How we cite our quotes:
Quote #1
All she had to do, wrote Henry, was "lay back and be pleasured." But she [...] had gone outside the home to seek her "pleasuring," while still expecting him to foot the bills. (1.1.29)
Yeah, we're sure that it's all this simple, right? Doubtful. We're just saying that the kind of dude who murders his wife after learning of her affair and then turns her dead body into a freak-show act probably wasn't the best husband. We're not marriage counselors or anything, so let's just call it Shmooper's Intuition.
Quote #2
Like Meridian, Anne-Marion was a deviate in the honors house: there because of her brilliance but only tolerated because it was clear she was one, too, on whom true Ladyhood would never be conferred. (1.3.9)
There aren't many other girls like Meridian and Anne-Marion at Saxon College. Most of the female students are shooting to earn a degree in "Finding a Husband," not trying to better themselves through an education. After all, why would you need book-smarts when you can just marry a rich guy? It's difficult to blame the individual girls, though—they're part of a bigger system that they're unable to fully understand.
Quote #3
She noticed that other girls were falling in love, getting married. It seemed to produce a state of euphoria in them. (1.4.3)
During her early adulthood, Meridian's mom falls in love with the feeling of freedom. Despite this, she becomes intrigued by the lives of married women and ends up walking down that path herself. The result? She ends up resenting her kids a lot for taking that precious freedom away.
Quote #4
They simply did not know they were living their own lives [...] but assumed they lived someone else's. They tried to live the lives of their movie idols; and those lives were fantasy. (1.9.3)
Movies have a tendency to whitewash reality (and we mean that in more ways than one) and unrealistically portray the relationships between men and women. In other words, pop culture gives these young girls false expectations about reality that can't possibly be lived up to. Meridian went through the same thing when she was a kid and ended up paying for it dearly.
Quote #5
Of course it was kept secret from everyone that Meridian had been married and divorced and had had a child. It was assumed that Saxon young ladies were, by definition, virgins. (1.13.4)
Often, Saxon College seems less interested in educating its students and more interested in making them attractive potential wives. Meridian is an exception to this rule in many ways. Do you think that male students are treated the same way? Do you think that Truman ever had his moral character questioned because he wasn't a virgin? We doubt it.
Quote #6
But Truman did not want a general beside him. He did not want a woman who tried [...] to claim her own life. (1.14.92)
For a good portion of the novel, Truman holds misogynistic beliefs hidden beneath his political activism. If the guy practiced what he preached, he would be gung-ho about finding a woman as determined and strong as Meridian. But that simply doesn't happen.
Quote #7
Getting rid of a b**** is simple, for b****es are dispensable. But getting rid of a wife? (2.17.29)
Really, Truman? What exactly is the difference between a "b****" and a "wife"? Yes, we understand the obvious, but both are living, breathing human beings with their own wants, dreams, and desires. No woman is dispensable.
Quote #8
They did not even see her as a human being but as some kind of large, mysterious doll. A thing of movies and television, of billboards and car and soap commercial. (2.17.39)
In Lynne's case, her womanhood is complicated and perhaps amplified by her whiteness. As we've seen above, it's common for women of all races to be objectified, but this effect is exponentially greater in Lynne's case. Again, we see the echoes of pop culture in the relationships between men and women—to Tommy, a white woman like Lynne seems straight out of the movies.
Quote #9
Her shy, thin frame, her relative inarticulateness, [...] her brown strength that he imagined would not mind being a resource for someone else… (2.18.7)
On the other side of the fence, black women like Meridian are objectified in a different way. Instead of being feared, Meridian is looked down upon by men and expected to sacrifice herself for their sake. The echoes of slavery in this quote make it all the more upsetting.