Gail Godwin A Sorrowful Woman

“A Sorrowful Woman”, a short story by Gail Godwin describes a woman's tragic battle with depression. Throughout the story, the woman becomes emotionally, and eventually physically, detached from her family while she also attempts to regain her identity. At first, it was a struggle to perform her daily tasks around the house, often requiring medicine before she slept. Fortunately, her husband, ever so caring and understanding, takes up many of her duties while caring for his wife. However, as the husband inevitably grew weary and the woman's mental health deteriorated further, exemplified as she breaks down and questions her state of mind after hitting her child, they eventually hire a maid to look after the house and their child. At this point,

one would think that the woman now had plenty of time to clear her head and recover mentally. Despite the lack of responsibilities and even her husband's extra effort in their relationship, the woman loses ground in her battle against depression.

After an incident where the maid allowed the woman's son to bring a grasshopper into her room, the woman decides to fire her. Perhaps the decision was out of jealousy or just disdain for the harmless prank, but even the woman herself began to realize how much of a burden she became on her family. Without a maid, the husband again took up every responsibility in the house, leaving the woman alone to find her identity. She tries poetry, she tries to watch the world outside, but in the end, she chooses to refuse to see her child and spends her time alone, brushing her hair. When all seemed to be lost, the woman finally ventures out of her room to find that kitchen had changed, and she was inspired by it. She raced back to her room to complete a new, mysterious task. The story ends with a final moment of redemption for the woman, as they find her in a room full of poetry, paintings, food, and clothes, a nod to her old life and role as a

mother.
EVALUATION
Although I believe that the husband was caring, understanding, and supporting, he, in a way, only harmed her in her battle against depression.

Often, he allows her to make decisions that make her life more isolated or difficult in general, such as firing the maid or refusing to see her child. As a caring, kind husband, it's understandable that he would not like to go against his sick wife's wishes. However, by allowing these few, key decisions to be made, he essentially aids her in her efforts to detach herself from the world. Although he did put more effort to make her special by taking her to dinner, I feel that her situation and mental health could have improved if he had done more to connect with her on a more casual level. This would allow her to reconnect with the normal life surrounding her, rather than allowing her to alienate herself and enabling her by letting her stay in the room alone for most of the day. Perhaps rest was what she needed, but isolation from her child and husband only helped her mind forget how to be a mother and a wife. If the husband had allowed the maid to stay, at least the woman could focus solely on rebuilding her relationships. Similarly, if the husband had taken their child to spend more time with her as a family despite her wishes, she would have eventually learned how to interact with her son. Overall, rather than allowing her fall victim to every bit of pain that depression gave her, such as when she decided to not see her son after

kissing him for the first time in a while, he should have taken a more active role in helping her fight it. He should have been more focused on helping her rather than accommodating her illness.
RESPONSE
After considering the character of the husband in the story, the author changed my point of view on how we can help a loved one through depression. Like the husband, we sometimes think that the way to help someone who is depressed is to try to "cheer them up". Perhaps it's alleviating their stress by taking up their responsibilities or simply taking them out for dinner in hopes of raising their spirits. However, the husband did both to the extreme for his wife but she still became more and more detached from her family and eventually from her life entirely. After considering his actions and why she still deteriorated, it became obvious that the solution was simple. He just needed to help her feel human again. In the same way, I applied it to the archaic idea that people that are depressed are making a conscious choice to be unhappy. In the story, the woman felt as though she simply couldn't function, it wasn't that she did not want to be a mother or wife. In my own life, I realize that helping someone who is battling depression is more than being kind, it's about making more of an effort to create a personal connection with them. It's helping them through the tasks that seem to painful or daunting, whether that be talking with their child or doing laundry. Overall, the story of the husband is one of many people who have the right heart to help someone, but the wrong plan.