AMERICANITY AND RESISTANCE IN A MERCY, BY TONI MORRISON

The present work aims at analyzing Toni Morrison's A Mercy (2008 ) through the perspectives of Anibal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein and the concept of Americanity. In this post-modern historical fiction Morrison revisits America during its inception, rewriting the traditional historiography and symbolically returning agency and voice to colonized subjects, namely women: black, indigenous, and white. Coloniality, ethnicity, racism, and the conception of the "new" are characteristic of the formation of the New World and are present in this work through the characters who represent social minorities and also through the dynamics of interactions among themselves and the colonizers. America is seen as a 'third space', in Homi Bhabha's terms, in which the historical discourse is rethought and reorganized. The "new" proposed by Quijano and Wallerstein is in line with Bhabha's propositions, since the original character of Americanity depended mostly on the interactions and negotiation of cultures in this third space. Morrison dismantles the hegemonic discourse using fiction, creating a third space in which these subjects are empowered and are capable of resisting.