Freedom In Toni Morrison's A Mercy

feeling of maternal love. In fact, August is described as the intelligent woman who offers both Lily and Rosaleen refuge. Lily portrays August’s glorious appearance by stating that “I felt like a moon floating behind a night cloud” (114). She is the black woman who defies norms and chooses her independence as she says, “I just loved my freedom more” (182). She lives with two sisters, June and May by offering them care and nurturing. She attempts to get her depressed sister, May, who Lily describes as a stranger woman to feel better. She is the one who has lost her twin sister, April, and there her inner pain starts. May’s dead sister is represented as the mirror that she identifies herself with. Her death has broken May who mourns her sister

This wall stands asa therapeutic tool that compensatesfor her dead sister’s loss. Through the wailingwall, May is able to report her inner traumas. This act recalls Morison’s protagonist, Florens, who manages to recover from her past traumas through writing her own story on both the floor and the wall. The critic HsiebYi- Jo refers to this as “The redemptive power of writing” (2), by which Morrison’s protagonist in A Mercy confronts her unfortunate past within the white society through relying on the power of writing. As it is mentioned in Kidd’s novel, the wailing wall has its origins in the Jewish tradition, being a place for healing, people withdraw their pains into papers as a kind of prayer (120). The wailing wall acts as a mirror for May’s inner consciousness and appears as her dead twin sister’s shadow. It represents May’s spot of relief and liberation from her traumatized memories. In a similar way, Lily is influenced by this healing power. She allows herself to access May’s therapeutic realm where she builds new paths towards her mother’s past, “I wanted to let go of my feelings for a little while, to pull in my moat bridge” (124). This redemptive power of writing endows both May and Lily with self-liberation. For May, life is turned to be hopeful and joyful, even the “Hum ‘Oh’ Sussana” is transformed to be a positive one as it is described by Lily. Likewise, Lily’s letter for her father fractures that awful paternal image, “It brings me J-O-Y to finally say this things to your face” (202), Lily