Dennis B.

Plimaco BSE31

January 17, 2010

Reading A Sorrowful Woman in the light of First Wave Feminism

First wave feminism is a literary movement that was started by Mary Wollstoneraft in her work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women during the last decade of 1700s. This movement aims to free women from the traditional belief that they are inferior to men. They advocated that women should know that they have rights and freedom to do what they want like the men. Another belief of this movement is the acceptance of women as they are and the education that they should receive should focus on equality for both genders. What defines this wave from the succeeding waves is that the women in this wave are just aware of their rights and not doing any actions to show it. This paper aims to identify the ideas of the aforementioned literary movement in Gail Godwins A Sorrowful Woman through analyzing the different elements of the short story.

I.

Plot The story was about a mother who experienced an aversion against her husband and

her three-year-old son. Because of this, several instances of fright, irritation and aggressive behavior had manifested in the mothers behavior. As an effect, his husband just let his wife to work and seclude herself in a room, bringing her sleeping draught, cognac and night dresses while he took care of the house. Inside her room, she just worked or stared at people from a window while being visited by the kid twice a day. After some occasions that she accidentally hit her son, the man decided to took in a girl to take care of the kid. The girl was given a cluttered room which she transformed into a white, cleanly-decorated room. She not only took care of the child but also of the household chores. Meanwhile, the woman and the husband got some time to talk and have a date. When the boy gave a grasshopper to her mother, she was terrified and became irritated at it so the husband decided to just let her be there by herself and they will just make notes for her.

There was a time when the woman went to the kitchen and she was surprised when she saw that everything was changed, from the canisters to the cupboard. After that, she decided to bake bread. After her second trip to the kitchen and taking some of her things from the cupboard, she confronted her husband about her irritation against the girl and the husband dutifully fired the girl. After the girl left them, the woman decided to occupy the white room. There, she pretended to be someone else and continued working on her poem. One night, she was visited by the husband and the kid kissed him, enabling her to taste his spit. The following day, the husband and the son saw that the chores that the mother did. They went to her room, seeing her dead after committing suicide. The plot represented some first-wave feminist concepts. The isolation of the woman represented her way of freeing herself against the traditional role of women that was being given to her by the society. However, the isolation that she did not really made her free; it just made an illusion that she was free from the traditional roles and the structure. The very isolation herself was a manifestation of first-wave feminism, showing that they are really aware that they have equal rights with men and freedom but dont do anything about it. Even if she works inside her room, it was just an illusion, meaning she was just denying the fact that she cannot set herself free. When she was isolated and a girl was hired to look for the child, she started to do some things that she loved like reading books, knitting or eating dinner with her husband. This presented that the woman was happy, but her husbands comment about her being a cloistered queen showed that the isolation just gave her an illusion of freedom that she wanted. But then, she noticed that their house changed all of a sudden, making her upset and irritated with the girl, showing that the woman herself could not detach herself from the traditional roles she despised. The illusion was cracked several times when she saw her family sleeping soundly and when she received joyful notes from them. She saw this as a crack in the sealed illusion of freedom she made which exposes her back to the traditional structure and ideas which she didnt want to go back. She just drank sleeping draught in order to relieve the feeling of uneasiness from those things, serving as a temporary escape. After her transfer to the white room, her perceptive began to change and she started pretending for someone else like a queen, a virgin in a tower and the girl that they hired and after a while, discarded these personalities. This symbolized that the woman became more

liberal and freer in her thoughts. However, the roles that she personified all seemed to have one thing in common, all are traditional women doing traditional roles. This further proved that the woman is still in the illusion that she formed. However, when she was writing a sonnet, she realized something. She realized that she did not need to write a sonnet in order to have a poem. This realization means that she was starting to make her illusion of being a free woman into a reality but she did not make it happen, just like not doing a poem. When she was kissed by the child and tasted his spit, she realized that the illusion she had formed through an illusion will never became a reality and she decided to commit suicide, after doing her chores and laundry. This was supported by her statement when she tasted the kids spit, "I don't think I can see him anymore," she whispered sadly to the man. This statement shows the woman was now tired of making illusions of being free, since she now knew that it would never come true and she decided to stop it and just finish it all through suicide. Before she committed suicide, she did her household chores, doing two-weeks worth of laundry, cooking a huge amount of food and making sonnets for her husband which means that she accepted her fate that she will never be a free woman in the society that she belonged in. Also, the sonnets that she made before she die signified that she chose to be a traditional woman rather than to be a free woman in an illusion that she formed.

