Depression In Gail Godwin's A Sorrowful Woman

Decent Essays
SUMMARY
Gail Godwin’s short story “A Sorrowful Woman” illustrates depression’s overwhelming effect on a woman’s life. Initially, the woman grew anxious at the sight of her husband and son and eventually with time, she withdrew herself completely from the home normal activities. She lost touch with her surroundings although her husband desperately tried to please her every desire. He grew tirelessly from life, but it was never enough to satisfy the woman.
EVALUATE
My mind created and played two different worlds as I read through the story. Wherever the husband, child, and even girl lived, a bright yellow, positive energy existed; contrary, the woman’s rooms was filled with a heaviness and gray lighting. The colors are my interpretation of feelings,

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    The story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, immerses us into the “depressed” mind of a spouse and mother who becomes infatuated with yellow colored wallpaper. Her husband John takes away the living aspect to his wife’s life by isolating her from her family and the rest of society. He has extreme demands for his wife which endanger her life. John is unaware of the damage he is inflicting, believing he is aiding her properly. Throughout the short story, the narrator struggles with the loss of control over her own life by her husband, John, and her longing desire to regain control over her own life, which can be seen in how the narrator interacts with the yellow wallpaper.…

    • 1652 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout a person’s lifetime, they have to deal with hard times, and they all have different ways to cope with those hard times. Everyone has very various means to deal with how they want to deal with the difficult times in their lives. In Cynthia Ozick’s essay “A Drugstore In Winter,” she writes about how she and her family coped with the effects of the Great Depression. Her family faced many obstacles during the depression, like their drugstore being shut down, but they survived by dealing with the difficulties. In the essay, she writes about how she faced many obstacles in her life, but how she used literature to cope with the depression.…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Yellow Wallpaper vs. The Story of an Hour “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are very similar with the character, being a trapped woman who craves freedom from her authoritative husband, and theme of the women finding contentment within herself to escape her husband to become a strong and independent women. In both stories the women were described to be unequal with their husbands. During the time these two short stories were written, the early 1900’s, women were seen to be fragile and weak in need of a strong authoritative husbands to protect them. However, the two women described in the stories are going through life changing events which they exhibited in their own…

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1.What psychological stages does the narrator go through as the story progresses? The narrator goes through a rollercoaster of emotion throughout this story. In the beginning of the story she is suffering from postpartum depression so her husband locks her away in the attic. Being bored out of her mind and stuck in the room for 3 months she starts to be intrigued by the specific most minor details of the room like the pattern of the yellow wallpaper.…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within the story “A Sorrowful Woman,” Gail Godwin weaves a tale that tells the story of an intriguing family that likely seems normal on the surface, but within has deep issues. The story ultimately ends with the unfortunate death of the protagonist, with the death being surrounded in mystery. Ultimately, the wife’s death comes down to her sickness being incurable and her needing to have some control of what was going on within her life. When the wife is initially sick, it isn’t very clear as to what could make her as physically sick as she was. Simply looking at her child should not be enough to make anyone physically sick.…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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.…

    • 1129 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper Influence

    • 1255 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Even though “fiction” are stories that are not real, and many writers try not to have aspects of their life in their stories, you cannot deny that life; the environment one lived in, the orthodoxy that was accepted in the society at their time, one’s own belief, and many more, can influence what and how authors write a story. Gilman’s works are no different. We can see the “echoes” of Gilman’s life and the ideas the society in her time had in her well-known story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This story is thought to be influenced by her own experience of a “nervous breakdown”, or what we call today as postpartum depression, and the unusual treatments for it. Treating this symptom should be done by supporting the mother to her needs, but…

    • 1255 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Undeniably, the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is an interesting yet enlightening read about a girl named Melinda Sordino who faces depression after a traumatic incident. There are multiple settings, but there are two major ones. The story mostly takes place at the MerryWeather High School. This is a place where Melinda fears to be at because she can run into Andy Evans, the boy who raped her at the summer party that left her devastated. The next setting is at Kyle Rodger’s party, this is where her depression began.…

    • 1140 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They both get lost and become stressed, but the woman becomes depressed and averse, “But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depression”(2). Becoming depressed made the woman’s self-esteem worse;…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Depression isn’t something that has the capability of being physically seen. Those who suffer from it might show signs, but it requires a lot for someone to look closely, pay attention, and discover what is occurring within that person’s mind. In the novel Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson, the use of symbolism assists in portraying an unspoken theme of depression. The author shows this through the janitor’s closet, the turkey sculpture, and the constant mentioning of trees. Depression can cause people to alienate themselves and their thoughts from others.…

    • 1233 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ordinary: With no special or distinctive features; normal. In the novel Ordinary People by Judith Guest, Ordinary is contrary to the Jarrett family. In the beginning of the novel a 17 year old boy named Conrad has just gotten off release from a mental hospital for committing an act of suicide. Conrad’s guilt and grief of his brother’s death leads him to attempt suicide by slashing his wrists. When Conrad returns home and back to school, he struggles with trying to get his life back to “normal.”…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Willful Ignorance: Why the “Positive Society” is Harmful Contrary to popular belief, happiness doesn't result from refusing to think negatively. So many individuals have bought into this notion that in order to feel happy, in order for positive things to happen, negative aspects of life must be ignored. American culture, starting in the workplace and moving to society as a whole, has perpetrated this idea that people can’t be negative, can’t embrace a negative outlook, and can’t criticize something. Doing so often results in being relieved of your duties. Barbara Ehrenreich, in her lecture “Smile or Die”, mentions a few examples in recent years: “...you know people who try, let's say, within Lehman Brothers to point out that the housing prices…

    • 1380 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “One winter evening she looked at them: the husband durable, receptive, gentle; the child tender golden three. The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again” (Godwin 1). Gender roles in the 70’s tell us that being a successful woman means being a good wife and mother and taking care of her family. “A Sorrowful Woman” by Gail Godwin portrays the story of a mother who is going against the roles given to her by society. The woman in the story is seen as mentally ill, but in actuality she is challenging the gender roles assigned to her by not wanting to be a wife and a mother and hiding herself away and trying to discover what her true passions are.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Leaving a person with depression in a lonely house, with very few people is deleterious for the person. Depression can cause a person to breakdown to a point where the individual starts doubting about her health and her thoughts as well as the other people’s thoughts. To prevent a breakdown from occurring, people around them need to be very cautious and give the affected one freedom. This caution is not taken within the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. As a consequence the affected character, the narrator, has a mental breakdown.…

    • 996 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Tiffani Byers 12:15 P.M ENC 1102 Ms. Angelic 20 Apr. 2015 A Deeper Look In to a Sorrowful Woman Since early mankind, one major ongoing social issue that continues to play a big role in different parts of the world is Depression. Depression has the ability to affect someone’s daily life and the people around them making it a serious illness. This paper is written to not only discuss the different types of depression and the importance of being aware of a person’s mental health. But to also shed light on the background of depression while connecting it to one of Gail Godwin’s most powerful short stories known as “A Sorrowful Woman.”…

    • 1582 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays