Meridian By Alice Walker Essay

Alice Walker’s historical novel, Meridian, explores sexual and racial discrimination through the perspectives of both the oppressors and oppressed. The almost purely negative portrayals of sex challenge the warped power dynamics under a patriarchal rule and emphasize the connection between personal experience of the oppressed and socio-political setting. Distinct perspective’s moral ambivalence underscore Walker’s implied argument about sexual politics via symbolism and irony.
The 1950s-conservative atmosphere silenced the voice of the groups on the lower rungs of the patriarchal hierarchy, sheltering women behind absurd double standards. Walker sets the stage for sexual politics through the tense and limited dialogue between ‘Mrs. Hill’ and Meridian regarding the wonders of life. The protagonist’s lack of sexual knowledge beyond her mother’s vaguely
unhelpful phrase, “keep your dress up,” allows her to obliviously partake in sexual relations without even knowing ‘where babies come from.’ Mrs. Hill’s action implies the double standard celebrating sexual experience in men while shaming women who are arbitrarily deemed as promiscuous. In the misleadingly named chapter, “The New York Times,” Walker presents the extents society goes through to accommodate the male ego’s expectation of female virginity. Walker states that Truman was “raised to demand a virgin, and continues to underscore Meridian’s sexual distress through Truman’s personification of her “sealed shut” vagina causing her to be “spasmodic with fear.” The implied perverse satisfaction Truman took in believing Meridian was a virgin mirrors This double standard is further portrayed by Truman’s perception of Meridian as an impure individual after discovering her sexual ‘experience.’ Meridian failed to uphold the Victorian ideal of the “angel in the house, rejecting the prescribed roles of an “obedient daughter,” “devoted wife,” and “adoring mother.” Instead, Meridian transcended the idealization and had in the eyes of the stifling society, “gone wrong.”
Walker links Meridian and Lynne Rabinowitz as foil characters, each representing their individual polarized definitions of womanhood.
Lynne conformed to the oppressive sexual norms of the earlier 1950s. Truman’s wounded ego flocked to reassure itself within the familiar embrace of Lynne’s assured virginity whereas he left Meridian after discovering her ‘impurity,’ reinforcing Walker’s message of male hypocrisy. Meridian represents the ‘Harriet Tubmans’ of the world, trailblazers who disregard the limitations society imposes on them and surpass them regardless of the risks they might be taking. In the chapter titled “Camara”, Walker restores the sanctity of religion in Meridian’s minds through a preacher’s sermon. The preacher advised the women to “stop trying to find husbands” and instead to “educate themselves,” a statement tremendously contrasting the oppressive status quo. Although Lynne was explicitly an educated woman who attended a prestigious university, Walker implies that women who consistently design their lives around those of men will not be able to gain Meridian’s eventual level of
enlightenment.
Furthermore, the early Civil Rights Movement dedicated itself to passive protest designed to change the hearts of their oppressors. Within this superficially noble movement, men ironically utilized privilege in order to oppress women. Throughout the novel, Walker stresses the plight of the doubly-oppressed African American woman caught between society’s antiquated sexual norms and “white racist society.” Meridian’s official introduction to the Civil Rights Movement was a job acquired within a volunteer group because of her gender. Meridian was hired as a typist, a traditionally female dominated field. This example of microaggression mirrors the patriarchal zeitgeist of the 1960s: women were not to contribute academically to discussions, rather, they were ‘allowed’ to do menial tasks to create an illusion of independence. Throughout Walker’s descriptions of the Movement, men kept positions of power while women remained in the background of conversations, seen but not heard.
Walker’s later descriptions of the Civil Rights Movement detail radicalized ideals mirroring the Black Power Movement. Historically, Blacks and Whites worked together in order to advance the Civil Rights Movement. However, there was an ironic shift in racial dynamics in the transition to the radicalized Black Power Movement. Historically, whites were virtually purged from the movement, foregoing its original message of solidarity between races and adopting an isolationist approach. Walker’s historical novel shows racial oppression within the Civil Rights Movement by its ironic exclusion of Lynne. Despite Lynne’s eagerness and legitimate dedication to the Civil Rights Movement, Truman slowly excluded her from events until she was completely isolated from the only constant in her life. Additionally, in the chapter titled “Tommy Odds,” Tommy Odds rapes Lynne, rationalizing his actions as beneficial, helping Lynne in “atoning for her sins.” Walker’s crude diction and imagery makes her audience cringe at the horrors Lynne faces, underscoring Lynne’s pathological need to admire Black ‘art’ through the resolution of her ancestral guilt. The overarching irony surrounding the Civil Rights and later Black Power Movement is the fact that by fighting for the rights of Blacks, they oppress women as well as whites who only wish to help in the movement.
Walker’s historical novel challenges the racial and sexual dynamics of the 1960s by deconstructing gender norms and racial dynamics during an era of societal advancement. Meridian’s health throughout the novel mirrors her mental state: deteriorating when her mind is in turmoil. Ultimately, Meridian achieves a state of enlightenment, transcending society’s racial and sexual discrimination by confronting the intimidating white tank’s phallic barrel without a second thought about her own wellbeing since she believed she “was God.” Meridians parting words to Truman: “You are free to be whichever way you like – and what you risk in being truly yourself, the way you want to be, is not the loss of me, have a poetic tone with masculine rhyme as well as holding a seemingly out of place enlightened diction. Meridian was literally and figuratively wasting away attempting to save the world but not herself, but after speaking to her former lover a final time, she shed the weight of women and African Americans and in order to finally have the resolve to solve both without hesitation.