The Oppression of Women, Violence, and Female Community Theme Analysis

Throughout A Mercy, Morrison describes and portrays the extremely common and disturbing violence that women face at the hands of men in 17th-century America. Over the course of the book, women characters suffer brutal beatings and sexual violence, which are in turn condoned by the male-dominated society.

Though Jacob does not beat Rebekka, Rebekka notes that wife beating is “common” in colonial America, but only legal before nine at night and “with cause and not anger.” By drawing attention to how domestic violence is “restricted,” Morrison damningly shows how 17th-century colonial society institutionalized, normalized, and legalized domestic violence against women. Moreover, the law includes no protections for unmarried women, as Rebekka notes when she describes Lina’s past trauma. Lina suffered horrific violence when she was beaten and raped by a lover, leaving her traumatized and completely uninterested in sex.

And Lina is not the only character in the book to have suffered sexual violence— both Florens’s mother and Sorrow have been victims of rape as well, and lack any protection from sexual violence because of their gender and race. Sorrow first becomes pregnant as a young adolescent, meaning that the sex she had as a child could not have been consensual. Moreover, when Sorrow watches Florens and the Blacksmith have sex, she is fascinated by its affection and intimacy because it is totally unlike her own experiences of sexual violence. As Sorrow watches the Blacksmith kiss Florens, she notes that no one she had sex with ever kissed her on the mouth, suggesting the violent nature of Sorrow’s sexual experience.

Meanwhile, Morrison reveals at the end of the book that Florens’s mother was raped at the orders of her master D’Ortega, and at the hands of D’Ortega himself. The violence that Florens’s mother endures is so traumatizing that she would rather send her daughter away from her, never to see her again, than watch her suffer the same fate.

Violence against women is perhaps so rampant in the book because of the societal space women occupied in the colonies in the 17th century, when most women in America were considered to be the property of white men, either as slaves, indentured servants, or wives. Enslaved women, who were generally black or native, were particularly vulnerable to violence and assault. Florens’s mother, for example, describes being raped by a group of men assigned by her master to “break her in”—a level of violence possible because of her low status as a black slave.

However, even white, unindentured women are depicted as property to be trafficked, though they do not suffer nearly the level of violence that the enslaved women of color do. Rebekka, for example, becomes Jacob’s wife when her father sends her away in exchange for monetary compensation. The money is supposedly to cover Rebekka’s voyage, but her father clearly sees this as an opportunity to transact his daughter for profit. Meanwhile, because women are considered to be the property of men in 17th-century America, society marginalizes women who are untethered to men, like widows and single mothers.

Clearly, Morrison shows how all the women in the book are susceptible to violence and oppression because of their gender. Florens’s mother sums up Morrison’s portrait of female pain when she states “to be female in this place is to be an open wound that cannot heal. Even if scars form, the festering is ever below.” In other words, womanhood in early colonial America is defined by trauma, oppression, and their inevitable and lasting aftereffects.

Though the violence that they suffer causes them immeasurable pain, the women in the book find comfort in the relationships they forge with other women who have undergone similar trauma. For example, on the boat from Europe, Rebekka connects with a group of women from different social classes (including prostitutes and disgraced middle class women). Together, the women talk about their lives in the context of men and their limitations as women, and discuss sex and how the commodification of women’s bodies affects them. It is from the women that Rebekka learns about sex, showing how female communities can allow women to share knowledge and provide support. Despite their racial difference, Rebekka and Lina also enjoy a close friendship, giving a space for Lina to talk about her past trauma. Only Sorrow fails to form strong female relationships in the book, and Rebekka thinks this is because Sorrow was taught to seek male attention since she was not raised by women as a child. Morrison shows that while the trauma, violence, and oppression of womanhood burden the novel’s female characters, the women respond to these heartbreaks by forming supportive relationships apart from the male world.