Another cause came from her mother and another brother Jason. Herbert Head had offered Jason a job at his bank before Caddy married him, but rescinded that offer when he divorced Caddy. Because he knew that Caddy’s unborn child was not his. This retraction left Jason no choice but to work at the local farm-supply store. However, after Caddy divorced, her mother did not allow Caddy come back home, at last, they took in Caddy’s daughter Miss Quentin, but Caddy could not meet her. During Quentin’s growing time, Jason took away the money, which Caddy gave to Quentin, as his own. In order to meet her daughter, Caddy would like to be controlled by Jason; Jason asked Caddy to pay him a thousand dollars for seeing Quentin a minute. From these things we can see that Caddy had no right since she divorced, in her mother’s eyes, she was only an exchange condition with Jason’s job. Under the backward Southern feudalism, Caddy was doomed to be a tragic person.
B. Backward Feudalism and the Traditional Code
After the civil war, The Northern Capitalism defeated the Southern feudalism. But there was still the residue of the feudal serf system in the South America. And there was a traditional, idealized Southern code of honor and conduct, which was a legacy of the old South, a highly paternalistic society in which men were expected to act like gentlemen and women like ladies. In The Sound and the Fury, Caddy was just expected to act like a lady and Quentin like a gentleman. However, Caddy was not a person without thought, she was eager for freedom, so she became severely rebellions. In her teenage, she became very promiscuous. However, her brother Quentin believed very strongly in the ideals espoused under this traditional code: family honor; gentlemanly virtue, strength, and decency; and especially feminine purity, modesty, and virginity. Men like Quentin, who attempted to cling to these increasingly outdated Southern ideals, sensed that their grasp was slipping and their sense of order was disappearing. Their reliance on a set of outdated myths and ideals left them unequipped to deal with the realities of the modern world. Several characters in The Sound and the Fury embodied this changing of the guard from old ideals to modern realities. Damuddy, the lone representative of the old South left in the Compson family, died before any of the other action in the novel took place. Miss Quentin, the lone member of the Compsons’ new generation, was not only a bastard child, but had continued in Caddy’s promiscuous ways without displaying any of the guilt that Caddy felt about something did wrong. But Caddy’s promiscuity broke the code, Quentin attempted to maintain his sense of order by responding in a manner he considered honorable. Thinking that suicide was the only way to salvage the family name, at last, he preferred the suicide. No doubt his behavior gave Caddy psychological pressure and made her feel ashamed, so that her life style was affected afterwards.
Ⅳ. Women’s Social Status Reflected from Caddy’s Tragedy
From Caddy’s tragedy, we can see that the social status of women was very low in the early of the 20th century.
A. Women Having Fewer Rights at That Time
Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women’s most significant professions. In the 20th century, however, women in most nations won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. Perhaps most important, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society. But in the South America, there is a traditional, idealized Southern code of honor and conduct. This code is a legacy of the old South, a highly paternalistic society in which men were expected to act like gentlemen and women like ladies. Just like Caddy, since she was a child, who was taught that she was expected to act as a lady. They could not do something obey the code. In the end of the 19th century, women began working outside their homes in large numbers, notably in textile mills and garment shops. In poorly ventilated, crowded rooms women (and children) worked for as long as 12 hours a day. Great Britain passed a ten-hour-day law for women and children in 1847, but in the United States it was not until the 1910s that the states began to pass legislation limiting working hours and improving working conditions of women and children. But it had not changed the condition yet. And the myth of the natural inferiority of women greatly influenced the status of women in law. Under the common law of England, an unmarried woman could own property, made a contract, or sue and be sued. But a married woman, defined as being one with her husband, gave up her name, and virtually all her property came under her husband’s control. During the early history of the United States, a man virtually owned his wife and children as he did his material possessions. If a poor man chose to send his children to the poorhouse, the mother was legally defenseless to object. Some communities, however, modified the common law to allow women to act as lawyers in the courts, to sue for property, and to own property in their own names if their husbands agreed. Besides, in the early of the 20th century, women had no right in politics. Women were outsiders to the formal structures of political life -- voting, serving on juries, and holding elective office – and they were subject to wide-ranging discrimination that marked them as secondary citizens. In 1900, women’s legal standing was fundamentally governed by their marital status. They had very few rights. A married woman had no separate legal identity from that of her husband. She had no right to control her biological reproduction, and no right to sue or be sued since she had no separate standing in court. She had no right to own property in her own name or to pursue a career of her choice. Women could not vote, serve on juries, or hold public office. According to the Supreme Court, they were not “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law. American women have had the right to vote since 1920, but their political roles have been minimal. There were only several women played roles in politics. For example, Jeanette Rankin of Montana, elected in 1917, was the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives. Wives of former governors became the first women governors Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas and Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming.
