science

Tar-Baby

Tar-Baby is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tar-Baby rather than just read about it. In short: The Tar-Baby is the second of the Uncle Remus stories published in 1881; it is about a doll made of tar and turpentine used by the villainous Br'er Fox to entrap Br'er Rabbit. The more that Br'er Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes.

Key takeaways

Tar-Baby belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tar-Baby to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tar-Baby from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Tar-Baby is the second of the Uncle Remus stories published in 1881; it is about a doll made of tar and turpentine used by the villainous Br'er Fox to entrap Br'er Rabbit. The more that Br'er Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes. The phrase "tar baby" has acquired idiomatic meanings over the years, including a negative racial connotation.

Publication history Joel Chandler Harris collected the story in its original dialect and included it in his 1881 book, "Uncle Remus, his Songs and his Sayings". His introduction mentions earlier publication of some of his Uncle Remus Stories in the columns of a daily newspaper, The Atlanta Constitution. Harris said these legends had "become a part of the domestic history of every Southern family." Indeed, Theodore Roosevelt (the 26th president of the United States, born in 1858), noted in his autobiography that as a young child he heard Br'er Rabbit tales from his Southern aunt, Anna Bulloch, and that his uncle, Robert Roosevelt, transcribed some of her stories from her dictation.

Plot

The 'Tar Baby' story comes from the oral tradition of black slaves on the old plantations of the American South, one of many Uncle Remus stories. It features Br'er Fox, who constructs a doll out of a lump of pine tar and dresses it with some clothes. When Br'er Rabbit comes along he addresses the tar "baby" amiably but receives no response. Br'er Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the tar baby's lack of manners, punches it and, in doing so, becomes stuck. The more Br'er Rabbit punches and kicks the tar baby out of rage, the worse he gets stuck. In Joel Chandler Harris's popular retelling of the tar baby story, the fox then saunters over and gloats, laughing uproariously, and invites the rabbit to his house to "take dinner" with him, saying he has some calamus root and will take no excuse. The little boy listening to the story asks if the fox ate the rabbit, but the storyteller demurs and tells the boy to run off because he's being called. The Harris version seems to end there. A couple of stories later, though, the tale continues in Harris's story, "How Mr. Rabbit was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox". This ending is now popularly incorporated into the tar baby story: Now that Br'er Rabbit is stuck, Br'er Fox ponders how to dispose of him. The helpless but cunning Br'er Rabbit pleads, "Do anything you want with me – roas' me, hang me, skin me, drown me – but please, Br'er Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch", prompting the sadistic Br'er Fox to do exactly that because he gullibly believes it will inflict the maximum pain on Br'er Rabbit. However, as rabbits are at home in thickets like the brier-patch, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes.

Analysis In folklore studies, the story of the Tar-Baby is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 175, "The Tar-Baby and the Rabbit".

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tar-Baby

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tar-Baby claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tar-Baby before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tar-Baby ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tar-Baby

In research: Tar-Baby appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tar-Baby in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tar-Baby is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1881 short stories, African-American cultural history, Anti-African and anti-black slurs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tar-Baby outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tar-Baby in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tar-Baby means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tar-Baby out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tar-Baby in simple terms?

Why does Tar-Baby matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tar-Baby?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tar-Baby.