Month: April 2020

The way that A Mercy goes about how characters perceive things, often in ways that lack the “whole picture” is very interesting, and further illuminated by the narrative arc. Psychology suggests people seldom know the entire story, and their perceptions are inherently influenced by their worldview and the beliefs that they already hold. This is partially why people are susceptible to believing misinformation, especially information that aligns with the schemas and beliefs they already hold (Lewandowsky et. al,2010). In applying this idea of human psychology to the novel, that’s why a character’s character matters and really alters the framing of the world they’re in. The way that Morrison has each main character narrate, or control, part of their story I think really emphasizes this and shows how other’s perceptions can even begin to influence our own.

            I first began to think about this when I read Lina’s passage. My initial reaction to Lina was to like her, I saw her as strong willed, intelligent and caring (albeit somewhat harsh at times). While I still think most of these things of her character, it did not suffice to formulate my opinion only based on her telling. Lina, having taken Florens under her wing, was extremely opinionated in her decisions, especially when it came to the blacksmith because she did not trust him. She imposed this naivety to Florens that I probably would not have seen as much had Lina’s passage not been included. Having immediately taken to Florens, feeding, bathing and caring for her in a way that appeared to me as maternal, I think effected the way that Lina saw Florens and her ability to make safe decisions for herself. This struggle of perception, not having the full picture and imposing traits that she believed to be there in the people in her life is further expanded upon with Lina’s perception of Sorrow. Upon her first meeting of Sorrow, Lina immediately forms an opinion and sticks to her guns, so to speak. Not only failing to completely see Sorrow for the woman she is and everything she had been through but imposing those beliefs on the people around her as well. Sorrow’s narrative at the end of the book, where the reader learns about her past and what’s causing her to be so “mongrelized” as her first owners describe her, really shed light on how Lina’s narrative painted the wrong picture of her completely. Not having the “resources”, or the full picture, kept Lina from truly being able to understand Sorrow, not that she wanted to anyway, however. This opinion that Lina formed also causes Sorrow to be relatively expelled, in terms of relationships with other people on the farm, particularly Patrician and Florens.

            While the inability to perceive the whole picture is prevalent in all the character’s stories, I think it’s particularly interesting in Florens. Florens makes me think of trust in that it seems she has an abundance of it. Trust in Lina to take care of her, trust in the blacksmith to love her, and trust in the note her mistress wrote to grant her safe passage on her journey to the black smith. This prompt had originally made me think of an Arthur meme, where DW is looking at a sign and says “That sign can’t stop me because I can’t read”- which made me think of Florens. Not that Florens cannot actually read, but that she, like so many others, struggles to read peoples motivations and intentions, whether it be from not noticing enough, trusting too much or not being given the whole picture to be able to formulate fuller perceptions. For example, with the blacksmith, she sees their act of lovemaking and this physical relationship as grounds to believe that blacksmith truly cares for her, even despite Lina’s warnings. While she trusts Lina, she trusts her feelings wrong and consequently is heartbroken when the blacksmith rejects her, expelling her of some of the trust she had previously been full of. Also, in the first introduction to Florens, when her mother is seemingly begging Jacob Vaark to take Florens in his retelling of it, she only knows that her mother gave her away, making her believe that there was no love there. However, as we learn at the very end of the novel, her mother’s decision to give her up was her way of saving her daughter. So, while she was expelled from and by her mother, her lack of access to the truth expelled the belief that her mother loved her.

            I think that this is an interesting concept to apply to your own life as well. What may I be missing, or expelling myself from in not knowing everything I possibly could in a situation? I don’t believe there’s a need to get hung up on the nitty gritty details, for fear of doubting all the decisions I make, but I think it helps me to realize that my perceptions are not perfect and I am lucky enough to have ready access to education and information that can help to make my worldview a step closer to complete. The prompt is also reminiscent of the housing crash of 2008, in that many financial agents failed to notice just how drastic the effects of these subprime mortgage loans would be, leading to the expulsion of countless people.

