Where does abortion fit in to Faulkner's story
Dewey Dell's desperate struggle to terminate her pregnancy acts as a symbol for the strong feminist ideals that began to infiltrate the culture of the 1920's. This decade was one of the most productive decades for the women s civil right movement, besides the great resurgence of the 1960's. The struggle Dewey Dell goes through, and her ultimate failure, shows the sense of imprisonment and shame that women felt at any instance of nonconformity with the male instituted gender roles. Faulkner sympathized strongly with these ideals, for his voice of reason in this novel, Vernon Tull, remarks "It's a hard life on women, for a fact"(30). There were several main focuses to the 1920's feminist movement. Margaret Sanger was a large feminist figure who advocated both the destigmatization and wider use of contraceptives. However progressive this seems, the movement had a partly religiously conservative motivation. Wide spread use of contraceptives would drive down abortion rates, for abortions were still not commonly endorsed publicly. Sanger even wrote a chapter in her book Woman and the New Race called "Contraceptives or Abortion" in which she urged the use of contraceptives as a way to quell the huge increase of abortions that this decade experienced.
Another main goal of the 1920's feminist movement was the passage of the 19th amendment. This was the largest achievement of this decade for women, however after it's passage the movement started to die. It had become split into factions, divided mainly by the Equal Rights Amendment. Drafted in 1923 by Alice Paul, it finally became enacted into law in 1973. It nontenured equal rights for women. While this seems like it would be a universally supported bill for most feminists, but there was a large controversy over it because its passage would result in the obliteration of all the protection laws that they had won over the years. Many believed that the benefit that this bill would provide were outstayed by the loss it would bring.
The first-wave feminist movement set the framework for the great civil rights achievements feminists would gain in the 1960's. However, while the right to vote seemed like a huge victory, it actually killed the momentum of the movement, and ended up sending america into a cultural backlash, which reached its peak in the 1950's. The victory they had there was seen as momentous enough that many believed woman had received enough, and that more action was not necessary. William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying illustrates his opposition to this belief, as this book was published in 1930, after the peak of the movement. His portrayal of the struggles of women illustrates a desire for more, and the belief that the current social system put women in an oppressed position.
Another main goal of the 1920's feminist movement was the passage of the 19th amendment. This was the largest achievement of this decade for women, however after it's passage the movement started to die. It had become split into factions, divided mainly by the Equal Rights Amendment. Drafted in 1923 by Alice Paul, it finally became enacted into law in 1973. It nontenured equal rights for women. While this seems like it would be a universally supported bill for most feminists, but there was a large controversy over it because its passage would result in the obliteration of all the protection laws that they had won over the years. Many believed that the benefit that this bill would provide were outstayed by the loss it would bring.
The first-wave feminist movement set the framework for the great civil rights achievements feminists would gain in the 1960's. However, while the right to vote seemed like a huge victory, it actually killed the momentum of the movement, and ended up sending america into a cultural backlash, which reached its peak in the 1950's. The victory they had there was seen as momentous enough that many believed woman had received enough, and that more action was not necessary. William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying illustrates his opposition to this belief, as this book was published in 1930, after the peak of the movement. His portrayal of the struggles of women illustrates a desire for more, and the belief that the current social system put women in an oppressed position.