Alice Walker’s novel Meridian published in 1976 is set amidst the Civil Rights Movement. It is considered as an autobiographical novel where the life of the protagonist Meridian Hill, a black woman is depicted. Meridian who suffers alienation and isolation from his own people and the community for not being a stereotype wife or mother, decides to pave her own path by leaving her family and giving her son for adoption. She chose to become universal mother than individual mother and to serve the community and stand up for the rights of black community against the White hegemony. Alice Walker’s writings has also been witnessing these facts where the black women are not only considered for the roles that society has ordered or decided. The women, and here black women has all the rights to leave the constraints of the society levied by the society and live with full liberty and respect. This leads to women to not being only empowered but also emerge as an “The Emergent Woman”. This paper explores the journey of Meridian from being an individual lost in her desolation and victim of the alienation makes her way through to be a powerful, yet respected leader amongst her black community. Alice walker designates Meridian Hill the power of education with which she disagrees in using violence to attain the rights for the black during Civil Rights Movement and pursues her role as a leader in the most convincing manner serving the black community.
Volume 12 | 07-Special Issue
Pages: 2145-2148
DOI: 10.5373/JARDCS/V12SP7/20202334