Gail Goodwin A Sorrowful Woman
Gail Godwin was born in Birmingham, Alabama. She was educated at theuniversity of North Carolina and Iowa, where she received her Ph.D in English.She is a full time writer with eleven acclaimed novels and two collections ofshort stories. Among the honors she has received in addition to her three National Book Award nominations are a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Godwin is a great writer to learn about because her works are inspired by the era shewas writing in. She began writing in the '70s which was around the time of womensliberation. Gail used that "woman power" type of role in a lot of her works. Womenin her stories were usually outspoken or unstatisfied with marriage. Godwin had a realproblem with marriage in her real life too. She was married twice and each marriage was very short lived. It was almost as though she felt women weren't supposed to be tieddown with marriage and kids. One story of hers that reflects on her views of howsome woman are just not made for marriage and children is "A Sorrowful Woman."
Dissatisfied with being in and her ability to fulfill the role as dutiful mother and wife, she tries on different approaches,but finds that none of them satisfies her. She then tries to take on the persona of the fired help in an effort to recreate herself as being good for that role, and failed there too. While she might have had a mental problem, she allowed herself no personal attachment to the world, no personal relationship with anything in it. Most people see marriage and raising a family a gradual step in life that can make us happy or complete us. Everyone knows that it isn't like that. It was as if she would live a normal life again, but this was not to be sustained. "The Sorrowful Woman" gets help from the perfect young lady, and for some time she delights in it. "A Sorrowful Woman" was a story that Godwin felt would of been her life. Godwin believes in showing the world for how it really spins. The setting taking place in the house is key for this story. I guess you could have the setting somewhere else, but the way thesetting is portrayed here, it's very hard to imaged a story like this set anywhere else. While she lives a structured life and her activities are mostly confined to caring for her husband and child, she is obviously not satisfied with this. Moving into the white room illustrates her sterile mental state as she describes the views of the streets as an outsider.
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