I guess I just want to put this blog post together for Dewey Dell. She has been through so much, and I honestly feel so sorry for her at this moment. I know she's not dead, but I think she deserves a moment of silence now...
Now that that's done with, I think we should reflect on all that she's been through. The first time she's mentioned is through Cora's point of view, and Dewey Dell is depicted as this rude, moody teen who won't really let her family see or talk to their mother. Throughout the novel, however, we as readers get insight from her point of view. It'd been deduced that she hadn't really been taught much sex ed, so of course she was a typical hormonal teenager and didn't really know what to do about that. When she reflects on the scene between her and Lafe we see how she make up a little game; if her sack was full (of cotton) when she got to the woods she would (sleep with Lafe) and if it wasn't she wouldn't. Lafe then went on to help fill her sack and thus she "could not help it." This is the first time in the novel we see Dewey Dell being taken advantage of.
Dewey Dell became pregnant as a result of sleeping with Lafe, and she struggled throughout the novel debating what she would do about it. Abortion was illegal, but she wanted to go that route anyways. Dewey was too scared to ask Peabody's help, and so she was going to use the $10 Lafe gave her and 'take care of it' on the trip to Jefferson. Darl was not very helpful with his taunts about how Dewey Dell really wanted their mother to die so that the family would go to Jefferson; I can only imagine how distraught Dewey Dell was at this point.
On the trip to Jefferson, at one point the family stopped in Mottson, but Moseley wouldn't give her anything to abort her child. When the family got to Jefferson, Dewey Dell went to a drugstore hoping to be helped there. Instead of help, McGowan (a store clerk) said he would give her 'treatment'. Part one of the so-called treatment was drinking a cup of turpentine, and part two was being raped by McGowan.
I'm so repulsed by this part of the novel it's ridiculous. McGowan nothing more than a lowlife and Dewey Dell seems to have the worst luck in the world. As I Lay Dying actually ends with Dewey Dell still being pregnant and oh-so-hopeless, and without the majority of the family knowing of her predicament. Plus, Anse took her $10 so it's not as if she can go to another pharmacy and try again. She doesn't know what to do, and the reader is left unaware of the final outcome.
Dewey Dell did not deserve any of what happened to her, and I can only hope she ended up with an okay life.
Dewey Dell's story is definitely the most tragic in the novel, and the fact that it's not really even the center makes it a bit sadder -- she's going through this whole ordeal and literally no one else really pays any attention to her. The Bundrens are way too dysfunctional to really support each other, which is terrible for Dewey Dell.
ReplyDeleteI also think that Dewey Dell's story is very calamitous. While she is responsible for her own actions, I think that a lot of this could have been easily prevented. But because of many factors such as the time period in which she resides, not receiving much motherhood, being poor, and having close to no sex education, these actions happened. A lot of it was also wrong time, wrong place. But the worst part about it is that she can't tell anyone about it, not even her family (in fact, most certainly NOT her family).
ReplyDeleteThe time period and the family she was born into aren't things she can control. In this time period, she actually has very little control over any of this. Thus, it couldn't really have been easily prevented...
DeleteDewey Dell's story is the part that sort of makes this novel somehow extremely serious. It puts the rest of the novel in perspective and how there is no reason to laugh at these people since they all are going through so much. Obviously Dewey Dell's being the worst in the group but I think that it definitely is quite amazing to see how Faulkner can take a scene full of laughs straight to a very dark place.
ReplyDeleteIt goes without saying that, while Darl is the only one to know her secret now, in a month or two it's not going to be secret any longer. And the prospects of single teenage motherhood for Dewey Dell are not good, put only moreso when we think about the bleak picture of motherhood we get from Addie--who went the "right" way, and got married first. And we can't at all assume that she'll find some maternal guidance from the pop-eyed, pugnacious "Mrs. Bundren" Anse is now bringing home. Dewey Dell's story is so sad largely because she's so completely alone.
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