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The Archivist
Meronym is a Prescient, meaning she comes from a small group of people with advanced technology who manage to survive a nuclear holocaust known as the Fall. She is the only character with a comet birthmark who isn’t the main character of the story she appears in (“Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After”). Her technologically advanced people trade with the Valleysmen, who live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle after the Fall, and Meronym ends up staying with Ma and Zachry like an anthropologist in order to better learn their lifestyle (although in fact, she is scouting out new places for her own people to live to escape a plague). Meronym quickly earns the respect of most of the Valleysmen, but Zachry remains suspicious of her. Despite Meronym’s efforts to avoid impacting the lifestyle of the Valleysmen, Zachry’s curiosity leads him to find some of her advanced gadgets, including an egglike communication and recording device called an “orison” that contains an interview with Sonmi~451. Meronym’s experience explores the consequences of technologically advanced “civilized” nations interacting with people who don’t have the same technology. Although Meronym means well, she can’t help but influence the lives of the Valleysmen, particularly when she saves the life of Zachry’s sister Catkin. Meronym embodies the benefits of technology but also its limitations and downsides.
Meronym Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Meronym or refer to Meronym. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.
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Chapter 6
Quotes
So hungrysome was my curio, I held it again, an’ the egg vibed warm till a ghost-girl flickered’n’appeared there! Yay, a ghost-girl, right ’bove the egg, as truesome as I’m sittin’ here, her head’n’neck was jus’ floatin’ there, like ’flection in moon-water, an’ she was talkin’! Now I got scared an’ took my hands off the sil’vry egg, but the ghost-girl stayed, yay.
List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.
Zachry my old pa was a wyrd buggah, I won’t naysay it now he’s died. Oh, most o’ Pa’s yarnin’s was jus’ musey duck fartin’ an’ in his loonsome old age he even b’liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b’loved Sonmi, yay, he ’sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an’ comets’n’all.
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Meronym Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Meronym or refer to Meronym. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6
Quotes
So hungrysome was my curio, I held it again, an’ the egg vibed warm till a ghost-girl flickered’n’appeared there! Yay, a ghost-girl, right ’bove the egg, as truesome as I’m sittin’ here, her head’n’neck was jus’ floatin’ there, like ’flection in moon-water, an’ she was talkin’! Now I got scared an’ took my hands off the sil’vry egg, but the ghost-girl stayed, yay.
List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.
Zachry my old pa was a wyrd buggah, I won’t naysay it now he’s died. Oh, most o’ Pa’s yarnin’s was jus’ musey duck fartin’ an’ in his loonsome old age he even b’liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b’loved Sonmi, yay, he ’sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an’ comets’n’all.
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