            The concept of perspective makes itself a known theme, central idea, and notable literary choice on Morrison’s part within A Mercy. As each chapter presents us with a new viewpoint, we as readers are given the privilege to see a story unfold in a way we don’t normally watch events occur in “real life;” through the viewpoints of all those that are affected. It seems with a broader perspective of the world, and of a story that you are reading and or partaking in allows you to develop a greater sense of empathy. It then also seems when you limit your perspective or ability to understand others roles within an event, you ultimately limit yourself. To put this in terms of the 2008 housing crisis (the year in which A Mercy was written, and a key event to tie our course concepts back to) we can look at the relationship between bankers and everyday people. The banker’s decisions obviously expelled many people from their houses due to their selfish decisions. Those being affected by these decisions may have read or interpreted what would happen in this situation but did not have the tools to go about stopping it from happening. The ultimate root of this is the big bankers having the ability and tools to see how painful the negative effects of their actions would be on so many people, but ultimately neglecting to see things from a “big picture standpoint.” It seems that Morrison decided to make perspective and the theme of “noticing things” so prominent in this novel to drive home that exact point, and all the negativity that comes from it.

            A side note to relate this back to present day, and the current unprecedented circumstances we are all experiencing right now, I wanted to include a link to this article. It focuses on social distancing, and how so many people still aren’t taking it seriously. We need to realize it is a privilege, and by neglecting to take it seriously, we, like the big bankers, are viewing this situation with a “well if it doesn’t negatively affect me, then why should I care how it affects others” kind of outlook. Morrison displays acts of this kind of attitude within the novel, but also shows acts of great contrast as well. However, these selfless acts we sometimes don’t see unfold until one perspective is connected to another.

            An example of such is one that we as readers can only see unfold once we have read the novel from beginning to end. This example is when Florens is given up by her mother. In the very beginning of the novel, when Jacob Vaark visits D’Ortega and makes that reluctant purchase of Florens we are led to believe that her mother is so readily willing to give her up. “Please Senhor, not me, take my daughter” (Morrison, 30). Yet, to contrast this, we see that this seemingly “unmotherly” act of giving up her daughter to be taken away with a strange man was actually an act done out of love. “I knew Senhor would not allow it. I said you. Take you, my daughter. Because I saw the tall man see you as a human child, not pieces of eight. I knelt before him. Hoping for a miracle” (Morrison, 195). This is an act of expulsion Florens faces as she’s forced from her home and her family. It’s an event that we as readers didn’t have the tools (yet) to see the true explanation behind the expulsion. These lack of “tools” come from a lack of exposure to various perspectives, which ultimately intertwine to form a complete story.

            If we are to look at characters lacking tools to act on things they notice, it again deals with the concept of perspective. It seemed that throughout the book, Complete was in a whirlwind of confusion about so many things going on in her life; whether it be her lack of knowledge about what a period was, or her inability to figure out why Lina treated her the way that she did. However, the scene in which Complete gives birth proves to be a very powerful one; she decides her own identity and her own personal perspective develops itself. She lets go of this need for approval form Lina, or this feeling that Florens is the glue that keeps this odd structural dynamic between them all, together. “Each woman embargoed herself; spun her own web of thoughts unavailable to anyone else. It was as though, with or without Florens, they were falling away from one another” (Morrison, 158). She allows herself to be alone in that very moment and allows the trust she has within herself to blossom. In this case, we watch Complete take all the things that she noticed around her, that dragged her down as a person and made her feel like she was something “lesser-than.” Her “tool” in this case is expulsion; the expulsion of an outdated view she has of herself, and a rebirth of a new and personal perspective she has of herself and the world around her.  

            It seems that Morrison purposefully made expulsion, observation, and perspective key elements within this novel. She uses perspective changes to display how it is one of the true tools to accessing a full story; a full understanding of each and every person’s role in a story that so many may have taken a part in. But what’s interesting is that she displays to us that through perspective building expulsion is almost guaranteed; yet it’s a positively connotated form of expulsion as it acts as an elimination of ignorance and self-doubt. Through a lack of perspective exposure, comes expulsion as well; yet it’s more negatively connotated. It leads to the expulsion of people from your life, form their homes, and even of their own positive image of self; it is an act developed from holding on to ignorance rather than letting go.

Like some of my peers in this class have expressed, I struggled with finding an appropriate topic for this prompt. Only after rereading the novel to strengthen my understanding of the characters, looking through my peers’ work, and thinkING about the unspoken forces that cause expulsion, which Professor McCoy has encouraged us to do all semester, was I able to slow down and consider the ideas of “both/and.” As I was re-reading the novel, I was struck by a similar theme from another class (ENGL 424: Toni Morrison Trilogy) I am taking with Professor McCoy. This idea of motherly love and sacrifice within the context of slavery is a heavy topic we discussed in class while reading Beloved and keeps reoccurring to me while reading this novel. In both novels, many outsiders looking into the story may be quick to judge their actions as evil/immortal, unable to interpret the pain a mother endures and why they might do the things they do in order to protect their child.

