The Theme of Religion in the Novel A Mercy

The Theme of Religion in the Novel A MercyNameInstitutional Affiliation Date The book, A Mercy by Toni Morrison defines the people living in North America according to their religions. The characters have been stereotyped depending on the social distinctions and the biases that they present against each other. There are Catholics, Protestants and the natives. The author clearly paints the image of religion as something that is full of mistrust. This is portrayed by the tension that exists among the different characters in the book who belong to different religious sects. The argument presented in this paper is that religion has been presented as a tool for mistrust and hypocrisy. In this paper, we will analyze the character of Jacob and other characters in the novel on how the author has used them to explore hypocrisy in religion. In chapter 2 of the book, the author presents the reader with the exciting journey that Jacob is making. Jacob truly loves the American landscape and the author through her vivid description describes the American landscape in an interesting way. After navigating through the American landscape, Jacob finally arrives at Maryland. Maryland is a great business land that belongs to the Catholic. Jacob who is a protestant does not like the Catholics. We do learn that his dislike for the Catholics goes beyond their religious views and he even dislikes their social and economic life. This shows that indeed the practice of religion in the 17th century went beyond the church doctrine and touched on their culture. Jacob says he finds the culture and way of life of the Catholics to be ‘appalling’. The author also introduces us to another character D’Ortega who is a devout Catholic. Jacob has been invited to see D’Ortega who is a slave trader. When D’Ortega is having a conversation with Jacob, he describes the slave traders as ‘his cargo’. He says, ‘Disaster had struck…D’Ortega’s ship had been anchored a nautical mile from shore for a month waiting for a vessel, due any day, to replenish what he had lost. A third of his cargo had died of ship fever. Fined five thousand pounds of tobacco…’ CITATION Ton08 \l 1033 (Toni, 2008). He uses the term ‘cargo’ to refer to the people that he is selling out as slaves. This depicts the level of inhumanity possessed by D’Ortega who is a religious person. He cuts through the story and goes ahead to explain to Jacob that he is in financial trouble after what he calls ‘a third cargo’ on his ship died of fever and he was fined for throwing their bodies in the bay. D’Ortega a religious man appears not to be worried about the death of the slaves and sees it as a big business loss. This illustrates the level of inhumanity possessed by this religious man. At a certain point, D’Ortega even goes ahead to say that they are ‘doing God’s work’ by enslaving and shipping them to work in miserable conditions. This illustrates the way in which religion can be used to justify inhuman and immoral acts rather than being used as a tool to rebuke the acts. Jacob who is also a prot...