Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" and Gail Godwin's "A Sorrowful Woman" are both similar pieces of literary work in that both stories offers a revealing glimpse of extremely unhappy marriages. Both Mrs. Mallard and the unnamed mistress in A Sorrowful Woman, called the wife, seem to reveal a problem or possibly a disease which is plainly inherited through the institution of their marriages. They are so unhappy with the lives they lead and the people in them, they seem to drive themselves to there own death.
             "The Story of an Hour" seems to pick up in the middle of an on going battle of Mrs. Mallard's feelings towards that of her husband Brently Mallard. Because of his kind and loving nature one can not come to grasps with her hatred towards Mr. Mallard and why she feels it. There is little introduction of the husband, Brently, which leaves any thought or opinions of him completely to the imagination, while in "A Sorrowful Woman" the wife seems to be a very selfish and self-centered person who can care only for herself. Godwin describes mostly all characteristics about the husband and wife when the wife tells her husband that the sight of himself and the child made her so sick she did not want to see them ever again.
             The husband, being his very understanding self, is very loving towards his wife throughout the story; "he understood such things, and asked what would she like him to do" (33).
             In the beginning, Mrs. Mallard is overwhelmingly happy to receive the telegram informing her of her husband's death. But she has to conceal her happiness simply because there are loved ones in her presence, including her sister Josephine and Mr. Mallard's good friend Richard. It was Richard who had received intelligence of the death as he was in the newspaper room and was first to hear of the railroad disaster and see Brently Mallard's name at the top of the death...