Guilt and Shame

The novel explores the emotional complexities of guilt and shame by way of Civil Townsend’s relationship with the Williams sisters and her own abortion. When Civil first starts working “at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic,” she is determined “to help young colored women” (6, 12). She therefore devotes herself to Erica and India’s case, because she hopes “to help uplift the race and “make a difference” through her work (12). However, when she soon realizes that her integration into the Williams girls’ lives might be causing more harm than good, Civil grows “hot with shame” (148). In particular, after the clinic and hospital forcibly sterilize the sisters, Civil grows to hate herself. In Part II, Chapter 21, she admits to her daughter Anne that “I hated myself then, and I hate myself now” (148). Although years have passed since her involvement with the Williams family, Civil’s guilt...