The Sorrowful Woman Analysis

741 Words3 Pages
Gail Godwin's short story, “A Sorrowful Woman” is centered on a wife and mother in the early 1900’s who gets engulfed by her duties as a housewife and mother. Slowly, over time the wife starts to become more and more sorrowful. These points become apparent throughout the story. As much she would like to be with her family, her state of mind and her body would not allow her, however she was a sickly wife and a mother who becomes overwhelmed with her husband and child, and gradually shuts them out completely. The year portrayed in this story is almost a century ago and in this time period, women were not treated the same as men. Women were expected to do house chores such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of children while the men were expected to work. The wife of this particular story was not content with these duties and it left her empty inside. On top of this, every little incident sets the wife off. The wife in the story seems a little bit mentally unstable, to say the least. She may even seem a bit bipolar throughout the story such as when she was with her son and he scratches her and she sheds some blood. She became very upset and beats her little child. right after hitting the her baby, she is sad and apologizes right after. The husband of this story quickly realizes that his wife is obviously sick after hitting their child and dropping to the flooring only able to apologize. With the husband always working and the wife having been sick, this combination leaves the house dirty and the child uncared for. This is when the husband decides it would be best to hire a caretaker for the house and child. The caretaker is funny, smart and energetic and fulfills the duties as a housewife for the husband and wife. For a while everything is great and being taken care of, but after an incident when the maid took the son to see the mother and a

More about The Sorrowful Woman Analysis

Open Document