A Mercy - Toni Morrison

“I am nothing to you. You say I am wilderness. I am. Is that a tremble on your mouth, in your eye? Are you afraid? You should be.”

Toni Morrison, A Mercy

Toni Morrison explained that she wrote A Mercy to explore a time before slavery was identified with race. This may help readers to consider race more as described here:

“an interplay with other social determiners, such as gender and class. Moreover, we must resist the trigger reaction that interprets ‘race’ to reference black-white relations, given that in colonial America another different people lived here who were subjected to biological mayhem as well as painstakingly plotted genocide.”

From the introduction to Critical Approaches: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy, edited by Shirley A. Stave and Justine Tally

Differing perspectives and narrative styles tell the story. As we read, we notice how the land—the specific geographical settings—impact character and tellings; we also see different paradigms: for example, what is ownership to one character is something different to another . . .

A Mercy is a study of displaced peoples. Instead of focusing on (and singling out) the experience of black Americans, Morrison chooses a moment in the history of the United States—in the moment before this land comes to be called the United States—and explores the lives of the collection of people creating a home in wilderness. These ideas are connected to post-colonial theory, race issues and immigrant cultural adaptations, but perhaps what is new in our understanding today is how prevalent and constant the loss of home is for peoples across history.

We may each experience aspects of displacement in our own lives, and this may open us to a kind of understanding—but I believe through literature—the carefully evoked experience of others—we may start to understand with greater complexity the precarious experience of the displaced identity—and the strategies and creativity one uses to respond to this upheaval.

For anyone who has read Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!,   A Mercy  is in part Morrison’s response to that explosive text. 

JOINING DETAILS:

• Three week study on Zoom, facilitated by Toby Brothers and Deborah Lawunmi
• Tuesdays, 2, 9 & 16 September 2025, 5.30 – 7.30 pm (UK)
• £120 for three meetings with two facilitators (includes notes and critical resources)
• Recommended edition:  A Mercy by Toni Morrison, Vintage, ISBN-13: 978-0099502548

REDUCED COSTS: we are committed to making our studies as affordable as possible. We have a fund in place to support anyone who would like to register for a study but finds the cost difficult to afford. We can’t promise to help, but please email us at litsalon@gmail.com in confidence if you would like to request a reduction in the cost of a study.