Abbigail Woodworth, Joseph Latella, Ava Patelli, Caleb Martin, Aboudramane Doumbouya
A Mercy is a story focusing on the harsh realities of enslaved women throughout the 17th century. In particular, the story is about a young girl named Florens who was abandoned by her mother and traded as a slave to Trader Jacob Vaark. She looks for the love of a mother consistently throughout the story because of the feeling of isolation and expulsion that she encountered throughout her story. She tries to find that love through other people along the way. The story is an example of how throughout the 17th century mothers and children of color underwent obstacles along their journeys of being enslaved. Furthermore, A Mercy shows us that society creates and sustains conditions that expel people from their homes and families. This common theme of expulsion can be defined as forcing someone to leave a place.
The first act of expulsion takes place towards the beginning of the story and is the start of Floren’s story. When Floren’s mother sends her away with Jacob Varrik, a trader who took Florens because her mother had begged him to do so. Floren’s mother gave her away to protect her from the brutal reality of enslavement, especially under a man like D’ortega. Florens couldn’t understand this perspective of her mother at the time as her younger brother got to stay with her mom, this failure was not her fault. It’s because of the absence of education, interpretation, stability, and maturity that she was not able to put the pieces together to create that picture. This also shows that societal structures can force displacement between families due to poverty, enslavement, and patriarchy. Although this was the first act of expulsion, it was too complex to understand without the rest of the journey she went throughout the book. By the end of the book, we realized that her mother was the first originating act of expulsion and the reasoning she gave up became clear. ”One chance, I thought. There is no protection but there is a difference. You stood there in those shoes and the tall man laughed and said he would take me to close the debt. 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. He said yes.”(Morrison p. 195) Floren’s mother noticed that Florens caught the eye of Senhor and wanted to save her from the brutality of being a slave under D’ortega. Floren’s mother knows what it comes with and she doesn’t want her daughter to go through what she went through so she sends her with Jacob. Readers came to understand the reasoning as to why her mother sent her away and it was to protect her from being raped and abused by D’Ortega. We come to understand that in the end, Florens’ mother did love her; she just wanted Florens to have a better outcome than she did. Giving her away was the best solution to keep Florens safe even though she lost her daughter. A Mercy.
The second act of expulsion that Florens overcame was her encounter with Daughter Jane and the Widow. Florens distracts the town from Daughter Jane and once again a child gets to stay with their mom and Florens must go. Florens in the end, ends up distracting Jane and the widows’ community from the rumor that Jane was a witch. Rebbeka sent Jane a letter stating Florens was owned by her. At the end of the chapter, Jane thanks Florens for her help and kisses her on the forehead. Florens is confused as to why she did this. She did not understand the feeling of belonging. “I say thank you and lift her hand to kiss it. She says no, I thank you. They look at you and forget about me. She kisses my forehead then watches as I step down…” (Morrison p. 135) Florens has never felt a sense of belonging and doesn’t know how to act when someone shows gratitude towards her. Florens has been treated as property her whole life and couldn’t comprehend the act of kindness. Due to the absence of family and friends, she constantly felt neglected. This is an act of expulsion because, at the end of the chapter, she was sent on her way again.
The third and final act of expulsion was at the end of the book when Florens started to create a pattern in her head of the reasoning as to why she kept being expelled in certain situations. This pattern was revealed when the blacksmith kicked out Florens for hurting Malaik, she falsely believed every time she was expelled from a relationship or land was because of unfair abandonment, and not protection or love. This was the most detrimental act of expulsion because Florens was in love with the blacksmith but he chose the child over her. Feeling the emotions of betrayal and abandonment she realized during every encounter, that she was expelled and in most cases, it was a parental figure protecting a child. “When they saw her stomping down the road two days after the smithy had visited Mistress’ sickbed and gone, they were slow to recognize her as a living person.” (pg. 79), Her humanity and will to live were taken from her after she argued with the blacksmith. A man she adored so much and felt so safe with pushed her away without second guessing leaving her to question everything she’s experienced.
As discussed before Florens is expelled multiple times and these expulsions follow the same pattern. This pattern is when Florens is the one to leave, a smaller child gets to remain with a parental figure. During these expulsions the pattern, although not explicitly commented on by Florens, is clear to a reader that this pattern is something Florens subconsciously connects. The patterns within this book can be compared to the patterns of the housing crisis. We can compare Florens to the homeowner during the housing crisis. During this time the homeowners were consistently set up with poorly maintained and written mortgages. With loans like the NINA loan (no assets, no income), these loans were given to set up homeowners to fail as they did not have to prove that they would or could pay their loan back. The result of these poorly written mortgages was that many homeowners had to move out and foreclose on their homes. These foreclosures happened in the masses leaving many expelled from their own homes.
It is interesting to note that within the first chapter, there is a consistent pattern of subtle foreshadowing as to the cause of Floren’s first expulsion. With Floren’s unknown cause of her original expulsion, it seems like her expulsion came out of nowhere and is the reason for her poor feelings towards her mother for sending her away. But Florens had no idea what troubles and experiences she would’ve endured had she stayed. Like at the beginning of the housing crisis and the constant trade of CDO’s most homeowners and borrowers had no idea what they were in for, almost no one could’ve seen the outcome of this crisis. Like the subtle foreshadowing that was missed by Florens, the subtle foreshadowing at the beginning of this crisis was also missed by homeowners, financial institutions, and almost everyone involved. Florens was unable to comprehend her struggles due to a corrupt and broken system of slavery, much like the complicated CDOs that many bankers did not understand, let alone the people who signed onto these complex fraudulent mortgages. In millions of cases, the 2008 housing crisis cost people their livelihood, homes (expulsion), and their life savings. Florens also experienced expulsion which she did not understand. The expulsion in both these cases was a lack of regulation, ethical decisions, and fueled by greed and hatred.
A Mercy by Toni Morrison was published in 2008, it leaves the reader wondering if perhaps Morrison wanted to draw attention to the pattern that this society creates and sustains conditions that expel people from their homes and families. Although, you can not closely compare the housing crisis to the brutality of slavery within America in the late 1600s. It is clear that society still remains prejudiced towards certain groups of people. People took advantage of people of color during slavery in the 17th century, during the 2008 crisis people from low-income households were taken advantage of because they were given loans that they couldn’t pay back. After centuries have passed, you can conclude people will take advantage of their power, corrupt systems, and social standing to achieve wealth and power even at the cost of dividing families and expelling them from society. Perhaps Morrison was playing on the idea of history repeating itself in different forms of systematic corruption.