Meridian | Part 1, Section 9 : Meridian (Clouds) | Summary

Summary

After Eddie leaves Meridian, she spends her days idly. She takes Eddie, Jr., to her mother-in-law's home to spend the day, picking him up just to bring him home for the night. Meridian spends the days mostly staring out the window, seeing little, meditating "on her condition." After school gets out, she watches the schoolgirls walking by the house, moving by as if "protected in a dream."

Analysis

The title of this chapter, "Clouds," speaks to Meridian's frame of mind at this time—her head is in the clouds. She observes girls who appear to be in a dream world "of happy endings: of women who had everything, of men who ran the world." Her reality is, of course, very different from this fantasy world. It is also different from the world of the movies she used to watch when she was a teenage girl living an uncomplicated life. The final paragraph points out that "She was still only seventeen. A drop-out from high school, a deserted wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law." As far as her child, Eddie, Jr.—he "did not want to come home" when she picked him up at the end of each day.