Stephanie Babatunde is a student at Bowie State University with a major in Communications and a concentration in Public Relations. She plans to use her degree to work with community-based organizations whose mission is to give back by caring for and supporting children, youth and families. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to music, dancing and watching movies.
Introduction:
First person narrative is an aspect of point of view where the story is narrated by one character at a time (Surber). The character may be talking about themselves or about something that they are experiencing (Surber). When we read from this point of view we are only hearing or seeing the story unfold from one perspective. This means that we may have limited insight because everything we are reading is being filtered from only one point of view so we are basically only getting one side of the story (Surber). So that means that when a character shares his or her experience or describes an event that might have taken place, they are only giving us their interpretation of what happened and it may not be accurate because it lacks a full description of what actually happened. We can see this take place in the story A Mercy by Toni Morrison.
First Person Narrative:
In the story, the main character Florens and her mother both experience a life changing situation and they both view this experience in two different ways. We are able to see and understand how both characters interpreted this event because their perspectives are told from a first person narrative in the story. We know their stories are being told from a first person point of view because when a character uses pronouns like I, me, my, us, we and our, this tells us that the story is being told from a first person point of view (Ross). An example of this from the text is found in Chapter 1 when Florens, discusses from her perspective how her Mother begged for Jacob to take Florens as payment. She says “I know it is true because I see it forever and ever. Me watching, my mother listening, her baby boy on her hip.” (Morrison 7). “Take the girl, she says, my daughter, she says. Me. Me.” (Morrison 7). Here Florens is using first person pronouns like I, my, and me, which helps us to know that she is the one speaking and telling the story. This is how we know Florens is a narrator in the story. We know that Florens’ mother is another narrator in the story because in Chapter 12 when she is explaining her thoughts and feelings about Florens, she uses first person pronouns. For example, she says “I heard their voices and gathered you and your brother to stand in their eyes.”, “I knelt before him. Hoping for a miracle. He said yes” (Morrison 166).
Importance of First Person Narrative:
It is not only important for us to understand first person narrative but it’s also important to understand why an author would use this aspect of point of view in a story. In the story A Mercy, because of the authors use of first-person narrative, we were able to have insight on how both Florens and her mother felt about the pivotal moment in both of their lives, when Florens’ mother begs for Florens to be taken as payment (Morrison 7). As we read the story we see that Florens felt abandoned by her Mother for begging for Jacob to take her. We know this is how she feels when she says “I step into the room. Standing there are a man, three women and a little girl who reminds me of myself when my mother sends me away” (Morrison 110-111). After seeing a little girl that is about the same age Florens was when she was sold to Jacob, Florens recalls that moment and refers to it as the moment her mother sent her away. Florens feels like her Mother gave her away. On the other hand, when we read Florens’ mother’s thoughts on what happened we understand why she begged for Jacob to take Florens (Morrison 162-167). In short, after Florens’ mother experiences being sexaully abused by D’Ortega, she wanted to protect Florens from having to deal with the same trauma. Florens was getting older and would soon begin to develop and she feared that D Ortega would begin to abuse Florens too. She knew Florens would be safer with Jacob because Jacob was not cruel like D’Ortega. So when the moment arose, Florens’ mother took advantage of the opportunity for the sake of protecting her daughter.
When we read Florens and her mother's personal account on the same experience, it helps us to see that people can interpret the same experience in completely different ways. We also see that the way someone interprets a situation may be influenced by their own experiences in life. Florens was a young girl and had not experienced the tragedies of life like her mother. As a mother wanting to protect her child, Florens’ mother views this moment as “a mercy” because she was able to use this opportunity between Jacob and D’Ortega in favor of Florens and protecting her from being abused (Morrison 166-167). On the other hand, due to being young, naive and not having much experience in life, Florens could only interpret that moment in a literal sense and could only see it as her mother abandoning her by begging someone else to take her.
In conclusion, it was important for the author, Toni Morrison, to have Florens and her mother narrate their side of the story because we were able to understand and gain insight on the thoughts, feelings and reasonings behind both characters. After reading their narratives we now understand both sides of the story and are able to understand both characters and sympathize with both of them. We sympathize for Florens because we understand that from her point of view, it looks like her mother begged for her to be taken away and basically abandoned her. We also sympathize with Florens’ mother because after hearing her point of view we see that she did not abandon her child but did what she had to do in order to protect her child and that her decision was influenced by her experience of being abused. Without the author including first person point of view for these essential characters in the story, we would not have an accurate understanding of what happened with Florens and her mother.
References:
Morrison, Toni. A Mercy. New York: Knopf, 2008. Print.
Ross, Brittney. “First, Second, and Third Person.” Grammarly Blog., n.d. Retrieved from:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/first-second-and-third-person/
Surber, Katie. “First Person Narrator: Definition & Example.” Study.com, n.d. Retrieved
from: https://study.com/academy/lesson/first-person-narrator-definition-
example.html