Alice Walker’s Meridian is an interesting text that represents Jean Toomer’s Cane through intertextuality and interdisciplinarity. In some ways, Meridian could be considered the third level of black ideology, while Cane is the second and The Bacchae is the first. Even The Bacchae, considered the originator in this aspect, would have some elements of other texts and so it cannot be considered the true first level of this ideological exploration.
The main difference between Meridian and Cane is that Cane is told from the male perspective about females while Meridian follows Meridian, a black woman, and is about mostly females – at least from what I’ve read so far. This shift in speaker and follower creates an interdisciplinary space where interdisciplinarity can occur. By combining both texts and treating them as a conversation with each other, something new can be seen… by something new, I mean a new perspective/ideal/ideology.
The Wild Child is reminiscent of Karintha and Becky, not in exact details of their stories, but as women/young women that face a struggle in having a child at a young age or in a situation that puts them outside of regular society. Wile Chile is representative of the raw and true world that she has to live in, while Karintha is a more romanticized version. Of course this is due mostly to the differentiating writing styles between Walker and Toomer—but this contrast in how these similar women are shown creates a new space in which to analyze how this might affect the reader’s view of these situations.
This new space is interdisciplinarity because it meshes two perspectives that could create a new and different meaning for every person putting one story in context with the other.