In Tony Morrison’s A Mercy, there are several female characters, both slave and white, who are terribly mistreated or below the status of most men. The first character we are introduced to is that of Florens, a young slave girl who begins in the care of a richer banana owner with her mother and her younger brother, and is later sold to Jacob, an Anglo-Dutch merchant to pay a debt.
From the start, the young lady is not seen as worthy of her first owner, as she is so eagerly dismissed with a simple, “Well, yes, of course, I’ll send her to you right away.” ).” He is not bothered or shaken by the fact that he is losing an apparently healthy enough slave, because she is female and therefore not valued as much as male slaves who are automatically considered stronger, more intelligent and more able to complete tasks.This sets the tone very early in the story, showing the audience that this is the reality of the situation, and that women really had no say in their fate.
She is also mistreated later in the story by the blacksmith with whom she not only had sex, but fell deeply in love with. When she is sent on her journey to retrieve the blacksmith so he can heal her mistress, he leaves a small child in her care. When she returns, she discovers that the boy has been injured and immediately blames Florens, as she describes, “The back of your hand hits my face… There are no tender fingers to touch where you hurt me. I cringe.” Although Florens has been a part of her life for a longer period of time, she immediately disowns her when she discovers that the child is injured, again putting the man in front of the woman and giving him a higher value.
The Native American woman, Lina, is also abused at the hands of a man. We come to find in the story that Lina has a pretty tragic past, but where feminism shows up the most is once again in the case of a lover. When the Presbyterians take her in after my illness killed her village, a lover beats her up and forces her to walk through town, bruised and bleeding, a very humiliating experience. Once again, this shows how invaluable women were, and the way Lina describes the wounds as if they were nothing is even more frightening when she says, “Lina’s swollen eye had subsided, and the cuts from the whipping on the face, arms and legs had healed and were barely there. noticeable.” The novel describes it as if these injuries were just a minor thing that she just had to suck on and wait to go away, when in reality this woman suffered a great deal of abuse. It is a subject that should never be taken lightly, but in this novel it is clearly pointed out that domestic violence against women was not considered a punishable crime, and it was not deepened into it.
Rebekka is a special case, because unlike the other two women described above, she is not a slave, but a mistress, commanded at sea to be Jacob Vaark’s wife. Due to religious intolerance in England, her family forces Rebekka to go to America and be the wife of this man, whom she has never seen before and therefore she cannot be in love with her. She has absolutely nothing to say about her future, and it’s simply a response to an ad in the newspaper, which says enough about the value of women right there that it was perfectly normal to run ads for women. Even when she is placed in the boat to take charge, she is immediately aware of the different treatment of the genders when “as soon as they were separated from the males…and herded into a dark space below, by the stables of the animals”. The women were treated on the same level as the animals, and were never given a second thought.
After taking a brief look at the lives of the characters, it is now important to delve briefly into feminist criticism. An important concept in this view is that of “traditional gender roles” which Lois Tyson describes as “projecting men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive, and women as emotional/irrational, weak, caring.” and submissive.” This is demonstrated throughout the book, as described above, and these “traditional gender norms” are the root cause of such discrimination. It is what feminists have been fighting against for centuries, and sadly, these norms are so deeply ingrained in people’s minds that we see them not only in literary works, but also in everyday life.
Another important concept to understand is the “patriarchal system,” which Tyson asserts “continually exerts forces that undermine women’s self-confidence and assertiveness, and then points to the absence of these qualities as evidence that women are naturally and , therefore, corrective, self-sufficient”. draft and submissive”. In lame-mens terms, what this concept simply says is that this is a male-dominated country, in which men hold the majority of the positions of power/highest level and, therefore, they have the authority to literally “run” everything Women are constantly responding to men and therefore it is men who make most of the decisions for us, which can lead to the needs of women being overlooked. This is again obviously demonstrated in the book, as all men are in positions of power and women are constantly submissive to them, be it in housework, sexual interactions, etc.
The patriarchal system has a great influence on this novel. Although feminism, as stated above, is not about attacking men, it does have a strong focus on how this particular country is male dominated. In this story, the same is true. Men are the heads of households without fail, and there are multiple examples of infidelity when it comes to men and their female slaves. It seems that women are expected to turn a blind eye when slaves become pregnant with mixed children, obviously created by their husbands, while if a woman were to do the same, the consequences would be dire.
When Jacob Vaark gets some money, he decides to build a separate house, even though they could use the money for a lot more things they really needed. Even though Rebekka is her wife, he doesn’t once check with her to see what she thinks she should spend her money on. She has nothing to say in the matter, because he is in charge and what she says goes, her opinion is not valued as it should be in a marriage. As mentioned above, their marriage was also arranged, proving once again that when a man wanted a woman for this or that, the women were expected to do so without a second thought, because the men ran the show.
Although Morrison’s novel is a very severe case of the patriarchal system at its worst due to the time period in which it is set, it still does a fairly accurate job of getting the message across. The attitudes and behaviors of the female characters are shaped by that system, because they are in lower status positions than the male characters at all times. Their needs and desires are secondary or completely overlooked, because those with the most power are the ones who make all the decisions. The women depicted in the novel behave as if it’s the norm that their opinions don’t matter in any way, and by showing this kind of mental abuse in the story, it opens people’s eyes to the fact that something must be done to change. this. .
Overall, A Mercy is not just a slave story, but a cry for help. Although discrimination like this is not as prevalent in today’s world (obviously since slavery was abolished), it is still very much alive in today’s culture. We still live in a patriarchal system, and women still have to fight ten times as hard to earn the same respect and positions as men. A Mercy is a great job at taking a feminist approach, and there’s a lot to learn if you take the time to read between the lines.