A Mercy unveils the story of an Anglo-Dutch farm owner whose life has been closely associated with the genesis of the American society under colonization, racism, and slavery. While the story itself presents deep insights into the life and thoughts of an enslaved woman told from Florens’s perspective, the imagery of America in the 1680s, as well as the psychological portrait of Jacob, are depicted through the prism of wildlife and nature of the American land (Morrison 2008). Thus, the dramatic novel about the challenges and pure excitement of the New Land uses nature as a reflection of Jacob’s complex yet unique journey of discovering America and social institutions at the time.
Jacob’s story begins with a meticulous description of his impressions from stepping into a new land:
The man moved through the surf, stepping carefully over pebbles and sand to shore. Fog, Atlantic and reeking of plant life, blanketed the bay and slowed him… Because the mast had disappeared in the fog, he could not tell whether they remained anchored or risked sailing on – hugging the shore and approximating the location of wharves and docks. (Morrison 2008, 9).
Thus, in the quote above, the fog and mast represent the uncertainty with which Jacob begins the new chapter of his life far away from home. While hesitant about the future and the life waiting for the man in the New Land, the excitement for the sun and diverse flora symbolizes the genesis of a challenging yet completely different life as a farm owner in New England.
Morrison wittily compares the start of Jacob’s new life with the concept of new life genesis and Noah’s Ark. When describing Jacob’s feelings of the hardship and pure interest, she mentions:
Once beyond the warm gold of the bay, he saw forests untouched since Noah, shorelines beautiful enough to bring tears, and wild food for the taking. (Morrison 2008, 12)
In such a way, the author emphasizes that while acknowledging the hardship of building a life from scratch, Jacob feels excited to conquer the new land. The purity and wilderness of nature symbolize man’s desire to take the land and make the most out of a blissful and untouched paradise. Later, the excitement leads to Jacob giving up his moral principles towards slavery, as a man on a hunt for a better future, he feels compelled to follow suit of people like D’Ortega.
Fueled by the power of creating his future and controlling the lives of other human beings, Jacob eventually shared a rather conquering sentiment with nature. For example, Florens recalls that one time, before his wife’s arrival, Jacob “was a hurricane of activity laboring to bring nature under his control” (Morrison 2008, 49). After realizing that no land, however pure and controlled, would never kneel to a man, he felt nothing but despair and genuine sadness about his insignificance. In a certain way, his attitude towards slavery had something in common: while Jacob knew perfectly well that human life was something he neither would nor event wanted to possess, his willingness to prove worthy in society encouraged him to play along with the master game of owning people’s lives.
From the perspective of Florens, Jacob’s connection with nature was a two-way relationship that found the way of retaliation to a man. Thus, according to the young girl, Jacob ordered to kill nearly fifty trees to build a third house, a mansion many people considered useless (Morrison 2008, 43). At the time, the man “decided to kill the trees and replace them with a profane monument to himself” (Morrison 2008, 44). The moment Jacob became less thoughtful and so superficial was the moment he refused to accept nature as power over him. According to Florens, it was vanity that led to malfortune and subsequent death.
Despite being a questionable farmer, due to both lack of experience and hard work, Jacob never considered animals cattle to handle and kill. On the contrary, he perceived domestic animals as a human responsibility and could not bear the thought of violence towards animals. When he once saw how a man was beating a horse near the tavern, the author mentioned that “few things angered Jacob more than the brutal handling of domestic animals” (Morrison 2008, 28). At the same time, Jacob found himself a man condoning slavery. No matter how gentle and respectful the man tried to be, he still accepted the responsibility of being a legal owner to innocent young women who served him for many years.
Considering the quotes and images above, it can be concluded that the story of nature and wildlife in A Mercy is a reflection of Jacob’s life in New England. In the beginning, frightened and excited, the man found himself in the pure wilderness of the foggy and hot land. Later, when Jacob started to grow as a man and a landowner, he tried to conquer nature and prove his superiority to the Gods above. However, once he believed that his human life was worth more than everything living, his existence ended shortly, demonstrating how a person could never act in spite of nature’s callings.
Reference
Morrison, Toni. 2008. A Mercy. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.