A Sorrowful Woman
Gail Godwin's short story "A Sorrowful Woman" depicts the life of a woman with a terminal illness in her final stage of life. The short story opens up with the wife looking at the husband and her child describing the husband as "durable, receptive, gentle; the child a tender golden three. The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again" (33). The statement of the wife portrays the sense that she is resentful for the husband's health. The word "durable" exposes to the reader that husband is strong and the wife begrudges him and the child, for she is ashamed and it pains her to see them healthy as her health is depreciating. A pivotal point to the insight of the story comes when the wife after going on a yelling rampage tells her husband "If only there were instant sleep" (33). The aspect of the wife's illness begins to take shape with her words to the husband
The cognac, a French brandy, is seen as a home remedy for inducing the slumber of the wife along with taking the glass of dark liquid. The wife's frail condition becomes visible when her own son was delighted to she her up and moving about. The mother foreshadows her passing away because she does not want to intentionally strike and ignore her child as seen by her saying "I'm sorry" than collapsing to the floor. The circumstance of an innocent play act turns unpleasant response as she yells, "Go away". The wife's present absence of youth and vitality is realized by seeing the girl and knowing "now the days were too short" (36) she awoke at the crack of dawn and "her fingers raced the hours" (36). Having not see the mother the children happily pretend to be a tiger and when she came a little to close to her son he accidentally scratched her. Here the hired girl represents youth and vitality with which the wife detests and consequential she fires the girl. When the husband and the child returned home "the house smelled redolently of renewal and spring" (37), which symbolized the wife's passing and the beginning of a new life for the husband who turned his life upside down to be with her in the final stage. The characteristic of tuff love is seen in this passage becomes relevant to the reader when the mother "hit the child. She had known she was going to do it when the father would see" (34). She had made an assortment of food and clean laundry before drinking her concoction of cognac and a dark liquid. The mothers preoccupation with her illness is noted when telling her husband "the girl upsets me" referring to the girl hired to help with the child. But does it anyway so that the child's emotional connection with her is not as present at the time of her passing. The wife become conscious of her final days and wanted to leave a positive message of her own as her time came to close. and saying, an "instant sleep" as she yearns for an instant end on her life and to the misery she is putting her family through.
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