Feticide, the conflict between Passion and Morals in William Faulkner’s the Wild Palms

Abstract

In "Foeticide, the conflict between Passion and Morals in William Faulkner's The Wild Palms, I am
trying to explore the historically persistent and socially significant theme of abortion. Faulkner
depicts the male protagonist's fear of female fertility and tackles the issue of abortion as a matter of
individual choice with the withering of romantic love, wretched poverty, and maternal death
corresponding with the popular discourse of a mid-twentieth-century U.S. that depicted abortion as
tragic.

Keywords : Foeticide, illicit love, failed marriage, death, imprisonment.