Tar Baby Ambition Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

But he insisted on Eloe. In spite of the Gate and Central Park in the snow. (7.12)

Jade has shown Son all of the wonders of New York. But the guy still wants them to go to his hometown of Eloe. New York is nice and all, but it's not what Son wants out of life. What he wants is a nice quiet community filled with people he knows and trusts.

Quote #5

He needed a job, a degree, she said. They should go in business for themselves. He should enroll in business school. (9.217)

For Jade, Son needs to get a university degree and a good job if he ever plans of making anything of himself. For Son, though, this is just a total surrender to a "white" way of thinking. He'd rather live poor in an all-black community than live rich among a bunch of educated white snobs.

Quote #6

"The truth is that while you were playing the piano in the Night Moves Café, I was in school. The truth is that while you were driving your car into your wife's bed I was being educated." (9.245)

There's no getting around it: Jade thinks she's fundamentally better than Son because she has an education and he doesn't. In her mind, he's been wasting his entire life while she's been learning and getting ahead. She just doesn't seem to realize that it's possible for different people to want different things out of life.