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Addie's Argumentative Essay

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The modern world is in the midst of reconstructing gender roles; debates

about contraception, reproductive freedom, and female inequality are contentious

and common. The majority now heatedly challenges the long established assertion

that women’s bodies are the eminent domain of patriarchal control. In the past, a

woman’s inability to control her reproductive choices could come with ruinous

consequences.

Perpetuators of patriarchal control argue against reproductive independence

with rhetoric from religious texts and with anecdotes of the ‘better days,’ when

women were subservient. Often, literature about childbearing fails to acknowledge

the possibility of women being uninterested in fulfilling the role of motherhood.

However, …show more content…

In

her infidelity, Addie is jeopardizing everything she has. This is reflective of the ill fit

of her life to her desires. She “took Anse” as husband (157), was “violated” by Cash’s

birth (160), and felt “tricked” by her husband and her body upon the conception of

yet another unwanted child (161). Nothing about Addie’s life as a mother and wife

reflects the woman she was before marriage, who would “look forward to the times

when [her students] faulted, so [she] could whip them” (157). As Annette

Wannamaker says, Addie is “a woman who longs to find an identity of her own that

is outside patriarchal constructions and not always definable in relation to the men

and the children in her life.” Instead, she ends up submitting to both the husband

and the child, lashing out with acts of rebellion and desperation for control.

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It is only through overwhelming social pressure and the binding ties of

motherhood that Addie is forced into submission, and expressing her sexual desire

only furthers her entrapment. In “Sexuality and Maternity in As I Lay Dying” Jill

Bergman reminds the reader that “sexuality, for women, carries with …show more content…

Annette Wannamaker believes that Faulkner cannot be writing from a

feminist perspective, as “the whole point of feminist writing is to give women a

voice outside the symbolic order, to let women speak for themselves, instead of

being spoken for by men,” but by virtue of being the author, Faulkner is taking upon

himself to speak for Addie. Wannamaker also believes that “Faulkner probably did

not intend to create in Addie a subversive feminist,” but rather that was a byproduct

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of Addie’s character. Still other critics believe that by writing women defeated by

sexism, Faulkner perpetuated that culture. In her critique of As I Lay Dying, Diana

Blaine asks her readers: “are we entirely comfortable with Faulkner’s depiction of

[Addie] as bovine bearer of seed?” This question is partially in response to “William

Rossky’s description of Dewey Dell as a ‘highly comic figure,’” and Blaine is

incredulous that one would laugh at the “desperation of a young girl … forced to

seek an illegal abortion” (Blaine). So is Rossky simply off-base in his suggestion of

comedy? Or did Faulkner intend Dewey Dell as a comedic character? In relating

Dewey Dell to the breeding bovine, Faulkner is reminding the reader of her lack

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