Crafting First-Person Narrators: Lessons from Toni Morrison's A Mercy

Abstract

Crafting First-Person Narrators:Lessons from Toni Morrison's A Mercy Daniel Kennedy (bio) A few weeks ago, one of my creative writing students drafted an autofictional piece about high school friends competing for class office. The piece demonstrated good instincts, but it was overwritten. My student recognized this, too, after we read her work aloud. We agreed kids eating breakfast at an IHOP would likely say "tired" instead of "somnambulant." She asked how an author [End Page 97] could write lyrically without overwriting, especially in first person. I think about this challenge a lot. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and tend to write about underprivileged rural characters. Can these characters speak with elevated diction and syntax? Are they capable of ascribing figurative language to visceral feelings? One might encounter these questions in a workshop. While they aren't entirely devoid of merit, they're often framed as reductive binaries. Methods for solving the voice/verisimilitude riddle differ, depending on the work and its author. I wasn't sure this response would be useful to my student. I wanted to equip her with craft strategies—not bog her down with rigid rules. Fortunately, literature contains great examples of first-person narrators who are almost preternaturally articulate and believable. Florens, the protagonist of Toni Morrison's A Mercy, is one such narrator. A Mercy is set in the 1680s. Florens is a Black, teenage enslaved person. She spent her early years on a Maryland plantation before she was sold, at her mother's behest, to Jacob Vaark, an ambitious Dutch farmer. Given the oppressive circumstances in which she lives, Florens would probably not possess Morrison's linguistic skill; and yet, her poetic capability is established on page one: "You can think what I tell you a confession, if you like, but one full of curiosities familiar only in dreams and during those moments when a dog's profile plays in the steam of a kettle." Morrison fearlessly occupies Florens's perspective. She turns constraint into possibility, a craft technique that echoes Florens's personal growth as she wrestles with her life's many constraints. Over the course of the novel, we come to understand Florens's lyricism is true to her character's experience and plausible. How does Morrison strike this exquisite balance? [End Page 98] 1. The Strategic Release of Background Information A Mercy is a challenging read. It contains various points of view and moves back and forth through time. In the first chapter, we learn Florens' sections of the book are written texts: "Confession we tell not write as I am doing now." Her epistolary narrative addresses her mother and the man she loves, a mysterious blacksmith. At the same time, her sections describe much of the novel's central plot. The blacksmith, a free, Black man, arrives among a troupe of laborers to build a mansion for the Vaarks. He and Florens engage in a romance shortly thereafter. She's devasted when he leaves without saying goodbye; the sense of abandonment reminds her of her mother. Vaark dies from smallpox just as his dream home is completed. On the day of his funeral, his wife, Rebekka, realizes she is sick as well. She sends Florens to fetch the blacksmith, who, during his tenure with the Vaarks, healed an enslaved person named Sorrow. The book concludes with the first-person voice of Florens's mother. She addresses Florens, explaining she sent her daughter away to protect her. Florens remains tragically unaware of her mother's motive. The novel's choral narration operates like a set of mirrors. The structure allows Morrison to organically incorporate details of Florens's educational background. Lina, a Native American woman (her tribe is unnamed), lives on the Vaark farm. She becomes Florens's surrogate mother. From Lina, we gather that "[Florens] learned quickly, was eager to know more." Rebekka believes Florens will be successful in her journey to the blacksmith—a journey on which their lives depend—"because [Florens] was clever." Florens's life stems from the horrific abuse her mother endured on the D'Ortega plantation. In the final chapter, her mother notes how a reverend taught her and Florens "letters...