Close Reading of Toni Morrison’s A Mercy (October 2020)
Toni Morrison. Image from the New York Times.
Toni Morrison, A Mercy, Knopf, 2008, pp. 6-7:
Once every seven days we learn to read and write. We are forbidden to leave the place so the four of us hide near the marsh. My mother, me, her little boy and Reverend Father. He is forbidden to do this but he teaches us anyway watching out for wicked Virginians and Protestants who want to catch him. If they do he will be in prison or pay money or both. He has two books and a slate. We have sticks to draw through sand, pebbles to shape words on smooth flat rock. When the letters are memory we make whole words. I am faster than my mother and her baby boy is no good at all. Very quickly I can write from memory the Nicene Creed including all of the commas. Confession we tell not write as I am doing now. I forget almost all of it until now. I like talk. Lina talk, stone talk, even Sorrow talk. Best of all is your talk. At first when I am brought here I don’t talk any word. All of what I hear is different from what words mean to a minha mãe and me. Lina’s words say nothing I know. Nor Mistress’s. Slowly a little talk is in my mouth and not on stone. Lina says the place of my talking on stone is Mary’s Land where Sir does business. So that is where my mother and her baby boy are buried. Or will be if they ever decide to rest.
The literary voice of the narrator in the excerpt of Toni Morrison’s A Mercy is in-development. Through references to adult figures such as the Reverend father, her youth and literary minority are clear. However, this linguistic immaturity acts as a device in itself, simple sentence structure and choppy voice heightening the contrast between the narrator and others. The use of tenses, capitalization, etc. follow suit, resulting in the narrator’s linguistic growth and relationship to others rendered visible through her use of language. This excerpt of A Mercy engages stylistic elements to isolate the narrator from those around her and to develop her literate and autonomous identity within the context of power dynamics around her.
The narrative is in the first-person which not only severs the distance between audience and speaker, but separates the narrator from other characters. The narrator writes in a diary-like tone: stream-of-consciousness and very intimate. Sentences including “we” such as “we learn to read and write” and “We are forbidden” draw in the audience as though they are also taking part in the narrative, or are part of her family (Morrison 6). This narration style also severs the narrator from the other characters and establishes a ‘we versus them’ implication. For instance, a “we” is not established with some of the characters: “Sir does business” and “Nor Mistress’s” and “Lina says the place of my talking on stone is Mary’s Land” are all stand-alone (Morrison 6). In this way, while the audience is aligned with the narrator and her family, the other characters are held at arm’s length.
The narrator is shown to be estranged from institutions and to question morality of power through diction the development of a ‘he’ figure. The Reverend Father is the only developed male character in the excerpt, his appearance marking the only use of the pronoun “He”. The text implies him as a figure of power: an older teacher, even a possible surrogate father figure. His role is as a subject in the sentence: “He is forbidden to do this but he teaches us anyway watching out for wicked Virginians and Protestants who want to catch him” (Morrison 6). At odds directly are “forbidden” and “wicked” appear as morally conflicting adjectives; though they have complementary implications they are utilized at odds causing us to question: Who is morally skewed? The Reverend Father or the Virginians and Protestants? The fact that all three are capitalized only adds to the confusion. This unresolved ambiguity adds moral confusion and confusion of power as the narrator’s autonomy is developed.
The unnamed narrator is linguistically separated from her family through an implied time barrier. We are introduced to “My mother, me, [and] her little boy” early in the excerpt. Despite “my mother and her little boy” being repeated twice more throughout the excerpt, the boy is never referred to as the narrator’s brother, distancing him further from her (Morrison 6). “My mother” is the only use of “my” throughout except “my mouth” and “my talking”, suggesting possessiveness is unique to agency and memory. There is even an odd distance from the mother which is explained when it is revealed at the end that she is dead. However, throughout the excerpt, the text remains ironically in the present tense, keeping the mother in close proximity. This, accompanied by the repetition of the word memory, indicates the possessive tendency of the narrator is directed toward the memory of her mother rather than her mother herself. This ties into the concept of self, as well, as the inclusions of “memory” (“when the letters are memory” and “Very quickly I can write from memory”) point to the narrator’s growing independence (Morrison 6).
Structurally, the poem develops chronologically from an ‘us’ perspective to a more autonomous perspective through the development of the use of pronouns. The first few sentences are collective: “We are forbidden to leave”, and “We have sticks to draw through sand” (Morrison 6). These refer presumably to the narrator’s family under the tutelage of the Reverend Father. However, an isolating transition occurs in the latter part of the poem: “I am faster than my mother”, and “I like talk” (Morrison 6). In these, a sense of autonomy is developed almost as though the narrator is aging in the time it takes to read the sentences. Additionally, the use of pronouns and comparative adverbs (“faster”) suggest a growing self-awareness and awareness of others. Our field of vision narrows throughout the passage to focus on the developing skills of the narrator.
The narrator’s diction and tenses suggest that she is still learning English, implying power differences between her and other characters and suggesting development of her intellectual identity. While it is established at the end that the narrator is an orphan, the early sentences speak of the family in the present tense: “Once every seven days we learn to read and write” (Morrison 6). Using the present tense to describe the past indicates either a very fast chronological development or a lack of knowledge of how to use past tense. The latter is indicated by conjugation mistakes and the simple structure of sentences: “I like talk. Lina talk, stone talk, even Sorrow talk” (Morrison 6). The simplicity of the structures and the sentence fragment in the second example illustrate the author having limited literacy, indicating a learning-state in the narrator.
The speaker’s identity is developed in parallel to her own literary education and is shown through her capitalization choices. Several instances of capitalization particularly shed insight on her identity: “Reverend Father” (Christian influence) and “Nicene Creed” (and text) and “Mary’s Land” (and afterlife), and “Mistress” and “Sir” (power figures, impassively described) (Morrison 6). The capitalization of religious mentions and honorifics demonstrate a level of division between those characters and the narrator. Evidently, the narrator has been taught respect for Christianity and for whoever the power figures designated by “Mistress” and “Sir” are. This indicates that part of her education was to teach her she was subordinate to others; the use of honorific could merely be a biproduct of childhood respect, or an indication of a greater power complex like servitude. Capitalization evokes respect, authority, identity; part of the narrator’s own identity consists of her relationship to preestablished institutions and people whose power over her preceded her education.
The informal voice and first-person narrative fosters an intimacy between the reader and narrator while simultaneously rendering her and other characters discrete. This vitalizes the individuality of the narrator, and causes the reader to grow with her as she learns to capitalize words, comes to understand the power dynamics around her, and subsequently expresses those dynamics in literary form. The precedence of narrator over other characters is unique because the narrator is clearly subordinated to the narrators at least by age, if not by further social strata. In reversing power roles by giving the narrator agency over literary form, this excerpt has the ultimate effect of yielding insight into a usually minimized perspective, and all the literary forms used serve to heighten and create a communion between the reader and that perspective.
Works Cited
Morrison, Toni. A Mercy. Knopf, 2008.
