The Girl: the Woman

 By:

Harold Newsome

            The novel  The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur is a narrative about the abuse of women and their struggle for equality.  Set during the Great Depression, the novel allows us an insight into the treatment of women by men, other women, and the socioeconomic system of that time.  The story is told through the eyes of a young, female narrator, the Girl, whose coming of age experience parallels the efforts of American women during the era to gain better treatment for themselves. 

Despite scenes of tragedy and abuse, the Girl, like her mentor Clara, endures by “always looking to a bright future and peace” (3).  The novel hints that even if that future is not obtained by the Girl or the other women in the tale, her efforts and the efforts of those around her will ensure a better future for her daughter whose birth is the climax of the story.

The Girl is a naïve, “virgin from the country scared of her shadow,” (2) who comes to the city to escape her family and find work.  She finds a job as a waitress in a bar that sells illegal drinks, the German Village.  It is here that she meets Butch, her love interest and eventual father of her child, and Clara another waitress at the bar who teaches her about life in the city but who dies just prior to the birth of the Girl’s own daughter (128).

The Girl names her daughter Clara, a name that means clear light (126) and bespeaks progression or enlightenment for the women as a whole.  She is, in the words of Amelia, the organizer of the local feminist movement,  “a new woman” (131).

Nearly every female character in the novel is abused by at least one man.  That abuse includes forced abortion[i], verbal threatenings[ii], rape[iii], belittlement[iv] and beatings[v].  They are never free from the abuse until the men in their lives die.

Unsurprisingly, the male characters believe that a woman needs to be abused, that to keep her in line “you got to knock the holy vinegar out of her” (6).  The male mentality never evolves in The Girl, continuing to believe that “a woman’s got to be struck regular like a gong” (73); that she needs a man to “pull her eyebrows down,” and “knock it into her” (73). 

Surprisingly, the female characters seem to agree with this mentality early on and do not hold the men accountable for their consistent mistreatment of the women around them.  Their actions are even defended by Amelia, the voice of feminism. 

It isn’t the man.  A man is a mighty fine thing, there is nothing better than a man.  It’s the way we have to live that makes us sink to the bottom and rot” (100).

This view progressively changes towards the end of the novel and Amelia declares,

…let our voice be heard in the whole city-a trial,  a judgment against the city fathers, a trial yes, an accusation.  We accuse. 

Yes, we point a finger.  We hold them responsible (130). 

Of special interest in the novel is the issue of abortion.  The early rationale of both the men and women is that abortion is a cheap and effective means of birth control.  Consequently, when the Girl becomes pregnant nearly everyone around her encourages her to have an abortion, even Clara (68). 

When Butch finds out that she is pregnant he demands that she abort it and even takes her to a lady to have it done (73).  She refuses to do so, asserting that to have an abortion is to “kill a child” (69).    Her unwillingness to go through with the abortion marks a turning point in the novel.  Following her act of defiance, the female characters begin to see abortion as a deadly evil about which they have been deceived.  Belle, who has had thirteen of her own (11), urges the Girl not to terminate her pregnancy.  And Clara swears that her poor health is the result of the physical and mental anguish caused by an abortion since “it gets you sooner or later” (100).  In the end, the women see the ability to reproduce as one of their greatest strengths (131).