The Characters
Meridian is one of the most fully drawn and emotionally complex characters of contemporary American fiction. Autobiographical to a certain degree (Meridian and Walker share approximate ages, a deep love for the South, education at a women’s college in Atlanta, and civil rights involvement), this novel is artfully crafted. To direct her readers’ interpretation of “meridian,” Walker lists definitions at the novel’s beginning. All pertain specifically to qualities inherent in the title character: “prime,” “southern,” “the highest point.” Yet Walker wants her readers to see her character as representative of the 1960’s, which she sees as the meridian of black awareness, when black Americans were able to see themselves clearly and to struggle for their identity. Another of “meridian’s” meanings is “distinctive character”; it is Meridian’s battle for her individuality that is the novel’s focus.
Perhaps most distinctive is her spirituality. Meridian is something of a mystic, retreating from time to time into trancelike states from which she emerges stronger than ever. Her rejection of materialism is another sign of her spirituality. Whenever Truman visits Meridian, he discovers that she has fewer and fewer possessions, until she is left with only the clothes on her back. Like many mystics, Meridian leads an ascetic life, denying the needs of her own body. All of these indicate her separation from the ordinary restraints of life. Supporting her spirituality is her affinity to the past, her literal kinship with Feather Mae, her great-grandmother, and her figurative one with Louvinie, a Saxon slave. Following Feather Mae’s example, Meridian invites ecstasy, and discovers “that it was a way the living sought to expand the consciousness of being alive. . . .” She gains a larger understanding of her world, one not bound by trifling concerns. Louvinie’s example is equally important, for from her story Meridian learns about the need for expressing oneself, the value of a tenacious spirit, and the power of creativity. Because Louvinie’s clipped tongue nourishes the roots of the Sojourner Tree on the Saxon campus, Meridian is related to the tree as well.
Other qualities in keeping with her spirituality are Meridian’s introspection, her ferocious will, and her inability to give her word without full moral commitment. Since her decisions are often painful, and since they conflict with accepted moral traditions, readers should pay special attention to the relentlessness of her introspection. In the tradition of spiritual leaders, she suffers for her choices, but she finds this a necessary stage of growth.
Other characters are presented with sympathy and understanding—from Meridian’s prim and limited mother and her dreamy father to various poor people Meridian encounters on her travels. Major sections of the novel, however, are devoted to two other characters: Lynne Rabinowitz and Truman Held.
Few black novelists have treated white characters with the keen intelligence of Walker. Lynne is no simple stereotype; she is a naively idealistic reformer caught in the spirit of the times, a defiant and courageous woman who risks all of her personal ties, a guilt-ridden and terrified victim of the people whom she has tried to help, a confused and resentful woman who gradually awakens to her own mistakes. In several ways Lynne represents what Meridian might have been had she married Truman. Lynne’s experiences, fortunately, do not destroy her. At the end of the novel, she shows signs of recovered strength and a newly detected sense of her ability to endure alone. Walker’s understanding of Lynne’s motives for her involvement in the Civil Rights movement, her ability to characterize Lynne’s ambivalent moral and social position, her sensitive dramatization of Lynne’s losses, and her refusal to simplify...
(This entire section contains 793 words.)
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Lynne are notable.
Equally complex is her characterization of Truman, whom Walker draws with a knowledge of his masculine attractions as well as his deficiencies. Truman’s main function in the novel is to serve as a bypass—potential and actual—of self-discovery. Had Meridian accepted the role he offered (mother of his children), she might have become like Lynne, isolated from herself, confusing his evaluation of her for her own. Unlike his name, Truman is not yet a true man in Walker’s estimation; he must first recognize his flaws and accept responsibility for his actions. Walker, however, does not intend his name to be entirely ironic, for as Truman grows older, he begins to see his limitations. Following Meridian, he begins to learn from her example. Because of her, he acknowledges a responsibility to Lynne; he sees the importance of empathy, both personally and politically; and he learns that true love is liberating, not possessive. Meridian leaves him behind, but she gives him her cap, symbolizing his assumption of her former role in fear and hope of self-discovery.
Characters Discussed
Meridian Hill
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
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
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
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.
