Toni Morrison’s a Mercy

A novel exploring life in the New World during pre-colonial times, Toni Morrison’s A Mercy delves into the mind of a complex character as he struggles to progress through life while hanging on to his morals. He is not an evil person. Even enjoys the simpler things in life. Not the sort of man to condone the practice of human trafficking, much less profit from this sort of activity. He would never take an eight-year old girl from her mother and force this child to live in the unbearable conditions that an orphan like himself was forced to live through. At least that is what he wants to believe.

The reader, however, is able to see Jacob Vaark, the ambitious Anglo-Dutch trader, farmer, lender, and orphan from a different perspective. He is a man who likes to think of himself as having certain morals and sticking to them. He is not willing to compromise these morals for personal benefit. The facts that are revealed throughout the novel, however, tell a different story. He claims to disagree with the practice of using slaves. As it turns out “Sir” ends up owning not one or two but three slaves. These slaves end up doing almost all of the work that allows his farm to function properly. Having experienced the life of an orphan, how could he possibly impose this hardship on another? Jacob takes an eight year old girl from her mother and younger sister and forces her to work on his land. He does not wish to traffic in slavery