In Morrison’s A Mercy, both Jacob Vaark and Floren are displayed as characters who are unable to interpret the heart-wrenching exchanges between the slave owner and the enslaved. Jacob notices D’Ortega’s unusual interest in keeping Floren’s mother and suspects something more sinister is going on within the home considering that many slave owners sexually abuse enslaved women, but does not have the tools to do more than to pick someone because he “desperately wanted this business over” (24). While Jacob initially hesitates to take in the young daughter, his self-interest in monetary gain supersedes his moral standards despite acknowledging that slave trading is “the most wretched business” (26). We can see Jacob trying to distance himself from the slave trading business and the D’Ortega family, despite engaging and benefiting from the institutions of slavery, which expelled a child from her family and home.

Florens, as a young child, notices the events that led to her displacement but is unable to understand why her mother would give her up, assuming that favoritism is in play. Floren’s own trauma and memory of her mother is expressed by the end of the first chapter and she interprets the interaction between her mother and Jacob as her choosing her baby brother over her. This feeling of abandonment and betrayal is expressed by her describing the moment as her mother, “saying something important [to me], but holding the little boy’s hand” (8). The mother’s life is tainted by the pains of being a slave and Jacob, who is in a position of power, is unable to understand why Floren’s mother would voluntarily ask for her daughter to be shipped away far from home. He makes the assumption that her mother is trying to save herself by offering up Florens when in reality, it is the opposite. He misunderstands the forces that would cause a mother to abandon her child, while Florens is too young to understand that the prolonged abuse her mother endured forced her to expel Florens from her care. 

As readers, we can understand and justify Floren’s mother and her actions as wanting to give her daughter a better life despite the realities of being a slave. As we have discussed in class before, it is also important to look at the expelling of children from families/ homes in a more modern sense. There have been multiple cases on the news in which mothers have been jailed for enrolling their children in different school districts in order to get them better access to education. Despite knowing that it is forbidden to do so in a legal sense, a mother’s desire to protect and provide a better life for their child is a “crime” that occurs today. Financial instability and corporate greed will always be factors in controlling and destabilizing families and it is only with recognizing and amending those forces can these bubbles burst. 

It is an old adage that knowledge is power. Understanding the how and why of life allows one to maneuver and manipulate their surroundings more easily. However, from this adage, we can garner a parallel truth: if knowledge is power, lack of knowledge must be powerlessness. If one lacks the ability to make informed decisions and perceptions, they will often act in a way that is detrimental to themselves and others. Worse, those who possess knowledge can manipulate those who don’t. Toni Morrison understood how knowledge can be a weapon yielded against those without it. Her 2008 novel A Mercy features numerous instances of its protagonist Florens being confused and ignorant of the truth. The novel highlights both the ways that ignorance harms Florens and the ways that other characters weaponize that ignorance against her. Though the novel was written before 2008, the ideas contained within A Mercy apply to the financial crisis, for bankers and investors had taken advantage of Americans who didn’t understand the potential consequences of their actions.

What does it mean to be ignorant in Florens’s world? She knows her letters, after all; she can read and write. But despite this one advantage she has, Morrison presents her as outpaced by the events around her. This idea is introduced early, as Florens begins to tell her story: “Often there are too many signs, or a bright omen clouds up too fast. I sort them and try to recall, yet I know I am missing much…. Let me start with what I know for certain.” Throughout the novel, Florens consistently demonstrates a lack of knowledge. She wanders through the woods, unsure of her direction, noting her confusion. For example, when religious villagers accuse her of being the Black Man’s minion, she responds initially, “I am not understanding anything except that I am in danger.” At the climax of Florens’s story, her ignorance has highly detrimental effects on the child she is tasked to watch. Unsure how to stop the boy from crying, she grabs him too hard. “I am trying to stop him not hurt him,” she insists. “That is why I pull his arm. To make him stop. Stop it. And yes I do hear the shoulder crack but the sound is small, no more than the crack a wing of roast grouse makes when you tear it, warm and tender, from its breast. He screams screams then faints. A little blood comes from his mouth hitting the table corner. Only a little.” Here, Florens’s inexperience has damaging effects on Malaik; she does not know how to calm him, and she minimizes the extent of his injuries. Finally, Florens’s story ends with the last and most pervasive mystery of her life: why did her mother give her up? She concludes her narrative with this haunting uncertainty. “I will keep one sadness. That all this time I cannot know what my mother is telling me. Nor can she know what I am wanting to tell her. Mãe, you can have pleasure now because the soles of my feet are hard as cypress.” Because she never knew that her mother’s choice to give her up was out of love, she was always eager to please. But now, because she has experienced a betrayal identical to that initial one, she is jaded and angry. Had she known that her mother was trying to save her and not hurt her, she might have matured differently.

