A Sorrowful Woman

“A Sorrowful Woman” is Gail Godwin’s most anthologized short story and tackles the themes of depression, domesticity, and female identity. Godwin is a best-selling American author and multiple National Book Award finalist who often explores these themes in her novels. “A Sorrowful Woman,” a subversion of the fairy tale, details a woman’s struggles with her role as wife and mother and the expectations and disappointments that lead her to suicide. Godwin’s unnamed characters upend the archetypes of mother/wife, husband, and child to critique constricting gender roles and highlight the psychological toll of maintaining the myth of the perfect family.

This guide refers to the version in Joyce Carol Oates’s 1973 Scenes from American Life: Contemporary Short Fiction, which includes the epigraph that accompanied the story’s original 1971 publication in Esquire.

The story opens with an epigraph: “Once upon a time there was a wife and mother one too many times” (249). Its events take place entirely in the confines of the home, and the characters do not have proper names. The main character is a woman who struggles with a malaise and can no longer tolerate the sight of her husband and child. Although her husband is understanding and takes over her domestic duties, she continues to feel revulsion.