II. Characters The protagonist of the story, the woman, isolated herself from her family. At first, it was mentioned that it was because she was sick but the scene about seeing herself in a vertical bra showed the real reason. She stood naked except for her bra, which hung by one strap down the side of her body; she had not the impetus to shrug it of. She looked down at the right nipple, shriveled with chill, and thought, How absurd, a vertical bra. "If only there were instant sleep," she said, hiccupping The scene implied that the woman was fighting against the traditional role of women and not the idea of sickness which the husband stated. She did not want to do the household chores and tasks for the fact that she doesnt want it and she felt that she was not herself anymore,

being a free woman. Her comment about wanting an instant sleep emphasized her aversion against this role. But little did she knew that she only made an illusion that she was entirely free, even though she wasnt. Her interactions towards her son and her husband were different, despite the fact that she despised both of them. In her interactions with the kid, she showed fright and aggression like when she was scratched by the kid and when she was given a grasshopper. She saw the kid as a reminder of the traditional roles of women that she wanted to isolate herself from. In her interactions from the husband, she showed signs of comfort from the husband since he gave her the sleeping draughts she took every night and he manifested signs of understanding her plight like taking the household chores. But the thing she did not notice is that the man just didnt understand her real problems and thus, seeking refuge to a wrong tree. Despite isolating herself from doing household chores and traditional roles, she could not really detach herself completely from it. This was shown when she got upset when she saw that the kitchen was changed, forcing her to make bread, which signifies her want to do those tasks again. Also, brushing her hair and bringing the brush when she transferred room also means that she could not really be entirely away from being a traditional woman. Lastly, when she was writing a sonnet, she realized earlier that she could write anything other than the sonnet in writing a poem. In the end, before she committed suicide, she dedicated a whole batch of sonnets to her husband. The sonnets present the womans inability to completely free her from the traditional ideas that she wanted to be free with. The woman in the story embodies the ideas of first wave feminists of being aware of her rights and equality with men. The woman is educated enough to know these things and her isolation proved her knowledge and the writing of sonnets. She also showed the idea of accepting who they are and treated it as a reason to be proud of like having a date with her husband and doing chores. Lastly, she exhibited the concept of being aware of their freedom and rights but not acting on it. Instead on acting on it, she just isolated herself and made an illusion of being free on a room. Instead of confronting her husband about the real problem to make him understand, she just drink sleeping draughts in order to temporarily escape the problems. The husband in the story contradicts the idea on how the woman should be treated. In the story, he is portrayed to be a husband that tries to understand his wife in exchange of being the one to do all the chores and to be the type of husband that regards his wife as a woman

who has equal rights and feelings. However, this view seems to contradict the real nature of the husband. It is because the husband did not try to understand why his wife is acting like that. He had an idea in his mind which is different from the woman. It was proven in two of his statements: a. She told the husband these thoughts. He was attuned to her; he

