Some thoughts 20+ years later

Most people, most of the time, act out of what can be considered self-interest. Even people who dedicate themselves to others, do so at least partially because it's what THEY want to do with THEIR life (mother Theresa WANTED TO be a nun. Audrey Hepburn WANTED to dedicated herself to similar causes later in her life...). And Death is a normal part of life, and while most people might think someone like Shelby should just choose to try to live as long as possible instead of opting for fulfillment in the time she would ultimately have, she (and I) obviously disagreed. And nobody likes a Martyr. Had she not had kids it would have eaten at her.

Sure it'd be great if every single child had two parents, but I'm pretty sure Jack Jr is gonna be OK. People die. Stop with the child worship.

I don't think its child worship. Shelby made decisions based on 1) trying to save her marriage 2) wanting a child.

We all want. But you have to at some point consider others when making your decisions.

My Opinion at least.

The real Shelby died in the 70s. The play and movie are from the 80s.

Surrogacy really did not exist back in the 70s. It would have been exceedingly rare. And it could not have used donor eggs. The technology was not remotely as advanced as today.

Funny how people no longer realize this -- you must be very young.

What WAS available in the 70s was adoption -- and in the South back then, there were plenty of adoptable infants.


I wouldn't call her decision "selfish" necessarily -- she knew her baby would have a loving father, and her parents were still fairly young as well. But she took an incredible risk and she lost.

I just watched the film again today, and it occurred to me that maybe she got pregnant accidentally (a happy accident), because she is pregnant at Christmas, and was only married in April....maybe 8 months later. She was very young, why the rush otherwise?

I was born with Spina Bifida and this is a point of contention in my house all the time. My mom does NOT support me getting pregnant and having a baby if/when I get married. Because of my disability my chances of having a baby with my disability goes up, so it'd be really selfish of me to Take that chance, so yeah I agree with the OP. Shelby was pretty stupid, especially considering she did it to save her marriage.

I think Shelby getting pregnant was designed to illustrate two things - firstly how impulsive and naive she is, and secondly to show how selfish and self-absorbed Jackson was, that he would ignore any of the pain and suffering that Shelby would go through to bring a child into the world, simply because it would give him a son and heir.

Jackson is one of those guys who was raised from birth to be the centre of everyone's attention, all the women in the family would have doted over him and his father would have held him up on a pedestal. Jackson came from old southern stock, kind if like a 'Confederate' family, and Jackson was a product of this upbringing.

Shelby is the new South and Jackson is the old.

Shelby embodied a very free spirit who wanted to live life to the fullest (despite her very obvious limitations), which no doubt bothered Jackson because because of his Conservative Southern routes - he wanted a stay-at-home wife who made HIM the priority. They're marriage was failing because she refused to be a 'Confederate' wife - the wife the Jackson wanted her to be, but Shelby had a career and her own life, which no doubt bothered Jackson because she wasn't giving HIM all of the attention.

The whole pregnancy thing is about showing how mismatched Jackson and Shelby were and how M'Lynn knew this from the beginning, and between Shelby's impulsiveness (and eagerness to please), and Jackson's selfishness Shelby ends up dead.