Mercy And Florens In Toni Morrison's A Mercy

Toni Morrison’s novel “A Mercy” is set in the late 1600s around modern day Pennsylvania or Virginia. Throughout the book, we see perspectives from multiple different people during the growing slave trade in the New World. One of the main characters is Florens, an African American young girl born into slavery. She is given away because of a debt to Jacob Vaark, a white heir to a farm. During her narrative, she suffers and is shown and shows compassion in many different ways, which evolves into to mercy. However, universal mercy is not shown. While “Mercy” describes large-scale forgiveness and pity, “A Mercy” is the best name for Morrison’s novel because the mercy shown to and by Florens is not noticed immediately; instead the action is not perceived
The blacksmith is a free African American man who earns the respect of Vaark. He assists the blacksmith in building Vaark’s houses and also cures Sorrow, another worker on the farm, of disease. When Rebekka, Vaark’s wife falls ill, Florens is sent to find the blacksmith. When Florens makes the difficult journey and arrives at the blacksmith’s house, she meets another boy whom the blacksmith takes care of like a son. After breaking the boy’s arm, the blacksmith tells Florens “I want you to go.. Because you are a slave.. Your head is empty and your body is wild” (Morrison 166). Florens realizes that this relationship the blacksmith has with the boy seems like the relationship of her mother and Florens. In this scene, the blacksmith is telling Florens that she is emotionally unstable and constantly feels unprotected even when she has people that care for her (Explain Lina???). Therefore, she is a slave to herself; she relies on other people to try to feel protected and loved. It is not until this event that Florens realizes that she has been too dependent on others, such as Minha Mae throughout the entire book. Because of her instability to think for herself after being haunted that she was not prioritized, she relied on the blacksmith for
Senhor D’Ortega, the original owner of both Minha Mae and Florens, owed a debt to Jacob Vaark. When Vaark tries to choose the Minha Mae as payment for debt, Minha Mae kneels and begs Vaark to take Florens. In Floren’s perspective, she sees this action as “saying something important to me, but holding the little boy’s hand” (Morrison 9). Through Floren’s perspective, she sees her mother as doing something that contradict each other; loving Florens but giving her away and prioritizing her son over her. When the Minha Mae tells Florens something important, that she will live a better life with Vaark because the Minha Mae knows that Vaark does not see slaves as property, but more as human beings. Therefore, she is conveying mercy, by asking Florens to be taken away to live a better life. However, Florens perceives this action as a method for Minha Mae to get rid of her. When Minha Mae holds her son’s hand, Florens thinks that she cares more about him than her, even though the Minha Mae wants Florens to go away for her to have a better life. After Florens is moved to Vaark’s farm, she experiences many new things. As the Minha Mae knew, Florens was treated more as a human being than property as a