SPOILER WARNING: I discuss the ending of Tar Baby by Toni Morrison.
Annotating dreams in Tar Baby by Toni Morrison led to an interesting discovery. There is foreshadowing in Chapter 4 that explains why Thérèse abandoned Son on the backside of Isle de Chevaliers.
Thérèse’s Prophetic Dream
Thérèse dreamt of Son before she met him. In the dream, she saw his true identity as one of horsemen of The Blind Race1. Because of this dream, I think she felt called to facilitate his destiny and deliver him to the hills of Isle de Chevaliers at the end of the book.
This dream occurs in Chapter 4 on page 104. It’s a vision of son happy, smiling, and satisfied as he gallops “away wet and naked on a stallion.”
Insight from The Stacks Podcast
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison was the October 2023 bookclub pick for The Stacks Bookclub. Host Traci Thomas discussed the book with her guest Minda Honey on Episode 290, which aired October 25, 2023.
Toward the end of the episode, Traci Thomas shared a literary hypothesis about the mist in the final scene. The imagery meant to convey that Son was going blind.
From the Episode
Traci Thomas 59:23
“Perhaps, there’s no mist at all. Perhaps, it’s metaphorical mist. He is going blind because he laid eyes on the island that makes people go blind2; and therefore, he is now becoming one with Isle de Chevaliers, and he is becoming a blind person.
He will become one with the Black Chevaliers, the Black Knights, who haunt and inhabit the island, and he will be lost to us and to the world. Because he can no longer see. Which is why Thérèse—who is of the race of the blind, descended of those people—she can still kind of see because she doesn’t live on the island. She just goes back and forth.“
Minda Honey 1:00:46
“Also why she would be the one to deliver him to the island, to guide him into this world. She tells him this is the right place.3“
[Adapted from the Episode 290 transcript.]
Annotate With Sara 