B. Women’s Unfail Treatment
Women were long considered naturally weaker than men, squeamish, and unable to perform work requiring muscular or intellectual development. In most reindustrialize societies, for example, domestic chores were relegated to women, leaving “heavier” labor such as hunting and plowing to men. This ignored the fact that caring for children and doing such tasks as milking cows and washing clothes also required heavy, sustained labor. But physiological tests now suggest that women
have a greater tolerance for pain, and statistics reveal that women live longer and are more resistant to many diseases. Maternity, the natural biological role of women, has traditionally been regarded as their major social role as well. The resulting stereotype that “a woman’s place is in the home” has largely determined the ways in which women have expressed themselves. Traditionally, a middle-class girl in Western culture tended to learn from her mother’s example that cooking, cleaning and caring for children were the behavior expected of her when she grew up. And formal education for girls historically has been secondary to that for boys. In colonial America, girls learned to read and write at dame schools. They could attend the master’s schools for boys when there was room, usually during the summer when most of the boys were working. Besides, some of these labor laws were seen as restricting the rights of workingwomen. For instance, laws prohibiting women from working more than an eight-hour day or from working at night effectively prevented women from holding many jobs, particularly supervisory positions that might require overtime work. Laws in some states prohibited women from lifting weights above a certain amount varying from as little as 15 pounds again barring women from many jobs. In colonial America, women who earned their own living usually became seamstresses or kept boardinghouses. In 1900s, women constituted about 5 percent of the total doctors in the United States. Women also had not greatly improved their status in other professions. Moreover, women were unfair in morals. For example, if a man had slept with many women, he would not be condemned by the society, if a woman did that, just like Caddy of The Sound and the Fury, she would be regarded as a promiscuous, degenerate woman.
In a word, women could not get fair and enough rights in the early of the 20th century. Many feminists believe that a cooperative society based on social economic principles would respect the rights of women.
Conclusion
From The Sound and the Fury, we can see the high recognition and summary ability of William Faulkner’s view about life and history. His work appeared confusing, and sometimes it just likes the moron talking nonsense. But in fact, it was analysis of an old family’s disintegration and turn to death. It really stated an aspect about the change of the South America’s history. The Sound and the Fury embodied this aspect of Faulkner’s mature aesthetic; his paradoxical descriptions are not pointy less riddles but rather terse formulate to describe the subversion of resolved meaning, closed form, and full represemation by the language that aspires to those achievements.
Nearly every reader agreed that Caddy Compson was a key, though critics differ in how prominent her role should be. However, she was a tragic character. Her tragedy pierced through the whole story. We have to have a pity for her. Just because of her family and the backward feudal serf system and the traditional, idealized south code, Caddy became a promiscuous, degenerate woman from a pure girl. In the novel, Quentin’s struggle to reconcile Caddy’s actions with his own traditional Southern value system reflects Faulkner’s broader concern with the clash between the old South and the modern world. Like a medieval code of chivalry, the old South’s ideals were based on a society that has largely disappeared.
From Caddy’s tragedy, we can see that women only had fewer rights at that time, women got only fewer legal economical, political, and educational rights, they could not enjoy equal rights with men and they were not respected by society. However, at present, the statuses of women have already improved in many aspects, but some women are still treated unfairly. So, we must pay more attention to women’s status, no matter in the past or in the modern society, women’s rights are always an important matter. We believe that a cooperative society based on social economic principles would respect the rights of women.
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