Kriza identiteta u romanu Toni Morison Katreno luče

Abstract

Toni Morrison’s novel Tar Baby, relating the tale of a rabbit outwitting the Caucasian hunter while interweaving all the meanings related to tar and black, provides an insight into social classes of African-American people on a Caribbean island. The main character jade returns home from Europe only to find out that she does not belong there anymore. Falling in love with a mysterious stranger Sun, who represents all that she is not (native African, rural, traditional), intensifies her doubts in herself and her identity. Her personal crisis intermingles with Sun’s, whose primitive being is challenged by jade, disabling them to build an identity together. Morrison uses the novel to talk about stereotypes present in African-American community, to talk about hierarchical differences among those more or less black and more or less fortunate, and to question the identity of those who dare to be different and leave their community. As in most of her novels, white Americans with their personal crisis are marginalized in the novel. Although many questions are raised by black characters in this extraordinary piece of writing, the ending leaves the racial, class and cultural conflicts open.