Meridian: Analysis of Major Characters
"Meridian: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the lives and complexities of key figures in a narrative centered around the Civil Rights movement. The protagonist, Meridian Hill, is characterized as a determined civil rights worker whose personal struggles—including an unfulfilling marriage, motherhood, and health issues—drive her to seek purpose in her activism. Her commitment to the movement often leads her to confront the limitations of her own identity and relationships, particularly with Truman Held, a self-absorbed artist who struggles with loyalty between his commitments to the movement and his white wife, Lynne Rabinowitz.
Lynne, initially idealistic, experiences a painful disillusionment with the movement, leading her to harbor resentment towards both the struggle and her husband. The dynamic between these characters highlights the intersectionality of race, gender, and social class within the Civil Rights movement. Additionally, Anne-Marion Coles emerges as a passionate and fiery friend to Meridian, representing a more militant perspective that often clashes with Meridian's approach. This collection of characters illustrates the diverse motivations and conflicts faced by individuals involved in social justice efforts, emphasizing the personal sacrifices and complex relationships that define their journeys.
Meridian: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Alice Walker
First published: 1976
Genre: Novel
Locale: New York City, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama
Plot: Social morality
Time: The 1960's, during the Civil Rights movement
Meridian Hill, a black civil rights worker. A thin woman with a dark thick braid and reddish-brown skin, she is neither pretty nor homely but is at her most beautiful when sad. Meridian comes from a poor but respectable family in the South. She becomes pregnant while still in high school and soon finds herself with a husband and a son she cannot love. Her only satisfaction comes from working with civil rights workers registering voters, a campaign she joins in 1960 after the workers' headquarters is bombed. A college scholarship enables her to break away from her miserable life; she simply gives her baby away and leaves. An honors student in college, she works hard to earn the money to stay in school and struggles with her attempts to define herself. A passionate love for another civil rights worker, Truman Held, ends unhappily, and she does not form satisfying friendships. Meridian joins a militant revolutionary group but leaves it when she discovers that she cannot say with conviction that she would kill for the revolution. Instead, she returns to the South to work with and for her people, becoming a daring and eccentric civil rights worker as she moves from town to town, attempting to find her place within the Civil Rights movement and the world. By the end of the novel, a never-specified illness and her own self-neglect have left her with sallow skin, glassy yellow eyes, and a nearly bald head covered with a cap, yet she uses all of her energy to work for her people. She never finds a totally satisfying life for herself, but she serves as an anchoring point for the lives of those she touches.
Truman Held, an artist and civil rights worker. A handsome man with olive skin, black eyes, a neat beard and mustache, and the regal-looking nose of an Ethiopian warrior, Truman is vain about his looks and pretentious in his mannerisms. As a lover, he is selfish, interested only in his own pleasure. Meridian falls in love with him, but he is not attracted to strong women, and he does not return her love. Instead, he marries Lynne Rabinowitz, a white woman, and together they move to Mississippi to work in the Civil Rights movement. Truman's greatest struggle is an internal one: Can he be loyal both to the movement and to his white wife? He finds that he cannot and begins to hate Lynne for her whiteness. Over the years, he periodically runs back to Meridian, feeling a bond to her that he cannot ignore or explain.
Lynne Rabinowitz, a white woman from a wealthy suburb who joins the Civil Rights movement and marries Truman Held. Thin, with dark eyes, she comes to Meridian's black college as an exchange student and falls in love with Truman. In the beginning, she thinks of poor black people as a form of art, but her contributions to the Civil Rights movement are real. She is intelligent and unrestrained and is a popular and hard worker in the movement, which she serves as long as she is permitted; eventually, she is forced out by black workers who resent her. When she is raped by one of them, she becomes embittered about the movement and begins to hate black people in general and Truman in particular. Abandoned by her husband, disowned by her parents, and rejected by the movement, she returns to New York City to live on welfare and forms a bond of friendship with Meridian. That bond is not completed, however, until Lynne's daughter by Truman, Camara, is abused and killed and both women put Truman out of their lives.
Anne-Marion Coles, a black revolutionary and Meridian's first friend in college. A round and brash woman, she is the first among her peers to cut her hair in a “natural.” Anne-Marion is an honors student with a temper, always ready for an argument. She joins the Civil Rights movement because she wants black people to have the same opportunities to be wealthy and exploitive as whites have. She and Meridian find themselves on opposing sides of various conflicts: Anne-Marion participates in a college riot that Meridian will not join, and she is one of the revolutionaries who urge Meridian to declare her willingness to kill. Finally, she ends the friendship, because she cares deeply for Meridian but cannot save her. Ten years later, she still cannot forgive Meridian for not being more militant, and she continues to write long, angry letters to her. She cannot forgive Meridian, but neither can she let her go.