Tar Baby

Jazz reverberates across the pages of Toni Morrison’s novels. Taking the techniques from this black musical tradition, rhythms, riffs, solos, and cadences emerge in Morrison’s prose as literary devices. The prose in Tar Baby is no exception. Caught in a tumultuous love affair, Jadine and Son’s entire relationship emulates a call and response. In jazz, a call and response is when musicians trade bars and riffs, repeating and building one on top of the other – a question and answer. This excerpt of Tar Baby exemplifies call and response through dialogue between Jadine and Son, trading sentences and building off one another, the punctuation setting a rhythmic pace.