By the end of Toni Morrison’s, A Mercy, we presumably are meant to have become increasingly conscious of the divide and social instability of the United States around the 17th century. Although the narrative itself is primarily focused on the transatlantic slave trade, Morrison goes out of her way to explore and depict the other historical patterns of segregation during that time period; we catch varying themes of discrimination amongst gender, religious ideologies, economic status, and even get to see the infamous Northern practices of persecuting “witches”. Within the hostile setting of a divided United States, Morrison carefully creates a pleasant contrast with the characters she presents in the novel. The central figure of A Mercy, Florens, is a 16-year-old enslaved girl who has made it her mission to fulfill a deep attraction to a blacksmith who once worked on a nearby house for her owner, Jacob Vaark. One of the other main dynamics of the novel involves the evolution and preservation of a bond resembling an odd kinship amongst all those on Jacob Vaark’s farm—those characters being: Rebekka, Jacob’s wife; Lina, a Native-American slave girl who has been on the farm the longest besides Jacob himself; Sorrow, a pregnant slave girl who is the newest character on the farm; Willard and Scully, two indentured servants hoping to pay off previously held debts; and Florens, who arrives on the farm after being given up to Vaark by her own mother. The final bond Morrison presents is the underlying force of the novel—the innate bond of mother and child, which we are granted from multiple perspectives. Throughout A Mercy, the pre-established relationships amongst these characters becomes threatened as different situations and outcomes ultimately blur the emotional contrast between a divided nation and a loving bond. Leading off with Jacob Vaark’s death, Morrison forces us to observe how the intimacy between such characters succumbs to the destructive nature of their setting. One of the most recurring relationships presented in A Mercy is a familiar one of love and sexual desire. Florens’ infatuation with the Blacksmith is the prime example, as it is clear that her every action is motivated by her uninterrupted desire for him. Although we can presume that Florens subconsciously chases after the Blacksmith due to her acquired fear of being abandoned once again, it is evident that Florens truly does have a yearning to be with the Blacksmith. Her lust for the Blacksmith seems to delve even deeper than just sexual desire, as she claims that because the Blacksmith is a free man, he can offer her protection from the evils of the world (Morrison 122). She is bound to the Blacksmith in every sense of the matter, which unfortunately becomes the cause of the relationship’s tragic end. When she finally finds the Blacksmith, she learns that he has been caring for a child, Malaik, and out of her own untamed love and jealousy, she breaks the child’s arm while looking after him. After the Blacksmith learns what has happened, he slaps and scolds Florens, saying, “Own yourself, woman, and leave us be. You could have killed this child…You are nothing but wilderness. No constraint. No mind. You shout the word—mind, mind, mind—over and over and then you laugh, saying as I live and breathe, a slave by choice” (Morrison 173). Florens’ desire to be with the Blacksmith is tainted with the elements of bondage and slavery familiar to the novel’s setting; though she is not presented to us as a typical slave by the standards of the time period, she has allowed herself the equivalent by becoming a slave to her own boundless desire. The Blacksmith, a mysterious figure of individuality and a proud outcast to his society, detests the thought of Florens’ devotion to himself; it becomes a resemblance to the oppressive structure of the society of which he has graciously broken free. At least by making Florens aware of this, he grants her the opportunity to potentially free herself from her own constraints, but nevertheless, shatters Florens image of an eternal bond. One of the more interesting relationships in the novel seems to exist between Rebekka, Lina, Florens, and Sorrow—between slave and slave-owner. Typically imagined as a callous, malicious, whip-yielding, individual, Toni Morrison challenges the stereotypical image of a slave owner by way of Rebekka. Like Jacob, Rebekka prefers to treat the slaves on the farm as partners in the never-ending objective of completing chores on the farm. This companionship amongst each of them goes as far as Lina delivering Rebekka’s first child, and even attempting to heal her when she falls ill. However, the improbability of having a caring slave owner with a heart innocent and unaffected by the destructive nature of the environment becomes exactly that—improbable. From the semi-objective perspective of Scully, he explains “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…Minus bloodlines, he saw nothing yet on the horizon to unite them” (Morrison 190). Despite tackling the same day-to-day objectives on the farm, there was considerably more that divided Rebekka and each of the slaves than there was that could unite them. At a certain point in A Mercy, it becomes clear that they cannot overlook and overcome the corrupted difference in power between them, and ultimately, Rebekka falls into the abyss of unwarranted control. What was once an artificial kinship, tumbles into the paradigm of slave and slave-owner relationships; Rebekka becomes what we initially expected, as she eventually beats Sorrow, unnecessarily tears down Lina’s hammock, and chooses to sell Florens. By the end of the novel we have a character-character