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1、Free W川 and Given FreedomAbstract : Given freedom does not promise a free will , while a free will can give birth to freedom, which explains the contraston Jacob s farm before and after his death in A Mercy.There are two forms of liberty , one is social freedom and the other free will.Social freedom
2、 is guaranteed by a system or some rules all people agree upon.However, social freedom does not promise a free will.Free will means the statehood of action guided by one s own constant faith , reason based on experience , or deliberate consideration , instead of instinctive desires or unconditioned
3、emotions. (哈,1997: 8)On Jacob s farm , his free will enableshim shape a harmonious companionship isolated from the established social order with his women and servants , and with his death the moment of freedom disappears.The farm shaped by Jacob is a kingdom free from the outside established social
4、 order.The time Jacob in is haunted with the discrimination against the colored , the female and those with poor origins.On the farm where Florens is brought up, the colored istreated as animals ?C one by one we were made to jump high , to bend over , to open our mouths. (Morrison ,2021： 165) Nevert
5、heless , on Jacob s farm , women and servants are treated in a different way.Jacob makes a good couple with his purchased Rebekka ?C they have a disagreement without bile ; trust and that wordless conversation that years of companionship rest on. ( ibid , 87) And they also treat their colored servan
6、ts well.Just as Florens comments, “Mistress never strikes us. (ibid ,68) Even the servants and the colored outside the farm share their friendly or even equal treatment.Jacob gives Willard and Scully rum as gifts during Christmas tide despite that they are only servants in the neighborhood.And once
7、he has shared a tipple straight from the same bottle with Willard.Blacksmith , a free but black , is welcomed by Jacob as a brother.With the established judgement by color , gender and status being removed , Jacob shape his farm a land of somewhat freedom.And that is credi ted to Jacob s free will.H
8、e is a man against the mainstream values of judging against people on color, genderand origin.He pierces its unreasonable part of treating people as objects and goods.As a wanderer abandoned by his family , Jacob thinks that “only t hings , not bloodlines or character ( Morrison , 2021： 27) that div
9、ides people into classes.He also has an instinct that humanshould share equal recognition.That is why he claims that his trade is only goods and gold while refusing little black Florens as the way for paying his debt.With such awareness , he builds his farm in a way that is free from the established
10、 rules he is against.However, with the death of Jacob , the free , friendly and equal atmosphere on the farm is gone.After the death of her husband and recovering from her illness , Rebekka changes.Having been indifferent to religion , she devotes herself to Bible and stops doing the heavy housework
11、 she previously does.She beats Sorrow, hasLina s hammock taken down , and advertises the sale of Florens.Together they carve companionship out of isolation,including the momentof Jacob s absence, but now they are threatened by the tension between host and servant as anywhere else.That is resulted by
12、 the absence of Jacob s free will.The freedom given by Jacob does not flower in Rebekka.Rebekka has no individual mind.The family she comes from lives upon religion.Having no passion for religion , she knows no other way for womenexcept that they are “of and for men. ( ibid , 85) She thus lives upon
13、 the satisfaction from Jacob from the moment of landing on America and is silly with happiness because her husband is home.She has no idea of equal respect , equal recognition or freedom though she enjoys them from Jacob.She simply lives upon a man.The free mind of her husband is beyond her.Therefor
14、e, with the deathof Jacob , the world built on his free mind simply collapses.With no mind of herself and no more guidance from Jacob, Rebekka is scared by the illness threatening her life and exhausted by the death ofher babies as well as her husband.She seems no choice but adjustherself to the maj
15、or values harnessing the social order outside the farm and returns to religion that she learns she can rely on from her original family.In that way, the dominating trend at thattimepermeates the f arm and the happy land built upon Jacob s free will is ended.A free will gives birth to the freedom for
16、 the womenand servant on the Farm of Jacob , but that given freedom ends with his passing away.Jacob is one man with awareness , judgement and individual mind.Therefore , he is able to shape his land according to his own view of life and human ?C equal recognition to human and respect for life itsel
17、f.Thanks to his wisdom the womenand servants on his farm together carve a harmonious life isolated from the discriminating atmosphere at that time.However , given freedom does not promise a free will.With the death of Jacob, Rebekka, with nomind of herself and used to living upon some outside guidan
18、ce,resorts to local church and ends the harmonious garden she and her husband carve out together.Works Cited1Toni Morrison.A Mercy.New York : Vintage Books , 2021.2Zhu Wang.Major Theorists of Modern and Contemporary Western Culture.Beijing : Peking University Press , 2021.3哈耶克.自由秩序原理.北京：生活?x书新知三联书店,1997.陈丽薪1985,女,汉族,云南曲靖市人,英语语言文学硕士,单位：云南大学外国语学院英语语言文学专业硕士2021级研究生,研究方向：应用语言学.希望以上资料对你有所帮助,附励志名言3条：1、宁可辛苦一阵子,不要苦一辈子.2、为成功找方法,不为失败找借口.3、蔚蓝的天空虽然美丽,经常风云莫测的人却是起落无从.但他往往会成为风云人物,由于他经得起大风大浪的考验.