understood such things. He said he understood. b. "I don't think I can see him anymore," she whispered sadly to the man. And the husband turned away but recovered admirably and said, "Of course, I see." This line proved the idea that the two had different notions in their mind. The husband thought that the wife was only stressed out in her household chores which is different the real reason which is the woman struggling in being a free woman and is tired of just being a woman confined in traditional roles. The husbands preconceived notion also made him an insensitive man, as he blindly followed what his wife said and just giving her a sleeping draught and a cognac in a nightly basis to a woman instead of talking things out. He never tried to understand that her wife is not just her wife, but also a woman that has rights and freedom. He only saw the woman as an ordinary housewife, inferior and subservient to a man. The kid is the couples three-year-old son who loves to play. Undoubtedly, he loves his mother but the mother seems to be terrified of him. The kid represents the thing that the woman seems to hate the most, the idea of being a traditional woman. The kids actions, more specifically when he pretended to be a tiger and wounding her, brings the idea that him and the traditional ideas of women that he represents will always be with her, despite of her denial with it. The grasshopper that he brought represented the structure that she is currently into that she despised. Lastly, his spit that the mother tasted brings the realization of the inevitability of the women being subjected to traditional roles. The girl is the man hired to take care of the child and to do the household chores when the woman isolated herself in her room and the kid wounding her. She painted her room white, decorated the walls where she slept with watercolor and did the chores and activities with vigor and happiness. The girl reflected the traditional woman finding happiness in the situation she is in. It is shown on the scene when she gladly picked the grasshopper which the woman dropped

which represented her happiness and willingness to do the traditional roles of women. This was supported by the words she uttered when she was fired, "l loved the little boy, what will become of him now? Her words implied her concern over the childs being rather than herself and her job, which is a trait which a traditional woman possessed.

III. Setting The setting of the story also embodies some ideas as well. The two rooms where she isolated herself in also symbolize two ideas of first wave feminism. The bedroom represents the old idea that women are inferior to men and cant do much without men. In this room, the woman formed an illusion of being free but despite this, she become more and more dependent on sleeping draught whenever she saw her family and the house changed and thus, represents the idea that woman cannot be free and the illusion of being a free woman will never become a reality. On the other hand, the white room represented the idea that women can be free to do anything that she wanted. In the story, when the woman isolated herself inside this room, she became free in thinking and associating herself as a queen, virgin, and a girl with all energies. This point is much further shown when the woman is writing a poem. The room became a way for her to see that she can also compose other types of poems aside from a sonnet which is similar to the idea of women being free without sacrificing her family and the idea that the illusion that she formed could be a reality. The house on the story has two representations. First, it represents indefiniteness, implying that the womans struggle can occur in any woman and in any family. Second, it represents the societys traditional view of women and their effects on women. In the story, the house seemed to be a reminder of the inevitability of women succumbing to do traditional roles despite all efforts to change. It was supported by the scene that she became annoyed when the things in the kitchen and the cupboard changed, resulting her to bake bread. Another one was the scene when she was writing a poem. Even though the woman realized that she can make poems other than sonnets in the white room, in the end, she ended up making sonnets.

IV. Point of View The point of view used in the story is third-person omniscient, representing equality among the narration in both the man and womans thoughts and actions which the first wave feminists advocate. The story is told in a way that it focuses more on the action rather than the feelings and the dialogue of the characters, objects and things are depicted as ordinary and with few adjectives, and events, especially the recurrent actions such as taking of the sleeping draught, were told in a straightforward manner, much similar to that of a fairy tale. This fairy tale narration, especially on the beginning of the story, gives us the feeling that the story can also happen to anyone, in any society and in any era.

V. Theme The short story presented themes corresponds to first-wave feminist ideas. The main theme of the story is the mothers struggle in being a free woman. In lieu with the ideas of the first-wave feminists, the mother embodies the female that knows her rights and her freedom. However, by isolating herself in a room, she had chosen a wrong method to manifest it which only brought her sorrow and pain. Another theme present in the story is the kindness and the supportiveness of her husband in her isolation. It represents the proper treatment that the woman should get from a man. Third, the title itself characterizes a theme connected to firstwave feminism, A Sorrowful Woman. The title signifies that sorrow always waits for the women who dont know her rights, women who are excessively sensitive and women that are not educated. Also, the article a used in the title represents indefiniteness which means that this problem can be encountered by any woman in the world.