BRER FOX AND BRER RABBIT IN TONI MORRISON’S TAR BABY

Toni Morrison has borrowed from her African heritage to criticize the Afro- Americans acculturation to the WASP (white, Anglo- Saxon, and Protestant) culture. Morrison’s novel addresses blacks and whites. The prologue harangues a message that everyone has a certain position to occupy and a specific function to achieve, and that nobody is better than the others. Weak things are found to produce mighty things, and base things are found to bring glory to the world. Hence, blacks are not lesser than whites. The novel is based on a legend about animal characters in a fable tale, Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. The term «Tar Baby» is used as a derogatory term for black people in the US, but Morrison gives the term a positive connotation. The characters waver between assimilating to the white dominant culture and preserving one’s African cultural heritage,i.e, Jadine is a «race traitor» who is acculturated to the materialistic values of the white culture. She willingly embraces the white culture, attempting to stripe her African identity off racial and national titles, simply showing off her naked self. Son makes Jadine feel that her denial of black heritage and her family is disgusting. He wants to rescue her from the white world and brings her back to the Eloe. The novel highlights the dangers of assimilation and acculturation. Toni Morrison wants to tell the readers that women cannot be feminine without appreciating their African heritage first, and that the dominant white culture destroys African Americans’ self-image. The novelist highlights the importance of adhering to her African roots and renounces the idea of uprooting African heritage through superabundant assimilation or acculturation to the white culture.