Sexual Freedoms And Oppressors In Alice Walker's Meridian

In the novel Meridian by Alice Walker we see the conventions of sexual freedoms and their oppressors. Walker introduces certain characters and gives them direct agency to emphasize that the limitations placed on sexual freedoms of women can not be pinned on men. She gives the characters, such as the mystery mistress, Meridian herself, and Miss Margaret Treasure, two contradicting choices and ironically they decide to follow the one that leads to further objectification. When Eddie cheats and leaves his wife, Meridian, he leaves her for the mystery mistress competing and complying with the standards society perceives on women's sexual freedoms. Walker creates two paths one being ignorance and passiveness toward objectification and the other being consciousness and clear …show more content…
Two characters Walker pairs to represent this ignorance is Miss Treasure her younger sister, Lucille. Walker puts them into juxtaposed positions of lust and temptation vs purity and morality. Miss Treasure is a sixty-nine year old lady, living a unmarried, childless life with her sister on her deceased father's property. However, Walker soon introduces another male character that would develop an intimate relationship and make Miss Treasure believe she was carrying his child. It had all started “..six months ago” when “she had looked out of her bedroom window and seen a face hanging there above a ladder. It was the face of her fate. His name was Rims Mott” (Walker 230). Those words chosen by Walker, “face of her fate,” suggest the ironic ideal that it was now “her fate” only because she, Miss Treasure, insisted to pursue that path and ultimately “her fate”( Walker 230). Walker explains how she looked outside the window and insisted to pursue Mott when she could have looked away. She controlled her