By: Cassidy Hand, Ericeliz Carrillo, John McKiernan, Kyle Footer, and Mia Hendrickson
During the story of A Mercy, it is emphasized that Florens is a keen observer. Florens has the disadvantage of not being able to read or interpret things that she notices during her life. Florens experiences being expelled from places and people that feel at home due to certain forces. In reading A Mercy, it is important to keep in mind, and understand, the specific course concepts that lead to Florens being expelled from the things she calls home. The course concepts are expulsion, pressure, apophenia, and origin. According to Oxford languages, expulsion is defined as “the action of depriving someone of membership in an organization.” The next course concept, pressure, is defined by Oxford languages as, “continuous physical force exerted on or against an objective by something in contact with it.” Pressure is also explained by Merriam- Webster as, “the burden of physical or mental distress.” Merriam- Webster defines apophenia as the “tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.” Finally, Oxford languages define origins as “the point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived.” Knowing all of these course concepts will build a deeper interpretation throughout the story of why Florens gets expelled multiple times during A Mercy before it is declared at the end of the story.
At the very end of the book, Florens’ mother takes over the narration and shares her reasoning for expelling Floren’s. We go through the book knowing only what Florens feels, which is abandoned and unwanted. These fearful emotions shape the person that Florens becomes and especially the way she navigates future relationships, seeking approval and affection. Merriam Webster defines expulsion as the act of forcing someone out from a place or membership in an organization. Pressure, defined as the burden of physical or mental distress, is a variable in decision making that led Florens’ mother to expelling her daughter. Unfortunately, this revelation is not one Florens ever gets to hear but it changes the situation in the reader’s mind from a sudden expulsion to a selfless decision made under extreme pressure. Florens’ mother believed that Jacob was a better human being than their current Portuguese ‘master’ D’Ortega so she hoped that Florens would grow up happier and with a better quality of life with him, and not as a breeding cow. As she recounts her own journey, Florens’ mother says, “One chance, I thought. There is no protection but there is difference… 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. He said yes. It was not a miracle. Bestowed by God. It was a mercy. Offered by a human” (Morrison, p. 175). In Florens’ mind, she remembers her mother holding her baby brother while sending her away, interpreting it as a sign that she was less loved and valued than he was. However, this recollection shows that Florens’ mother was under enormous pressure to make the best possible decision for her children. She had the strength to make a difficult choice—sacrificing her own potential safety and sending Florens away, knowing it would be permanent and she might never see her daughter again—while staying behind to protect her even younger, more vulnerable infant. She truly loved her daughter and her brief narration closes on how much she loves her daughter and hopes that she can understand the pressure of being given “dominion” over another.
From the very beginning of the book, we’re told the importance of the letter is what truly drives Florens forward. It’s her only protection on this journey, and, even before the contents of the letter are unveiled, we know that without it, she is truly lost. Immediately, upon entering the Widow’s house, Florens feels disconnected and unnerved, despite the otherwise normal hospitality the Widow and her daughter are showing. She repeatedly describes her mannerisms and environment as akin to that of animals, “Water rises to a boil in the kettle hanging in the fireplace. I turn and see its steam forming shapes as it curls against the stone. One shape looks like the head of a dog.” (p. 130). Florens sees shapes in the Presbyterian’s house of what she believes is a dog. This reinforces her belief that the Presbyterians don’t want her there and think Florens to be less than a dog. This was also shown in the reading when she was eating from a bowl “like a dog” and was “lapping” from the river, which could be a word purposely used to describe an animal-like behavior.
The dehumanization of Florens is further elaborated on through the subplot of Florens finding shelter in the Widow’s house on her way to find the blacksmith. Locals inspect Florens to determine if she is a runaway slave or a minion. When she defends herself, she says, “I think they have shock that I can talk. Let me show you my letter I say quieter. It proves I am nobody’s minion but my Mistress” (pg. 111). Although it is true that Florens is not a minion of some evil supernatural force, she is by no means free. Her freedom is bound to Rebekka’s letter, and once the letter is taken, Florens is, in effect, an exiled runaway slave. It is interesting that Morrison uses the word “minion,” which has the connotation of someone who is possessed by an evil force. In this sense, Florens is a minion—or, in a literal sense, a possession—of Jacob and, by extension, Rebekka. At first, Jacob is presented as an upstanding person. However, as he is exposed to wealth, his morals are degraded—punctuated by his acceptance of Florens as a slave, regardless of his initial hesitation.
