‘A sorrowful woman’ is an acclaimed story that gives a glimpse of feminism and further helps readers in understanding women’s sad state of affairs. The story is written by Gail Godwin who is a famous American novelist and known for her views on women and social issues (Xuehua). This paper intends to discuss the story along with examining how author idea and life is reflected in this story.
The story of ‘A sorrowful woman’ swivels around a woman who is the Protagonist of this story and struggles to fiddle with her role of mother and wife. This woman is living a well structured life as a mother and homemaker. She takes care of her child, her husband and also takes care of the home. Though this woman is not satisfied with her roles and makes effort to get out of it but somehow she is accustomed to her duties and her lifestyle that she led since last several years (Godwin). This woman is trapped between two roles which push her towards depression and finally she commits suicide.
The story begins with “Once upon a time there was a wife and mother one too many times” (t-mac.net). The words, “Too many times” describe that the woman before taking the extreme step, tried to adjust herself in the confines of her situations but failed. She changed her perfumes, tried various costumes but she felt no changes in her situation of helplessness. This woman is portrayed as enervated of her role of mother and wife. This role is not more bearable for her and makes her sick.
Gail Godwin story represents a woman who tries to defy her role, and tries to break the confines of her situation. Author depicts her inner struggle and portrays the same before the readers in a realistic manner. After spending a considerable time in her house with her husband and son, she found herself unable to fit in any role and decided to withdraw herself from confines of her situation.
The lady is portrayed so exasperated with her role, her life, her husband and her son. She used to beat her son at quite a few occasions. “After supper several nights later, she hit the child. She had known she was going to do it when the father would see” (t-mac.net). Probably her annoyed behavior and work load was the reason behind her attitude towards her child that was certainly not that good towards her son. She had to take care of her son and husband along with doing the house job and all this jobs were enough for making her busy, tired as well as completely annoyed (Godwin).
Usually giving birth to a child makes women less attractive. This causes a sense of agony among most of women and the same agony was visible in the character of the story when “she looked down at the right nipple, shriveled with chill, and thought, How absurd, a vertical bra” (t-mac.net). It may annoy women and it appears that perhaps this was one of several other reasons why she used to beat her own son. The behavior of the woman was not normal but then what was normal in her life, probably nothing.
The woman also appears to be less loved by her husband. She says, “Why don't you stay here with me in bed” (t-mac.net). There is a probability that due to her unshaped body her husband did not make enough love and she felt the lack of love and required it. Lack of love sometimes creates complications and her behavior suggests that it was probably one of several other reasons of her depressed behavior.
One important aspect of this story is the author herself and it seems that while describing some incidents, she expresses the real life story through the character. Since the author herself is an ageing woman, she is well aware of the agony and complicacies of ageing women in a better way. Gail Godwin was born in year 1937 and worked as a journalist (Gail Godwin). It gave her huge experiences of life and the same is reflected in her stories. “A sorrowful woman” is no exception and suggests that author has shared her real life experiences in the story while portraying her protagonist of the story.
Gail became independent in her early age and has worked as a journalist. She witnessed several incidents of the society that helped her in conceptualizing her ideas about the condition of women, what they face, how they suffer, and their problems. Gail has depicted the problems of women in a distinctive manner which is not very common. She has her own style of seeing and understanding things.
Like other works of this author, this story also depicts the issues and sufferings of women in a very realistic way which is a trademark of Gail Godwin. Gail does never hesitate while portraying her characters and delves deep into the character while portraying the character and writing the story. After observing her previous works, her style of writing, descriptions of the woman and her problems, it becomes clear that the author has tried one way or another to relate this story with her own life.
Gail Godwin, in her stories and novels, has a mark of her own life, incidents and places where she lives. Gail portrays characters in a realistic manner and this makes her to relate her characters with her real life. The author does not think twice while portraying any issue in her stories, if she observes it anywhere in her real life. Gail portrays issues and causes through her characters of the stories (Godwin). Doing so gives a sense of being realistic and further helps readers in connecting with the characters of the story in an easy manner. The author has been practicing this feature in her works.
After having observed the above mentioned succinct analysis of the story, ‘a sorrowful woman’ along with the author, Gail Godwin, it can be concluded that this story is a very realistic portrayal of a woman, her problems and her life. The story represents a different aspect before the readers and forces them to consider that perhaps the story belongs to someone they know in their real life. The story is a valuable piece for the people who are working on subjects like feminism and society as it forces readers to think about women and their problems with a new perspective.
Works Cited
"Gail Godwin." 2013. gailgodwin. 1 December 2013 <http://www.gailgodwin.com/gail_godwin.htm>.
Godwin, Gail. A Sorrowful Woman . Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1993.
"t-mac.net." t-mac.net. 1 December 2013 <http://www.t-mac.net/short_stories/sorrowful.htm>.
Xuehua, Hong. "Feminist Reading of ‘A Sorrowful Woman’." Journal of Yanbian University (Social Science) (2010): 100-104.
