Morrison’s use of imagery in Tar Baby follows a two-step attack plan in presenting her theme.  With a vicious right hook she implements maternal images to exemplify the changing, modern attitude towards the rols of women today, and with a stinging left jab she uses tar imagery from Uncle Remus’ tale of the same name to develop the novel’s theme of racial pride.  This approach gives the novel a braided feel, with both sets of images intertwining around each other, much like in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  This helps to elucidate the themes, as each one complements the other and further explains it. 

            Throughout Tar Baby, Morrison consistently places her female characters in power positions over the male characters: Valerian is virtually pampered by Margaret, Therese’s “magic breasts” nurse an entire generation, and Jadine’s beauty charms and entraps Son like so much stick black tar.  Margaret’s motherly care over the aging Valerian diminishes greatly his potency as a character, even though it was his family’s business successes that brought them to the island in the first place.  She shares an even more damaging relationship with her son Michael, whom she burns and stabs with pins out of boredom.  Therese is probably the most maternal of the all; she is the epitome of motherhood with her dependably lactating mammary glands.  Jadine dreams of such powerfully woman-ish women thrusting their bountiful bosoms at her-blatantly hinting at some degree of insecurity with her own role as a woman.

            O.K., now it is tar time!  Tar imagery directly relates Morrison’s Tar Baby with Uncle Remus’ story of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit.  This relationship is almost allegorical in its presentation of racial identity.  Most of the imagery is concentrated in Jadine’s unfortunate run-in with the swamp: “as they passed the Sein des Veilles, Jadine’s legs burned with the memory of tar.”  This also ties in with the maternal theme; Jadine sees many, almost Amazonian women in the swamp trees.  The “tar” that clings to her is a reminder of her womanly deficinecies.