The Analysis Of A Mercy From The Perspective Of Sartre's Existentialism

A Mercy is one of the classic works of Afro-American black woman writer Toni Morrison.Shortly after its publication,the work received a great deal of enduring attention both in the circle of intellectuals and the press.A Mercy is set in around 1680,the early North American colonies period.It describes the miserable destiny and their final choice of the white farm owner Jacob,“mail bride” Rebecca,three female slaves who live at the farm and two white indentures before the establishment of slavery.This thesis aims to use Sartre's existentialism which states the world is absurd and the life is bitter;alienation;existence precedes essence and freedom of choice to analyze A Mercy written by Morrison.It explores the miserable life and painful experience of slaves and slave owners in this absurd word before the establishment of slavery.The self-alienation and alienated relationship caused by material and spiritual deficiency as well as free choice made by different people.This thesis is made up of five parts:Chapter One first introduces Toni Morrison's life experience and her main literary works as well as introduction to A Mercy.Then introduces the research background and literature review about the research on Morrison home and abroad.Chapter Two introduces the background of the emergence of Sartre's existentialism and its main theories.Main theories which used in the thesis include the world is absurd and the life is bitter,alienation,existence precedes essence and freedom of choice.Chapter Three analyzes A Mercy from the perspective of Sartre's existentialism: the world is absurd and the life is bitter.The absurdity of world is discussed from the perspective of chaos and irrationality of the world.In addition,the miserable life of the characters who live in this absurd word is also discussed.Chapter Four analyzes A Mercy from the perspective of Sartre's existentialism: alienation to explore the self-alienation and the alienated relationship of the characters in the novel.It discusses the deep reason caused alienation.Chapter Five analyzes Jacob's free choice for desire,Rebekka's free choice for religion and Florens' free choice for freedom from the most important part the freedom of choice of Sartre's existentialism.Based on the above analysis,this thesis concludes that Morrison's A Mercy has strong characteristic of Sartre's existentialism.Regardless of the establishment of slavery,people live in the absurd world suffering from psychological confusion such as anxiety,loneliness,helplessness and so on.Regardless of slave owner and slaves,become alienated in the material or spiritual deficiency and make their own life choices.The existentialism which is reflected in this novel makes people more aware of the nature of slavery and awaken the memory of black people to the history.What's more,it alerts that people should find their own identity.Slaves should not only get rid of physical slavery,but also get spiritual freedom.