Character Analysis: Merlin

My essay is to discuss how I believe Merlin has gotten over his prejudices. A few things that point to this change throughout “Witness” is that at the beginning Merlin was afraid of Leanora, who is a colored girl, and thought she was a witch and in school he opened a window to get rid of the “smell” of her in the room when she left. Merlin also willingly joined the KKK, but near the of “Witness” he needed a clear conscious and took responsibility for the things he’d done and he used to get into a lot of trouble so to me this definitely shows a major character development. The reasons that I’m arguing that Merlin has gotten over his prejudices is because in “Witness” Merlin was amazed with some of the things Leanora has done throughout the story, …show more content…
I’m going to now discuss my first point on how Merlin was amazed by some of the things that Leanora has done, especially with the things she’s done for white people. In Witness, Leanora saved little Esther, who’s a white, Jewish, girl, from getting hit by a train and Merlin was there to witness it, “But the colored girl, I never saw anyone move so fast. She ran li ke a deer…I’m not saying she did anything I couldn’t have done...something kept me in my place watching that colored girl run” (Witness page 76). Leanora, a young black girl, did everything she could to save a Jewish, white girl (Esther) from getting hit by a train. That in itself is something unusual, but a black girl saving a white girl? Almost unheard of during this time period. Merlin was so amazed by this sight that all he could do was watch. Merlin was being accused of shooting Ira Hirsh (Esther’s dad), but Leanora cleared his name, “…I’m not …show more content…
Merlin started discussing why he couldn’t poison the Sutters well and one reason was that he realized Leanora was more of a person that just a colored girl. That was just one part of her, “…and she was still a colored girl but she wasn’t just a colored girl…” (Witness page 150). He saw past her colored skin and saw that he couldn’t poison another human being. He felt bad for the Hirshes (and Sutters) because the Klan wanted them out of town, “Worse for the Hirshes, who stained a pure Christian woman by mixing their Jew selves up wither her. But the show maker [Ira Hirsh] and his kid, they’re just living there” (Witness page 115). Merlin realized the Hirshes weren’t doing anything wrong, they were just people that needed a place to stay. Earlier in the story he might have agreed with the Klan, but near the end of the story he was almost a completely different person. Merlin later was being accused of shooting Ira Hirsh, but he explained one reason why couldn’t have even pulled the trigger, “I wouldn’t hurt Mr. Hirsh” (Witness page 150). Merlin couldn’t harm Mr. Hirsh because he gave Merlin new shoes to give to his girlfriend, who didn’t have any shoes, even though Merlin was in the KKK and he was Jewish. Now we’ve discussed Merlin’s change of view towards the Hirshes and the Sutters and the