The short story that I chose to write on was A Sorrowful Women written by Gail Godwin. When I started reading this piece it made me sad to think that there could ever be a mother that could just push there child away and not love them. The element that stood out to me the most was the fact that the mother could not stand her child at all. I think this stood out because I have an extremely close family and we love each other unconditionally. We could never push each other away for any reason. I think this is why it is hard for me to understand how a mother could not care about her child.
Throughout this piece the tone that the author portrays creates the mood and feeling. I feel that the tone the author gives the wife/mother is a feeling of anger, disappointment, and sorrow. All of her phrases are short and straight to the point. This makes her seem like a harsh person with no feelings for others. The husbands tone is portrayed as sweet and innocent. His phrases are apologetic and censer. Throughout the story the husband is doing whatever he needs to do to make the house continue on as normal. The child has a tone throughout the story of innocents. You get the feeling he is starved for attention. As the story progresses the wife/mothers sorrow gets greater and greater. Then when she starts to slowly come out of it and starts to cook again you think that she might change. Then the dramatic twist comes at the end when the husband finds her dead in her room. At the end the husband is so upset with sorrow you feel bad for him because he did everything possible to make his wife happy and it wasn’t enough. The story is also sad because the young boy is excited for what his mother has done for them, he doesn’t understand what has happened to his mother. I think that the tone throughout the piece helps to tells the whole story.
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Good job finding a strong literary element in this piece. I agree with you that the tone adds depth to the story. It is hard to imagine a mother seperating herself from her child, depression can do strange things. At one point the woman reflects that "she is not herself anymore". While it is hard to feel empathy for this woman, maybe the author wanted us to look inside a depressed mind?
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the mother/child relationship. It is hard to read about an unloving mother towards her own child isn't it? It makes you want to automatically become a protector for that child that is not receiving it's mother's love and care.
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting and very daring that the author made the woman have such neglect for the child. I think she may have wanted to use this to enunciate the point that the woman wasn't herself at all. In her strange mental state, she had ceased to be someone I could relate to personally; I still, however, felt sorrow for her at the end. It was so strange especially to see the child shown as someone unperceptive; he did not seem to realize is father's sorrow over the situation. It made me wonder if it was this inability of the child to connect immediately that initially might have frustrated the woman and caused her to need distance? Sometimes the resonsibility of something can be so burdening that the truth behind a matter is set aside in its wake.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast to some of the other comments they show the mother not in an unloving light but in an unable to deal light. I believe she talks about caring still but doesn't know what happens whenever her little boy is around. I found it a hard one to identify with myself.
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