Summary
Meridian grew up on a farm whose property edged against an ancient Native American burial ground called the Sacred Serpent. Her father was deeply interested in Native American culture; he kept a shed in the backyard filled with photographs, books, and maps of Native American life. Meridian’s father gives a deed for the family farm to a Native American man named Mr. Longknife, but after staying and working for a summer, Mr. Longknife gives the deed back. Then the government bulldozes the land around the Sacred Serpent to make a public park, which isn’t open to blacks.
Meridian’s great-grandmother, Feather Mae, used to love to sit on the Sacred Serpent mound in the sun. One day, in the deep pit that forms the tail of the Serpent, Feather Mae had a spiritual experience, feeling the walls of the pit swirl around her. Both Meridian and her father have the same experience when they stand in the bottom of the pit. Much later in life, Meridian has the same spiritual feeling when visiting a mountaintop altar in Mexico.
While she was growing up, Meridian was never educated about sex or the way that a woman becomes pregnant. She begins to have sex with young men from her high school, without enjoying it or understanding the possible consequences; instead, she views sex as a relief from being pursued by other men. Meridian is shocked when she discovers that her boyfriend, Eddie, has gotten her pregnant. She and Eddie—an outgoing, well-dressed young man—move into a house together. Meridian is expelled from school for the pregnancy, while Eddie continues to go to school and to work in a restaurant in town. He grows frustrated with Meridian’s complete lack of interest in sex and begins to sleep with other women.
Meridian, like others in the town, goes to the local funeral home on Saturday afternoons to see who is new in the viewing room. The owner of the funeral home, an obese white man, sexually touches Meridian from the time that she is 12, first enticing her with candy and eventually giving her money. When Daxter isn’t around, Meridian flirts with the embalming assistant, who has a seductive voice that he uses to sleep with every woman he can. One day, the assistant arranges for Meridian to watch him seduce a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl. Meridian tries to use the experience to learn what Eddie wants from her in terms of sex, but she believes that she will never be able to derive pleasure from sex.
After Meridian gives birth to a boy, she resents his constant screaming and neediness; she finds herself fantasizing about murdering him. To conceal these frightening thoughts, she starts thinking about killing herself. Constant suicidal ideation gets her through the hard months of early motherhood. She begins to criticize Eddie, and eventually he leaves, abandoning Meridian and his child. At home alone, watching television, Meridian learns that a house in the neighborhood has been bombed after a black voter registration drive was held there.
Every week, Meridian takes her child, Eddie Jr., to spend a day at her in-laws’ house. On these days, she sits in her own house and looks out the window, watching older children on their way home from school. She reflects on the ways that the boys and girls interact, believing that the girls are moving from life without real awareness that they’re living.
A month after the bombing, Meridian decides to join the local civil rights movement, intrigued by the knowledge of the larger world that it provides. At a house in town, she meets three young men—Swinburn, Chester Gray, and Truman Held—who introduce her to the movement and put her to work typing a petition for a march into town. Although Meridian has never learned to type, she is able to draw up the petition after multiple tries. Meridian becomes more deeply involved in the movement, participating in marches where she is put in jail and beaten alongside other protestors. She begins to feel a connection to Truman, one of the movement’s leaders.
Because Meridian has an unusually high IQ, she is chosen by the school principal to receive a scholarship from a wealthy white family in Connecticut, enabling her to study at Saxon College in Atlanta. She is excited by the offer, especially because Saxon is close to Truman’s college. With Delores Jones, another worker in the movement, and Nelda Henderson, a childhood friend who is pregnant with her second child, Meridian gathers the courage to approach her mother, breaking the news that she wants to give her child up for adoption and go to Saxon. Meridian’s mother angrily claims that it’s not moral to give up a child for adoption because God intended Meridian to have it. Helped out by Delores and Nelda, who argue that Meridian has an incredible opportunity in the scholarship offer, Meridian stands her ground. She renames Eddie, Jr., calling him Rundi instead, and gives him to a family that wants to adopt him. After the adoption, however, she has nightmares about the child and feels unworthy of the maternal tradition. She goes to Saxon and works hard, excelling in her studies, but she is plagued by suicidal thoughts.
Analysis
“Indians and Ecstasy” explores themes of history and spirituality through Native Americans the ancient burial ground, the Sacred Serpent. Meridian’s father feels a deep connection to Native Americans, a group that—like black Americans—has experienced oppression from the government. Beyond these similarities, however, the Native Americans have their own unique culture. The Sacred Serpent not only represents this culture but is also intimately tied up with spiritual experience. Feather Mae, Meridian, and Meridian’s father all understand the Native American spiritual belief in unity with nature. By standing in the tail of the Serpent, they are able to experience transcendence. When the burial mound becomes part of a park, this spirituality is lost because many people use the Serpent as a playground. In contrast to Meridian’s Catholic mother, the Serpent represents other forms of spiritual experience.
While growing up, Meridian has negative experiences with sex that are brought on because of the complete lack of sexual education that she receives. Meridian’s mother refuses to discuss sex directly, using euphemisms like “be sweet,” which are impossible for Meridian to understand without context. Although Meridian never enjoys sex, she allows herself to be used for sex by boys in the town—ironically, she does this because being someone’s “girl” provides her relief from being pursued by other men. Meridian, like Nelda, resents the adults in her life for never explaining sex and pregnancy to her. She and Nelda are unable to understand why Meridian’s mother was never straightforward with them; her lack of directness led to deep unhappiness since both girls ended up unintentionally pregnant.
When Meridian becomes pregnant, she is unable to derive joy from her child, just as she is unable to feel pleasure in sex. Meridian simply accepts this, believing that she will never be able to find pleasure in her family or in the act of sex. She has been abused by older men since she was twelve, so her warped understandings of sexual relationships are only confirmed by experience. Unable to find a support system beyond girls her own age, who are similarly naive and uneducated, Meridian becomes trapped in a relationship and a family she never meant to have. She experiences the same resentment of her child that her mother did, while helplessly acknowledging the weight of the “maternal tradition” that dictates that mothers should accept and care for children.
Meridian’s early experiences with her local civil rights movement reveal the difficulty of progress in the face of hate. The voter registration drive is ruined by a bombing, an excessively destructive act that results in the death of innocent children. Protestors are put in jail and beaten, harshly and without explanation. The inevitable result is “battle fatigue”: the profound, long-lasting psychological and physical effects of fighting against such a cruel enemy. Meridian, Truman, and others continue to fight for civil rights, even though the effort of the movement is deeply dangerous to their safety and well-being. Meridian’s interest in the movement reflects her longing to understand more about the world around her, but she is forced to accept suffering to further the cause.
Finally, these sections explore the importance of education. Meridian, who is exceptionally bright, resents the fact that the principal and students in her local school have replaced a desire to learn with a desire to “get through school.” To many, the purpose of education is simply to hold a high school diploma, while Meridian actually finds joy in the spark of true learning. Above all, education and learning are presented as opportunities for personal development, and for social and economic mobility. Meridian sacrifices everything, even her child, for the chance to go to college. Once there, her purpose is to improve herself through learning.