It should be noted that Florens’s mother gave her up not because Jacob was objectively moral, he was simply the lesser evil. Therefore, Florens is not a minion of an evil entity, she is a minion of an evil man. However, paradoxically, belonging to no one is worse than belonging to someone evil.
Morrison conveys this fact through Sorrow, saying, “three unmastered women and an infant out here, alone, belonging to no one, became wild game for anyone” (58). Morrison repeatedly elaborates on this paradox. The legitimacy of the Widow’s property is artificially questioned because she no longer has a husband. Additionally, Florens is no longer protected by her enslaver without her letter. Today, the concept of freedom is understood as being someone who does not belong to anyone. However, during the time period of this novel, the extent to which someone was considered free was determined by their ability to own or enslave others. So, even in the event of Rebekka’s passing, leaving Florens technically liberated and without a master, she is not truly free. Therefore, in the context of this book, to be expelled is arguably worse than being enslaved. We see a similar theme at the end of the chapter, when Daughter Jane has helped Florens flee, “They look at you and forget about me.” (p. 135). Having something “stranger” or more terrifyingly different than Daughter Jane forces the eyes of the townspeople off of her and onto Florens, who has now been stripped of her letter and reminded once again how she will always be chosen last. The protection of a seemingly random young child goes against her innocence, and she becomes the target regardless. In this case, Florens is seen as worse than a possible demon. With each expulsion, she is placed lower and lower until she believes she’s nothing at all without the Blacksmith.
Florens is proven throughout the book to be observant, but while she does observe the look in the Blacksmiths eyes when he sees her, she is not able to understand the extent of his affection towards her or the care he has for the little boy Mailaik who he watches over. When given the opportunity and trust to take care of Mailaik, Florens is unable to responsibly take care of the child, hurting him in the process both physically and emotionally. Even after the Blacksmith comes back to the house and sees the boy hurt she can’t understand her wrongdoing saying, “You see the boy down and believe bad about me without question. You are correct but why no question of it? I am the first to get the knocking away.” (p. 165) This goes back to Florens observing situations, but not reading and understanding situations. She does not understand that the task she was assigned, babysitting Mailaik, was an important job trusted to her by the Blacksmith and is blinded by the love she believes is shared between the two of them.
Florens again observes a situation and only sees a child being chosen over her again which has happened twice before, “The first time it is me peering around my mothers dress hoping for her hand that is only for her little boy. The second time it is a pointing screaming little girl hiding behind her mother and clinging to her skirts. Both times are full of danger and I am expel.” (p.160) The first child was her little brother, the second was Daughter Jane, and the third was Mailaik. In these three such cases a child has been present during the time of her expulsion, but she lacks the context of the situations and blames it on what she sees, the children.
In her brother’s case this is especially shown. Florens blames her brother for taking her mothers love and her mother for choosing her brother when in reality her mother was sending her away to protect her from D’Ortega as she blossomed into womanhood. Her mother was sexually assaulted during her time on the plantation and as Florens grew into a woman her mother noticed that the men there noticed too saying, “they see and I see them see.” (p. 190) This led to the decision to send Florens away, not her brother, and led to a life of unwarranted hatred towards her mother because Florens could not read the situation and stakes at hand.
Having Florens’ entire person tied to a singular aspect of herself (the letter, her race, status as a woman, love for the blacksmith) she’s put at an incredible disadvantage in society, and completely set apart from everybody else. Tying this to the housing crisis, where everyone was tied to a single number on a document or an address, we see how people getting boiled down to one aspect kills their individuality and sense of self, they get lost in the sea of people and are essentially worth nothing. Florens is observant, and creates links between everything she sees, whether they are related or not, and she was still forced lower and lower until she was lost completely. With all the preparations and precautions Florens had taken, all the warnings she received, nothing could prevent what had happened, similar to the Housing Crisis, no one could truly stop it from happening and causing so much damage in the process. Even people who knew how to read and were highly educated struggled with the amount of documentation and the language within during the housing crisis, leading to misinterpretations, loopholes, and plain bad faith used against homeowners. Many people did everything within their power to understand what was happening to them, and to prevent themselves from falling through the cracks, but these banking industries didn’t just create cracks and loopholes to fuel themselves, they built canyons and tripwires, deliberately forcing innocent people into untenable positions. Society places a high value upon a home, believing that a person without one, or with a poor one, is barely a person at all. We see through Florens that constant expulsion drives people to horrific lengths, when all of these people found themselves suddenly “worthless” or struggling to maintain any form of shelter, they grew desperate, feeding into the chaos.