Summary
Chapter 7: Florens
Florens wakes, her dreams full of her mother—her “minha mae”—and what her mother wanted to tell her but could not. She walks for hours and encounters a group of Native men who first scare her but then give her water. She marvels at them as they disappear in an instant.
She thinks of her intimate moments with the Blacksmith and how Lina warned her about him. Lina told her about a man she slept with who was cruel to her and beat her, and asked Florens to think about what she will do when the Blacksmith’s work at the house is done. Florens does not care; she knows the Blacksmith cannot marry her.
She continues on, realizing at some point she needs shelter. She knocks at a large house in a village, hoping a servant will answer. A woman does, and Florens says she is alone and needs a place to stay. The woman, whom Florens calls the Widow, asks her if she is a heathen and when Florens says no, asks where her father is. When she learns Florens is an orphan, she brings her in. The Widow apologizes for her hesitation but says there is danger about.
Inside, she gives Florens food. After she satiates her hunger, Florens notices a girl lying in the straw of the box bed. She has two dark eyes, one straight and unblinking. Florens speaks of her errand and the Widow says the errand can save her mistress from one death but not the other. The girl, Daughter Jane, says “This be the death we gave come here to die” (109), and reveals her legs, bloody with lashings. The Widow says the lashes may save her daughter’s life, and whispers that “they” will not come until morning.
Florens quiets herself for sleep and listens to Daughter Jane and Widow Ealing. Jane asks how she can prove she is not a demon and says “they” want the pasture but that she will be okay because demons do not bleed.
Florens falls asleep and when she wakes, observes the widow freshening the leg wounds. A tenseness pervades the household. Daughter Jane will not eat. Footsteps sound and while Florens is in the closet cleaning up, people come into the home. They refuse to sit. Widow Ealing explains her daughter’s eye was always like that and it has no special powers, and she bleeds as Jesus did.
Florens enters the room. There is a man, three women, and a child. The child sees Florens and screams and hides behind her mother’s skirts. The visitors are shocked by Florens and ask who she is, claiming she is the Black Man’s minion. They seem even more shocked when Florens speaks. She pulls out Mistress’ letter and they read it. Whispering over it, they order Florens into the closet, where they tell her to take her clothes off. They inspect her entire body, not with hate or disgust but looking “across distances without recognition” (113). They leave to talk to Widow Ealing, who asks why Satan would write a letter, and a woman’s life is at stake. The man raises his voice and says they will pray and consult. It is unclear if Florens is Satan’s minion.
The man takes the letter with him and the Widow follows him, pleading. She comes back and says she has hope that it will be okay. Daughter Jane laughs. The Widow prays and says she will be back soon, as she has to consult the sheriff.
The afternoon passes and Florens is filled with fear. Daughter Jane boils duck eggs and wraps them up, then motions for Florens to follow her out into the woods. They come to a stream and Daughter Jane gives her the eggs and tells her where to go. Florens thanks her and Daughter Jane smiles and says she is grateful because they all looked at Florens and forgot about her. Florens asks if she is a demon and she says yes.
Florens is exceedingly uncomfortable without the letter, feeling like something is draining away with every step. She is abandoned as she was when a child. But then she thinks of the Blacksmith and is filled with resolve.
Chapter 8: Sorrow
She does not care if people do not use her real name as long as Twin does. She was the daughter of a ship captain and was the only one left alive when the ship foundered, as she was in the ship’s surgery wing. She had never lived on land before and the ship formed the only memories she knew.
Twin came to her when she was alone among the wreckage, looking for food. Twin stayed with her when she was swept out into a neap heading to shore. She woke to a woman with white hair standing over her. The woman, a sawyer’s wife, brought her home and gave her food. When asked her name, Twin told her not to respond so she shrugged. This was a convenient gesture for things she did not want to say.
The housewife named her Sorrow and gave her tasks, many she could not complete well. She was absentminded, careless, preferring her secret company of Twin. She had her monthly blood but then it did not come; she was with child. It was one of the sawyer's two sons, both of whom had their way with her.
One day she was called before Sir, who asked her name and then took her away with him. Twin was thrilled to see the farm they arrived at. Lina and Mistress were skeptical of her. Sir said Sorrow would sleep inside since he was told she wandered. With Twin telling her stories, Sorrow had the first sweet sleep in months.
Sorrow settled in, realizing Lina was the ruler when Sir and Mistress were not. Lina barely spoke to Sorrow, but was the one who told her she was pregnant. She was startled, then pleased at the thought of a real person, her own, growing inside her.
The infant came early, too early to survive as Lina told her. Lina set the infant into the river. Sorrow thought she saw it yawn, though, and wept. Twin told her she was always with her, which was some consolation. She relied on Twin more and more.
When Patrician died, Lina blamed Sorrow. Then Florens came, and Twin was jealous and Lina claimed Florens for her own. Then the Blacksmith came, and changed the place forever. Sorrow and Twin tried to figure out what it was: he seemed “complete, unaware of his effect” (125).
Around that time, Sorrow became deeply ill, her neck breaking out in boils. The smithy helped her but she wavered in and out of consciousness. Her mind settled onto the ship and the Captain, and she and Twin lingered in the memories. On the third day, her fever broke and with the smithy’s care and Florens’ nursing she became healthy once more. He was her savior, but Lina more and more tried to keep Florens away from him. Once Sorrow saw Florens and the smithy making love, and was surprised to see him kiss her on the mouth.