While Florens’s ignorance affects her development and her understanding of the world, that ignorance in isolation is not as harmful as the way it is weaponized against her. Her naivete, spurred by that sense of abandonment from her mother, allows other characters to take advantage of her. Rebekka, for example, finds amusement in “Florens’ eagerness for approval. ‘Well done.’ ‘It’s fine.’ However slight, any kindness shown her she munched like a rabbit.” Because Rebekka is her mistress and praise and kindness like this is the only compensation Florens gets for good work, Rebekka is using Florens’s abandonment to increase her productivity as a slave. Scully, too, sees the potential for taking advantage of the girl’s ignorance and naivete: “if he had been interested in rape, Florens would have been his prey. It was easy to spot that combination of defenselessness, eagerness to please and, most of all, a willingness to blame herself for the meanness of others.” It is this same innocence that allows the blacksmith to enter a sexual relationship with her. Though neither party views the encounters as rape, the blacksmith certainly knows that Florens is childlike and trusting, for he uses that ignorance against her after she hurts Malaik. He accuses her of having become a slave to her own obliviousness; “Your head is empty and your body is wild,” he says. Thus, her ignorance acts as a weapon for the people who wish to control and hurt her.

Being taken advantage of for one’s inexperience and ignorance is not a scenario that is isolated to Florens, nor is it only contained within the pages of A Mercy. Through other works, such as Angela Flounoy’s The Turner House and Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, it becomes apparent the way that ignorance harmed the homeowner in the events leading up to the 2008 housing market crash. In The Turner House, Viola Turner refinanced her mortgage, an option that seemed favorable at the time. However, that choice led to a lot of debt the family can’t pay off, and even if they can, it isn’t worth it for a house nobody lives in. Thus, a lack of knowledge is harmful to the ignorant. In The Big Short, meanwhile, average American homebuyers are manipulated by corrupt bankers who want to loan them a subprime mortgage, so that it can be repackaged and sold as a Triple-A-rated bond. Technically, the homebuyers took out loans they couldn’t pay back, and therefore one might argue that they deserved the evictions or bankruptcies that followed. However, they didn’t understand what they were doing and were guided by others to do what was against their best interest. 

Finance is incredibly complicated, and although most if not all Americans will have to engage with it at some point in their lives, few understand it. Therefore, they must trust bankers and accountants and other finance experts to advise them on how best to manage their money. Although these people can provide a great service in helping people, they can also weaponize their clients’ ignorance against them. Similarly, in A Mercy, Florens is innocent and ignorant, and the people in her life take advantage of that. It’d be ideal for Florens if she could have learned the things she is ignorant of and be less naïve. However, she is a child, and children—and people of all ages—are always going to be innocent. Florens should have been protected from the people who want to exert power over her. Similarly, most Americans will never be financial experts, and they shouldn’t have to be. Instead, the law should take measures to protect them from bankers and accountants who intentionally advise them to make ruinous decisions.

Perhaps the most notable inquiry in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy ensues on the very first page of the novel, where Florens asks; “can you read?” (3).  Here, Florens is not referring to a typical form of literacy, considering that she herself was partly illiterate as a slave, but to the ability to understand the signs and omens of the natural world. Florens herself is unable to interpret the signs and events that arise in her life, as she admits; “often there are too many signs, or a bright omen clouds up too fast. I sort them and try to recall, yet I know I am missing much” (4). Despite the unfortunate events she has faced so far, Florens is often blissfully unaware of her disadvantaged position in society as a black woman. Throughout Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, we follow Florens take what life throws at her without being able to understand why she faces constant hardship and expulsion. Florens’ life as a slave highlights the deep-rooted discrimination that is built into American society and how the lack of ability to comprehend one’s position in society can lead to a life of oppression and expulsion. 

