Gail Godwin's A Sorrowful Woman

Literature is an indispensable tool for a better understanding of society, culture, lifestyle, customs, traditions, habits and values. It is also used to communicate one’s feelings serving as refuge in times of conflicts. With this on mind, let’s also recall the inequality between genders that has been portrayed through literature. It has reinforced the stereotypes of civilizations; females as wives, and mothers while males as husbands, and fathers. Failing to fulfill these roles brings distress to all. Society has led men and women to the acceptance of their labels and submission to what is expected of them. Men must take care of the household monetarily while women take care of the domestic roles, and men. The literary works of Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman”; “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl,
The woman in the story “A Sorrowful Woman” sees her failure in society and judges her roles by it. She sees no value in herself as a human being. She is a valueless woman, therefore becomes a valueless wife and mother. These judgments come from herself, above the support of her husband and the love of her child after each of her rejections. For the woman, being a wife and a mother was part of the roles she was assigned for her gender. Lacking the courage to encounter her life, “The woman now spent her winter afternoons in the big bedroom. She made a fire in the hearth and put on slacks and the old sweater she had loved at school, and sat in the big chair and stared out the window at snow-ridden branches, or went away into long novels about other people moving through other winters”(Godwin, p. 38). Her husband continues to support her through her depression and encourages her to take time from the domestic roles and the child. But, for a woman who is afraid of growing up and tacking responsibilities, there is no help possible. Before her death, the woman played the gender role she was assigned