A Sorrowful Woman by Gail Godwin - Essay Example

 «A Sorrowful Woman by Gail Godwin» A Sorrowful woman is a beautiful short story written by Gail Godwin. It was first published in June, 1975 in Studies in Short Fiction (Wheeler 6). The plot of the story revolves around a protagonist who is a nameless wife and mother suffering from clinical depression. She becomes overwhelmed with her life, which includes her husband and a toddler child (Godwin 2). The protagonist reacts to this by starting to withdraw from her husband and the child eventually shutting them out of her life completely. Her roles as a wife and mother do not seem to satisfy her and thus in seek for peace she tries to fit in other roles, only to discover that none of those satisfy her either. She had always been used to a certain given role in her life and when she gets freedom to chose any choice she wants she finds it very difficult to make any decision or cope with it (Kirkpatrick 23). A sorrowful woman by Godwin all the way through the book portrays a manner in which the protagonist woman slowly shows withdrawal from first her husband and child, than her home and eventually the whole world. The reader effectively gets engrossed in the emotions of the protagonist point of view of the world, the process of detachment she goes through from the world as whole. The dilemma she faces when she faces freedom to make too many choices as well as her dissatisfaction regarding the role she has in her life. The reader gets a deep insight to the mind and feelings of Godwin’s protagonist, as the story portrays them effectively. This work by Godwin has a strong side of feminism to it. Godwin’s protagonist shows that she strives to live by her own reasons instead of those presented to her by the society. The troubled woman in the story is led to isolate her family by her growing uneasiness regarding her role as a mother and wife. The portrayal of the character was like that of any other stereotypical housewife of that era but then she starts to get these thoughts about her toddler which seemed to make her body weak (Wheeler 6). This occurrence of thoughts becomes more frequent and makes her confused as to her role in life. She gets the uneasy feeling that there is something out there that she wants as well as needs to do. The sight of her toddler child and understanding husband makes her sad, leading her to believe that she never wanted to see them again. This moves away from the stereotype as it portrays how the woman protagonist has her own beliefs and thoughts, unlike those that society believes them to have. Not only at the time the story was published but even today the society perceives the women to be inferior sex, due to their beauty, delicacy and emotions. It is believed that women are crafty, guided by emotions thus weaker than the men. Yet these qualities donot make women weak, men and women have been stated to be equal in the eyes of God and thus society needs to treat them as equal genders too. Godwin’s protagonist displays all these qualities, yet defies their weakness. The protagonist is emotional yet she does not dwell on the stereotypes the society has set for women to do, or what she should do according to women’s perception in the society. Unlike the usual perception this woman even though loves her family wants to leave them permanently. She has her own belief of freedom, which she shows by refusing to lead a life of doing household chores like usual housewives and just locking herself in a room. This may seem ironic as her way of freedom was to lock herself in a room yet her idea of freedom in the story was not to go out in the wild but write sonnets. Once she gets her freedom to write sonnets she realises the endless possibility and choices before her. She could write any length or kind of sonnet that she wished yet this wide array of choice made her uncomfortable too. At this point she shows first characteristics of feminist; she is aware at that point of her full freedom yet she does not fully embrace it and the confusion only leads to her death. Her actions in the course of story show determination to do something different yet intense confusion as to what that should be. The character of husband has been portrayed as unusually feministic too, although on occasions it almost seems sarcastic. He according to protagonist understood her; he let her do whatever she wanted. This on the surface although seems very understanding and compromising attitude but in depth analysis may show that it was not exactly in the best interest of the protagonist. The husband although claimed o understand her problems he made no attempts to help her deal with them, he only barely understood the surface of her deep rooted problem. In the end the woman like any other woman’s perception in the society who is a housewife ends up cleaning laundry, preparing food and working on sonnets. Even though the idea of writing a different poem occurs to her she still ends up writing only sonnets. This implies the fact that even though she is aware of the free will she holds, she does not take any measures to actually use it properly. A feminist critic may see the protagonist as being extremely selfish and aggressive as she shows disgust towards her own child and wants to get the things done in her own way. As mother is usually expected to be the submissive and mild one, critics may not be able to swallow this new role. The mother may be looked upon as trying to switch roles by taking over the fathers role of being dominating where as the father is the one looking after the child and putting the mother’s needs before his own as well as their child’s. The plot of the story is justified by the protagonist through out the story, by breaking the stereotypes yet getting back to them in a way at the end. Trying to break through the boundaries as a woman yet failing by impositions of perception of the women by society as large. This shows the mental dilemma’s many of the woman go through and even though may be ‘understood’ by family members yet are rarely provided the help they need, thus they end up making national and rash decisions. Work Cited David Wheeler, 'A Sorrowful Woman' Gail Godwin [Kindle Edition]. London: Dog's Tail Books, 2011. Print D. K. Kirkpatrick. Reference Guide to American Literature, Third Edition. US: St James PR, 1994. Print Gail Godwin. ‘A Sorrowful Woman’. Studies in Short Fiction, 1975. Print Read More