Gail Goodwin's A Sorrowful Woman

Imagine slowly realizing as you see your child and husband more you stomach and mind grows progressively sicker until you can no longer be near them, later leading to the point of such strong repulsion you cannot be on the same plane of existence. Gail Goodwin has an astonishingly amazing talent in writing her setting, characterization, and point of view along with their psychological appeals. These aspects create a dismal emotion and a dark plot as the point of view makes the actions of each character more impactful and daunting, the choice of setting placement creates and isolated feeling, and the main character is written to be lonesome and depressive in nature. Goodwin is an American author that has written many stories and books and has …show more content…
The sorrowful and depressive traits of The Woman are presented to us in a manner that is foreign to those who don’t know it, and intensely daunting to those who do. As well as this matter, the husband is presented to not understand what she is facing, thus highlighting the emotional isolation she felt on more of a personal level. The narrator states, “The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again. She told the husband these thoughts. He was attuned to her; he understood such things. He said he understood.” The Woman is described as sad and sick, yet is never said to maintain a physical sickness that would be the source of these symptoms. Goodwin also uses her phrasing of “He said he understood” to point out that he actually does not fully understand, brought to attention by the repetition of that phrase. The Woman’s depressive nature and internal as well as external distance from her husband gives the initial feeling of uncertainty within this story. The eerie nature of this story begins at this point, yet it still continues progressing as more aspects are drawn in. This plays on the brain’s sympathetic nature and the psychology of those empathetic with mental