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Lina
Sorrow is a young woman and an orphan who works on the Vaarks’ farm. Several times during the book, characters imply that Sorrow is mixed race and heavily suggest that Sorrow suffers from some kind of mental illness or possession by evil spirits. Sorrow’s exact origins are unknown to everyone else in the book. As an adolescent, a lumberjack found Sorrow half drowned on a beach and took her back to his wife. Sorrow would tell them nothing about her prior life, so the lumberjack’s wife named her “Sorrow.” The lumberjack sold Sorrow to Jacob after she proved unable to complete simple tasks. During her chapter, Sorrow reveals that, prior to being found on the beach, she was a Captain’s daughter who had spent her whole life on a ship. When the ship was wrecked, Sorrow began hallucinating an imaginary friend, Twin. Sorrow became pregnant before arriving at the Vaarks farm. When Lina delivers her baby, she tells her it is stillborn and sets it in the river to be carried away. Sorrow is convinced the baby was alive and suffers greatly from the loss. The next time she becomes pregnant, presumably from her secret meetings with the deacon, Sorrow has a healthy baby. Following the birth of her child, Sorrow stops hallucinating and becomes more focused and capable. She renames herself “Complete.”
Sorrow Quotes in A Mercy
The A Mercy quotes below are all either spoken by Sorrow or refer to Sorrow. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
The blacksmith and Florens were rocking and, unlike female farm animals in heat, she was not standing quietly under the weight and thrust of the male. What Sorrow saw yonder in the grass…was not the silent submission…that Sorrow knew…It was a dancing…It all ended when the blacksmith grabbed Florens’ hair, yanked her head back to put his mouth on hers…It amazed her to see that. In all of the goings she knew, no one had ever kissed her mouth. Ever.
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Although all her life she had been saved by men— Captain, the sawyers’ sons, Sir and now Will and Scully— she was convinced that this time she had done something, something important, by herself.
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Chapter 10
Quotes
They once thought they were a kind of family because together they had carved companionship out of isolation. But the family they imagined they had become was false. Whatever each one loved, sought or escaped, their futures were separate and anyone’s guess.
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Sorrow Quotes in A Mercy
The A Mercy quotes below are all either spoken by Sorrow or refer to Sorrow. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
The blacksmith and Florens were rocking and, unlike female farm animals in heat, she was not standing quietly under the weight and thrust of the male. What Sorrow saw yonder in the grass…was not the silent submission…that Sorrow knew…It was a dancing…It all ended when the blacksmith grabbed Florens’ hair, yanked her head back to put his mouth on hers…It amazed her to see that. In all of the goings she knew, no one had ever kissed her mouth. Ever.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Although all her life she had been saved by men— Captain, the sawyers’ sons, Sir and now Will and Scully— she was convinced that this time she had done something, something important, by herself.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
They once thought they were a kind of family because together they had carved companionship out of isolation. But the family they imagined they had become was false. Whatever each one loved, sought or escaped, their futures were separate and anyone’s guess.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