dynamic that, unfortunately, parallels its setting. The overarching relationship that drives the novel is the timeless bond of motherhood we see displayed by not one, but many of the central characters in A Mercy. We would assume that Rebekka, a woman whose children are a direct product of an honest and loving marriage, would have the most pleasant experience with motherhood. And indeed, for the time being, she does. However, she is forced to eventually grieve each of her children’s deaths, as each one of her sons does not survive past infancy, and her daughter, Patrician, passes away after being kicked in the head by one of the horses on the farm. Rebekka’s tragic experience with motherhood serves to compare and contrast with the continuous grief and heartbreak experienced by many slave mothers at the time. Rebekka’s agony is a symbol of the unfortunate circumstances that all women are capable of suffering. The most appropriate example of a suffering slave-mother would be the excruciating decision that Florens’ mother is forced to make. When Jacob Vaark arrives to the tobacco plantation, D’Ortega, the owner of the plantation, insists that Vaark take one of his slaves to pay off a debt that D’Ortega owes Vaark (though Vaark is not too keen on this offer). Florens’ mother, understanding the position Vaark is put in, begs him to take her daughter, Florens, over her infant son who is still nursing. What further accentuates the tormenting decision, is that as Florens narrates her perspective, we learn that she is convinced her mother gives her up simply as a matter of preference of her little brother. It is not until the final chapter that her mother tells us she only gives Florens to Jacob Vaark to protect her; as Florens is quickly growing, Florens’ mother realizes that she will soon, like herself, become victim of D’Ortega’s ongoing sexual abuse. Understanding this, she observes Jacob Vaark’s mannerisms and behavior and claims, “I saw things in his eyes that said he did not trust Senhor, Senhora or their sons. His way, I thought, is another way. His country far from here. There was no animal in his heart. He never looked at me the way Senhor does. He did not want” (Morrison 198). In an environment that aims to obscure any bond between a mother and daughter, Florens’ mother is forced to abandon that idea entirely as she accepts the only way to save Florens’ life is to give her up to be a slave on another man’s farm. While she is there, she will be forced to believe her own mother has abandoned her, but at least she will be safe. The oddest mother-daughter relationship seems, appropriately, to come from the oddest character in the novel—Sorrow. A mixed-race slave that Vaark acquires out of sympathy, Sorrow is described as not only being useless, but problematic as well. Several characters heavily suggest that Sorrow could in fact be mentally-ill or, as Lina suggests, possessed by evil spirits. This notion of mental illness is somewhat confirmed when we learn that following a ship-wreck, Sorrow begins to hallucinate an imaginary friend whom she interacts with and calls “Twin”. Sorrow arrives to Jacob Vaark’s farm already pregnant, leaving us unsure of the child’s father. When the time comes, Lina is eventually held in charge of delivering Sorrow’s child; however, Lina tells Sorrow that the baby is stillborn and Lina proceeds to set the baby in a river to be carried away. Sorrow is convinced that the baby was alive, and Lina has drowned her child. However, Sorrow is pregnant a second time after having “secret meetings” with the deacon, and fortunately delivers a healthy baby towards the end of the novel. After the birth of her child, Sorrow stops seeing her hallucinations and becomes more focused and capable of doing day-to-day tasks. She chooses to change her name from Sorrow to “Complete”. Although she does suffer the death of her first child, she becomes the sole character who ends up pleased with her experience of motherhood. Being the only character on Vaark’s farm who arrives already pushed beyond the standard sorrows of the transatlantic slave trade, she somehow finds luxury in becoming a mother. Although she is a slave mother, she has filled a void within herself that has previously been occupied by “Twin”, and now she is “Complete”, making her the only character in the novel with some sort of an enduring bond. Setting the novel during one of the most horrific pasts of the United States history, Toni Morrison initially presents her characters as if they were meant to somehow surmount the standards of separation and misery. The Vaark farm, comprised of a few slaves and two slave owners, is a clear outcast to its society; by developing relationships where relationships should not have been formed, A Mercy’s central characters of the Vaark farm come off as somewhat heroic by standing up to inhumane norms. However, Toni Morrison challenges the concept of this simple “feel good” story by eventually dismantling the artificial kinships and meaningful relationships formed on this farm. Sparked by the death of Jacob Vaark, a linear chain of events shows us how each character becomes (or has become) susceptible to the corrupted nature of their society. With differing social perspectives and widely polar rankings of class surrounding them, each one of these humbled and happy bonds falls victim to its setting. Morrison goes out of her way in A Mercy to demonstrate, with a few exceptions like Sorrow, that a bond formed within a destructive setting, will ultimately be forced to wilt at the root of its creators. A Mercy is not a “feel good” story by any means, but it stands as testament to the merciless will of a flawed society.