Meridian | Part 2, Section 20 : Truman Held (Lynne) | Summary

Summary

This very short chapter relates an incident that gives more information about Lynne's mother. At the point this memory of Lynne's occurs, she has been seeing Truman regularly at his mother's home in New York for six months. When her mother figures it out and tracks her down, "they heard her screaming from three blocks away." Her mother's howls at the door of the Helds' apartment never leaves Lynne's mind.

Analysis

To a certain degree, Lynne's love affair with Truman is a rebellion against her upbringing. She compares Truman's bedroom at his family home to hers at her family room. She finds everything about her own room unsophisticated. When she is with Truman, she finally feels "a superiority" to her room, to her mother's house, to her mother's "always uneasy mind."

When she and Truman leave the city together, headed for the South, she hopes she has "left her parents' house ... for good." Her main goal is escape, and if things don't work out with Truman she doesn't "intend to struggle over it or care." That carefree attitude has, of course, changed dramatically.