Journey from Powerlessness to Empowerment in Alice Walker’s Meridian

Abstract

The paper aims at exhibiting how Alice Walker empowers the oppressed women of her community and depicts their liberation from oppression and marginalisation in her novel, Meridian. African-American women belong to the excluded community and are endangered by the evils of racism, sexism, and classicism. Meridian Hill, the protagonist breaks the stereotypes and participates in the Civil Rights Movement, thus transcending the barriers of gender to achieve individual autonomy, self-reliance, and self-realization. She struggles to change the oppressive nature of her society in order to ensure a complete development of the people of her community, especially the black women. Besides the themes of racism, sexism, classism, religion, slavery, and segregation, African-American literature explores the ideas of equality, empowerment, and freedom which were long denied to the black people in white America. The novel depicts the triumph and empowerment of black women through the character of Meridian Hill.