The Blacksmith does return for Mistress but is alone. He notices Sorrow’s belly and says nothing. He tells Mistress the sickness is dead, not her. Sorrow sees her fall to the floor in prayer, totally alone except the Other she is whispering to.
Sorrow hears Lina asking after Florens, and the Blacksmith says she is fine and when it suits her she will return. He looks at the gates he made, pays his respects at Sir’s grave, and departs in the early morning. Sorrow wonders about Florens and hopes she was right about the Blacksmith all along. Suffused with her mother-to-be intuition, she decides she was.
The farm is in disarray, acres needing turning and damp laundry molding and animals wandering. Lina seems to have lost interest in everything including herself. Neglect and collapse are everywhere.
Sorrow’s water breaks one afternoon in May and since Mistress is still unwell and Lina frightens her, she places her hope in Willard and Scully out at the fishing raft. She grabs a knife and makes her way there. They understand her plight and help deliver the little girl. Sorrow thanks them and says she can make her own way back, wanting to do it herself. She is certain for the first time she has done something on her own, and does not notice Twin’s absence.
Back at the house, Lina glowers and Mistress says nothing but gets a Bible and forbids anyone else from going into the new house. Sorrow once says it is good that the Blacksmith came to help when she was dying, and Mistress replies that God alone cures.
The women at the farm, once tied together, are unmoored. With or without Florens, they fall away from each other. Twin is gone, and Sorrow is wrapped up in taking care of her daughter. She looks into her daughter’s eyes and tells her she is her mother, and her name is Complete.
Analysis
Florens continues on her journey, having survived the wagon ride and the woods, but comes to her most traumatic moment yet when she is at the Widow Ealing’s house and is inspected by the townspeople for fear of her being one of Satan’s minions. This episode provides a troubling window into the witch hunts of the late 17th century, in which primarily women were persecuted and sometimes even killed on suspicion of being a witch; the “evidence” was scanty and often ludicrous, but the women’s markers of difference, such as Jane’s eye, were seemingly enough to indict them.
The entire vignette is deeply disturbing: the Widow lashes Jane’s legs to prove that she is not a demon since demons do not bleed, mother and daughter speculate that all of this persecution is because the townspeople want the Ealing pasture, a child screams continuously at the sight of Florens’ Black skin, and Florens is taken into a closet where the people inspect her naked form for anything “inhuman” that points to her being affiliated with the Devil. This scene in the closet is beyond demeaning; it is no wonder Florens later admits “my withering is born in the Widow’s closet” (160). When Jane helps her escape, she feels like she is “shrinking” and is a “thing apart” (115).
Through the scenes at Widow Ealing’s, Morrison critiques the Puritans, whose story is often that of bold and brave religious dissidents looking for a place to freely practice their religion but who also use their societal power to threaten, torment, and tame. Valerie Babb explains, “The foundation of many prenational narratives is the image of worthy pilgrims seeking the freedom to worship as they see fit. The novel portrays the theological ideology that evolved in English settlements as intolerant, however, forgetful of the past sufferings of its own practitioners. Convinced of its own correctness, it defined the elect in the narrowest of terms and extended Christian compassion to a limited few…[The Puritans’] theology has taught not love but fear of difference, whether manifested through the appearance of an eye through the color of skin.”
The second chapter in this section belongs to Sorrow, whose life accurately reflects her name. We do not learn her race, but it is likely she is mixed-race; regardless of her parentage, though, her status as a poor orphan leaves her in the same position as the other castoff women of the novel. We also know little about her before the shipwreck, but it is clear she has some mental deficiencies that are exacerbated by the trauma of the wreck. She creates an invisible sibling for herself that she deems “Twin,” a vision that will only vanish once she finds healing through the birth of her second child. That child and the one before were the products of rape; Sorrow’s story more than any other gives a visceral account of the sexual violence women faced, especially if they were poor or did not “belong” to a man.
As mentioned, Sorrow finds healing with her new daughter. She gives herself a new name—Complete—and dedicates herself to the child. Though Scully and Willard helped her with the delivery a bit, she marveled at how “this time she had done something, something important, by herself” (133). Maxine Montgomery notes that Sorrow’s declaration of the name is “an emancipating act of self-naming that underscores the potentially healing, redemptive dimensions of maternity, and hence domestic space among a global community of outcasts.” Similarly, Susmita Roye says “the birth of Sorrow’s baby heralds her re-birth… Sorrow’s split self welds into a complete whole, and thus the new name she assumes, ‘Complete,’ is most befitting… Sorrow refuses to languish under the burden of her ominous name. Disregarding all obstacles to her healthy growth as a human, ‘Sorrow’ decides to metamorphose into ‘Complete.’ In giving herself a new name, she exercises her own agency and exerts her will to counteract the shortcomings of an interrupted girlhood and emerge into a complete womanhood and motherhood.”
A final note: it is in Sorrow’s chapter that we learn that Florens did make it to the Blacksmith, that he did come to Rebekka and help her, that Rebekka survived, and that thanks to Jacob’s death and the destabilizing presence of the Blacksmith, the community of women on the farm, once held together (albeit in a tenuous and fragile fashion), was now fraying in irreparable ways. In a society run by men, the absence of one clearly meant trouble for the women scrambling to eke out a life.
