Real Women

[Diana York Blaine]

I suppose Addie seems "real" to me partly because Faulkner helps break the
taboo against representing pregnancy and maternity as anything but
beatific and fulfilling. And he stops short of making her a "fallen woman"
even though she hates the bondage--while some characters judge her for
this they are clearly much worse than she, Cora Tull for example, and I
think Faulkner permits Addie to maintain a kind of integrity in spite of
her adultery and difficulty "bonding" with the kids. So it's her human
"realism" I'm responding to rather than any sense of someone
finally capturing Essential Woman. (I hold forth on this at much greater
length in the special Faulkner edition of Mississippi Quarterly--Summer
1994 I think.) Now that we're on the subject I am noticing that I have a
resistance to Oedipa that's always been there but I never thought about
consciously--something about her prevents me from identifying fully with
her even though she's sympathetic and, I guess, realistic?  Any thoughts?