this greenhouse like this:
It was a wonderful house. Wide, breezy and full of light. Built in the
days when plaster was taken for granted and with the sun and the
airstream in mind, it needed no air conditioning. Graceful landscaping
kept the house just under a surfeit of beauty. Every effort had been
made to keep it from looking “designed”. (Morrison 9) The greenhouse symbolizes the conflict between nature and civilization. The conflict between nature and civilization runs throughout Tar Baby. At the start of the novel, Valerian civilizes the natural world by making northern flowers grow in a southern climate. His power in the greenhouse represents the power that Valerian enjoys in his relationships with other characters in the early part of the novel. The greenhouse is also Valerian‟s sanctuary,a place he can go when he wants to be alone. Over time, ants invade the greenhouse, a sign of nature creeping into civilization. Then Son begins to take over, and the greenhouse comes to be less and less under Valerian‟s control, and more and more a place where nature dominates. After Ondine reveals that Margaret abused Michael when he was a boy, the greenhouse reflects Valerian‟s decline by descending into wildness. By the end of the novel, Valerian has become an invalid, and there is no longer a clear di stinction between the interior and exterior of the greenhouse. Valerian‟s defenses and measures of control, like the special climate of the greenhouse, have broken down. Morrison describes the conflicts between humankind and nature. From this point of view, the greenhouse becomes a symbol of an untapped world destroyed by the civilization of human world.
4.2.2 New York City
Jadine takes Son to New York City to start a new lifestyle. In Tar Baby, New York is the halidome for Jadine, while the hell for Son. New York stands for western and white values that Jadine likes, while Son rejects. Jadine thinks in New York City she could have a great expectation and a bright future, she feels refreshed and she has her friends.In this bigalopolis, there is no the swamp women that discouraged her and make her feel untruthful, nor the woman in yellow. Jadine can get everything she need in New York. This city is charged by white culture. Feeling at ease in New York means Jadine has accepted the white values in her inner world. Morrison describes this section like this when Jadine returns to New York:
Jadine sat in the kab barely able to see over her baggage piled in the
seat in front of her. Return New York gives her a feeling of coming
home and this makes her keep smiling on her face. She was so happy
to return in embrace of New York. This city oiled her joints and she
moved as though they were oiled. Her neck really connected her body
to her head, her legs were longer here. (Morrison 221)
These settings are put together, giving a symbolic image of the natural and social environment. In a word, the greenhouse symbolizes the conflict between
nature and civilization. New York represents two different images of two different worlds including different ways of life, values, and cultures.
4.3 Symbolism Embodied in Main Characters‟ Descri ption
Toni Morrison uses a lot of symbols in Tar Baby. It helps her to express the themes more clearly and make the story accepted by audience more easily. Symbolism is also important to main characters description.
4.3.1Jadine Childs: A Culture Orphan
The protagonist Jadine Childs is such a representative black girl who has been kept in bondage by the white. She receives the formal white cultural education from her childhood. In Paris, She is educated on the money given her by her aunt‟s and uncle‟s employer Valerian Street. She plays a role of a perfect student of art history in her school. After graduating from school she becomes a famous model on the covers of popular magazines. The white culture and big city sense could be found in her action. Her white modernity stands for the white bigalopolis culture. Formal white education makes her apply the theory unconsciously to practice when she meets the woman in Paris, “Under her long bright yellow dress Jadine knew there was too much breast.”(Morrison 73) The reason why Jadine could be chosen as the excellent model on the cover magazine
is that she in accordance with the black beauty standard in the European eyes of black person: light-colored skin, a good shape and a young face.
College life makes her arrogant. Jadine is taught that she is different, by related to and by virtue of having privileges by her economic sponsor Valerian. She is given a conception that in her life she should be a Queen, if there is imperial power of authority in the black community. Technically speaking, there is no adverse impact of self-improvement education. However, in practice, when Jadine tries to contact with other dark skin people, she shows contempt toward her mother black tradition. On the contrary, she shows her enthusiasm for the white culture. Jadine is miseducated by many things, such as political bias, ignorance of books, cultural and historical concept. She is also miseducated by stupid slogans “if you have white skin, you are right; if you have black skin, stand back”and vicious publicity propaganda. The black could do nothing about their own education in a society which the mainstream culture is white culture. Black should not have their own opinion, should not have their own culture, and should not teach their dark skin children in their way which they want to use. Her white ideas are adopted by the white educational system, which makes Jadine a cultural orphan.
4.3.2 Son: the Spokesperson for Afro-American Culture。