It is no coincidence that our very first and last glimpses into Florens’ perspective are centered around her expulsion from the D’Ortega farm, highlighting her mother’s role in the displacement. The way Florens views her relationship with her mother is overwhelmingly negative, as she assumes that she willingly gave her daughter up out of lack of love. A few of the only memories Florens holds of her mother are the disapproval of her constant wanting to wear shoes and the day that a Minha mãe begged a strange man to take her daughter rather than herself. Florens is so traumatized by her expulsion from the D’Ortega estate and her mother’s care, in fact, that even the sight of Sorrow pregnant with a child is enough to spark a memory of her mother choosing her baby brother to keep instead of her. As a black woman born into slavery, Florens is uneducated and partly illiterate, aside from what the Reverend sneakily taught her. The lack of knowledge and ability to interpret different situations is what makes Florens vulnerable, and creates a lack of understanding of the happenings in her life. Her ignorance forces her to walk around with the burden of knowing that her mother voluntarily expelled her, but not being able to discern the reason. A Minha mãe, however, had entirely opposite intentions when she offered up her only daughter to be sold off to a different farm. Florens’ mother eventually reveals that she knew Jacob would treat her as a human rather than a slave, and sacrificed her daughter to give her a better life. A Minha mãe, who had been brought to America in the slave trade, could understand the power of dominion and was only aiming to protect Florens from a life of misery and oppression. Her words to Florens are powerful;

“In  the dust where my heart will remain each night and every day until you understand what I know and long to tell you: to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing” (195-196).

Despite her mother’s words, Florens is unaware and unable to read her mother’s efforts to keep her safe. Florens continues throughout the narrative lost and in search of love to fill the void her mother left, which leads her to be especially vulnerable to mistreatment and expulsion. 

A few years after being expelled by her mother and adjusting to life on the Vaark farm, Florens became undeniably infatuated with the blacksmith that was hired to help Jacob build the new house. After spending what seems to be eight years searching and longing for a love to fill her mother’s void, Florens finally believes that she has found someone to give her happiness. Throughout her journey she expresses her lamentations, writing; “she wants you here as much as I do. For her it is to save her life. For me it is to have one” (43). Florens is prepared to give up her life for the blacksmith but is unable to read the situation for what it truly is. Her ignorance is highlighted as we read other perspectives on their relationship. Everyone else on the Vaark farm is able to see the potential for destruction in Florens’ infatuation with the blacksmith, but her vulnerability and naivete prevents her from reading the relationship as it truly is. As we read from Lina’s perspective, the danger of the situation was clear; “she should have seen the danger immediately because his arrogance was clear” (53). No matter how clear the signs were, Florens was far too uneducated and inexperienced to read them. Due to her vulnerable position as a slave, Florens continued to relentlessly chase after the blacksmith in pursuit of a happiness she had never known. When Florens eventually reached the blacksmith’s dwelling, she found that he had no interest in her presence; instead, he chose the presence of an infant boy as she had experienced once before. Once again, Florens was expelled into the world as a result of her pure ignorance and inability to interpret her circumstances.  

When we revisit Florens’ inquiry to the blacksmith in the first passage of the book, we can find a new meaning to her question “can you read?”. It seems as though most of the characters besides Florens can read and interpret the signs and omens of the natural world. Florens’ inability to read these signs stems from illiteracy, lack of education, and lack of experience. This inability to read and interpret situations places Florens in a position of vulnerability; waiting to be expelled by those she loves with no understanding of why. 

Before an expulsion takes place, a notice is issued. This definition of notice resonates most with this topic and our course concepts: “a formal declaration of one’s intentions to end an agreement, typically one concerning employment or tenancy, at a specific time”. The experience of reading a book is a lot like becoming a tenant in an imaginary world. Any book that we get into our hands, can be “my shaper and my world as well” (Morrison 83). When we enter this imaginative, fictitious world, we know that it is fake; yet, how we respond to it is very real. We bring who we are in life, into the book with us. However, to be true to ourselves, we must be able to notice and read what is happening on the page, that is unless we put trust into the author and the characters. In Toni Morrison’s novel, A Mercy she has created a narrative scheme that ties a reader’s fate with the protagonist through the use of imperfect, dynamic characters and point of view. This interconnection can foster empathy for the characters, which directly aligns with Morrison’s moral of the story. Morrison’s message in the book is for readers to notice how narratives from all people, especially those who are expelled, need their stories to be heard and shared because expulsion should not happen to anyone in a literary or physical sense.