Our traumas, Our hopes: the dynamics of a multicultural community in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy

• Autor(a) principal: Mancelos, João de
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/4281
• topic: Toni Morrison; A Mercy; Multiculturalism; Slavery; Otherness

Set in Maryland, during the 1680s, A Mercy (2008), Toni Morrison’s most recent novel, approaches the themes of colonization, slavery and multi-ethnic relationship. Three female characters — Florens, an African girl “with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady”; Lina, the only survivor of a tribe decimated by diseases transmitted by Europeans; and Sorrow, the white daughter of a sea captain — live together in a farm owned by an Anglo-Dutch trader. In this multicultural community, they share their traumas and hopes, while trying to understand each other’s individual and ethnic differences. In my paper I intend to examine how these girls’ narratives: a) Allow readers to understand the beginnings of slavery and the roots of racial hatred; b) Reveal the dynamics of the relationship between three females belonging to different ethnic groups; c) Anticipate the dream but also the challenges Abraham Lincoln would face, two centuries later, when he declared that all slaves would be “then, thenceforward, and forever, free”; d) Echo problems related to the interaction with the Other still alive in contemporary USA. In order to approach these subjects, I will resort to a combination of literary and historical approaches, as well as to my own opinion.