Analysis of A Mercy by Toni Morrison Essay Example

safe place in the world for waifs and whelps other than the generosity of strangers" (Morrison 30).Driven by that fact, Vaark sorts out to help other people who are like him; he has a particular soft spot for orphans and strays. One of his first acts of kindness for the orphaned includes freeing a trapped young raccoon whose mother had been forced to abandon. His act of accepting Florens as a debt settlement from D'Ortega is based more on mercy than a selfish need for slaves. He also owns Lina, a slave whose village had been wiped out by measles.

Jacob Vaark and his wife, Rebekka retreat from the community, with the ideology that they needed only themselves; the exact feelings one would have after being orphaned at such a tender age. Lina feels that Vaark and his wife lost the refuge and consolation of a clan "Sir and Mistress believed they could have honest free-thinking lives" (Morrison 46) .Vaark has a preference for female labour. He involves the help of female "orphans to assist him on the farm." Of all his workers, only two Willard and Scully are male, but being homosexuals, they do not fully command the status of "man." This preference might be due to the act of orphanage that his father instilled in him. He feels the males have a tendency for orphaning and so to avoid being abandoned again; he chooses to surround himself with the more stable gender.
In conclusion, suffering a loss and becoming an orphan is a major undercurrent to character development in Morrison's novel; it affects one's lifestyle; how an individual relates with others is entirely dependent on

the mercy of others.

Work cited

1. Morrison, Toni. A Mercy. New York: Knopf, 2008. Print.