Grace (novel)

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Gnade (Original title: A Mercy ) is Toni Morrison's ninth novel and was published on November 11, 2008. Similar to her Pulitzer Prize- winning work Menschenkind (Original title: Beloved ), the novel is primarily about slavery in early 17th-century America. Century. The second level is the relationship between mother and daughter - a mother who gives her daughter away to save her and a daughter who struggles with this repudiation.

content

action

The slave girl Florens works on Jacob Vaark's farm in the harsh north. Lina, an Indian who also works on the Vaarks farm, tells in a subplot how she was one of the few who survived a smallpox epidemic that destroyed her entire tribe. Rebekka, Jacob Vaark's wife, describes how she leaves England on a ship for the New World in order to marry a man she has never seen before. The death of their children is devastating to the Vaarks, and Jacob takes over young Florens, who can read and write, from a Portuguese debtor in Catholic Maryland in hopes of cheering his wife Rebekah and ending her loneliness. Jacob Vaark himself grew up an orphan in poor houses and made modest prosperity in the New World through trade and moneylending. During his travels through the young colonies, he ponders the function of religions in their cultures and the attitudes towards slavery resulting from them.

All these characters are robbed of their roots and try to survive in an environment new and strange to them, which is filled with danger and disease. When Rebekah fell ill with smallpox and her life was in danger, she sent the now 16-year-old Florens out to find a blacksmith, a free black man who knew the art of healing plants and who was previously on the Vaark farm building the new main house and entrance gate. Florens fell in love with him at the time, and the journey Rebekah sends her is said to be a turning point in her life.

people

  • Florens - slave who is rejected by her mother and handed over by her Portuguese master to Jacob Vaark in exchange for an open debt
  • Florens' mother - slave on the farm of a Portuguese master in Catholic Maryland
  • Lina - Indian woman and one of the few survivors of a smallpox epidemic that wiped out almost her entire tribe, was taken in by the Vaarks
  • Sorrow - daughter of a captain who survived a shipwreck and was also taken in by the Vaarks
  • Jacob Vaark - English-Dutch trader and adventurer with a small farm in the harsh north of the new colonies
  • Rebekka - Jacob's wife who came by ship from England
  • nameless blacksmith - free black man who knows not only blacksmithing but also natural healing methods
  • Willard - slave on a neighboring farm
  • Scully - slave on a neighboring farm

shape

The plot is told in different chapters, partly retrospectively, from the perspective of the different characters. The individual chapters come together in the course of the book to form an overall picture that reflects the harshness and brutality of life in the young American colonies of the 17th century.

Position in literary history

Classification in the work of the author

Grace is the ninth novel by Toni Morrison and was published in 2008.

reception

Reception upon arrival

Grace made it onto The New York Times Book Review list as one of the Top 10 Books of 2008.

In a review, the FAZ writes :

In “Gnade”, the American Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison returns to her roots in an impressive way. The novel even surpasses her masterpiece “Human Child”.

literature

Text output

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The 10 Best Books of 2008. Retrieved September 18, 2011
  2. ↑ The slave girl is worth twenty pesos. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine. June 11, 2010, accessed March 5, 2015