A Mercy Effia Analysis

Essay Topic #1
Short Stories
In Effia the slaves are not really addressed, because the story is told from the perspective of Effia, the daughter of a local. She is not intentionally made known the reality of what business is taking place between the foreign men flooding her town and her people because she a woman. In the middle of the chapter, when Effia heard of the new chief and his men celebrating and preparing for war, unbeknownst to her, she asked her mother “What will they do?” to which Baaba replied “That does not concern you.” Her fate is set to marry and bear children, she is not to be involved with the dealings of the men at war, however, she catches a glimpse into what is going on when she is brought over to Europe and mingles with
In his line of work he was often in dealings with slave owners, which is where he gained his views of the slave system. The recurring theme in many of the accounts of slave origins is greed and love of money, which is no different for this story. The effects left a lot of irreversible damage, and led to chaos in the lives of everyone involved. Slavery had a major background influence in A Mercy, however, the inner workings were not discuss extensively. Slavery was only mentioned in excess, compared to the other parts of the story, when it was being used as a mode of trade or in some form a business aspect. There was mention of the slaves individually, such as when Jacob was greeted at D’Ortega’s plantation by the doorman or the young child that came, in valet fashion, to tend to his horse. The one slave that stands out the most is the female that Jacob believes D’Ortega is intimate with. The owners were not discussed very frequently either, only small pieces from of Jacob’s impression of them, namely D’Ortega and his wife. For instance, on page 17 where he describes the wife as “a chattering