Friday, April 25, 2014
A Sorrowful Woman
You have already discussed how the author moves the action in The Story of an Hour. Now I want you to do the same thing with A Sorrowful Woman. Read and reread paying attention to how the story is organized and what ways Godwin uses to move it from scene to scene. Do you see any similarities with The Hour? Write your answer in the best paragraph you can, with a strong topic sentence, developing idea, and support. Respond to two classmates this time.
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In this story the author didn't have a name for his character and this may symbolize that this story might happen in any country. Also, the husband seems like he doesn’t care about her because they didn't have any conversation; in addition, he treated her like kids. He just did what she want and he said I understand but he never understand her or her feeling. At this point I think the wife and Mrs. Mallard didn't have much freedom. This might indicate to the rules of marriage at the time.
ReplyDeleteI think you should add more developing ideas. :)
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DeleteI didn't think about your thought that this story might happen in any country. you are right. Also I agree with you that her husband just says he understand but he can't. Good!
DeleteI agree that many women suffer from marriage commitment.
DeletePeople, especially women, have to make a conversation that can express feelings. They can release their feelings and have a peace of mind by making a conversation when they get anger, sadness, and stuffy. But this short story’s husband doesn’t make a conversation. He just says “I understand”, of course I can’t know whether he really understands his wife but it is not important. The fact is that he just says he understands and he does everything for her, laundry, making a meal and caring about a child, etc. He doesn’t know how to deal with woman’s feeling. His actions seems like very sweet and nice but in fact, his actions make his wife more depressed and feel to be useless in family. From this fact, we can know Godwin uses ironies to move organization from scene to scene. Also he uses flow of time and space. In “The story of an Hour”, the author uses the space, first and second floor, to symbolize her feeling, and In “A Sorrowful Woman”, the author uses flow of weather and the space, white room, to symbolize her feeling. This is similarity I can find between “The story of an Hour” and “A Sorrowful Woman.”
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is very difficult to deal with woman's feelings! Women are often feel lonely if they do not have many conversations and feel that they do not share feelings with others.
DeleteI totally agree with you in the use of the space in both stories. I think that this use helps to the reader to focus in the woman's feelings.
DeleteI noticed that in “A Sorrowful Woman” there are few expressions about feelings that every characters have. Their feelings are not directly explained but are implied or readers have to guess how the wife feels. For example, the author writes “She heard them laughing in the kitchen.” and “Things were much changed”. We have to imagine her feelings from what she hears and watches. I think this is very effective in order to tell readers why she is sorrowful because readers have to do what the husband cannot do. At first many people do not understand her feelings because the husband seems to be very supportive and perfect. Unless readers try to find the wife’s feelings and get the author’s main idea, they cannot understand the story. The author organized the story not to explain their feelings and tried to tell readers the importance to imagine others’ feelings.
ReplyDeleteI think this response' structure is good and I agree with your opinion. However, the hiding meaning doesn't help people's thinking. It's very hard work. so, sometimes it makes people very bored and give up reading.
DeleteYou have raised a good point! The good thing about reading a story is that it gives you different feelings! I think you have written a good response too!
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DeleteI think you made a perfect logical thinking when you said that the reader do what the husband can not do.
DeleteI partially agree with what Young Ki says. Even though this is a short story, it demands the reader to analyze the relationship and put ourselves in the character`s position in order to completely understand it.
DeleteFirst of all, the author wants to express his idea following women and her husband’s action. This story also represents time-development but still important thing is the husband’s action. In addition, the author always shows us the unresponsive husband and sorrowful woman even though he is perfect guy. The irony intended by the author helps readers try to understand ideas and think about the meaning of the story. Representing irony is a same way between “a sorrowful woman” and “a story of an hour” because first one shows a sad woman who has a perfect husband and the other shows a happy woman even though she heard that her husband died.
ReplyDeleteYes, one of the main similarities between those two stories is that both talk about women and their husbands!
DeleteGail Godwin shows that not all women want to be a wife and a mother and how seeing her husband and son makes her sad and sick. The reasons of this is discovered in the women strange actions later in the story.The idea of femininity helps the reader to realize the women emotional actions. Her husband seems very understanding of her sadness and depression, but may not emotionally or spiritually. He did every thing the women asked him to do even more. The author move from scene to another in a matter of days. For Example “ the next day she moved her things into..” or “ she got up on monday” it helps the audience connect or relate the women series of actions and behaviour.The story implies how much a women can be complicated as a wife. A women in general do things that a man can not understand or not making sense.I the story I think the women wants to be free as same as the women in the story of an hour. And both of them have the mysterious actions that the reader may have time to understand the reasons behind these actions.
ReplyDeleteShe feel more sad when she saw the things are changed by her husband. I totally agree with you. This might make her more sad and sick. Good!
DeleteA sorrowful woman is basically about a housewife who is sick of life after marriage. In this story, the husband of that woman is a caring person who provides his wife with everything, but what makes her wife dissatisfied with her life is the state of being a woman. She can't tolerate it anymore. However, the story of an hour is mainly about a woman who hates her husband who is unkind to her. I think both stories talk about women who suffer from their life, but in different ways. In the sorrowful woman, the wife has everything, and has no problem with her husband, however, she doesn't like her job as a housewife. In the story of an hour, the woman is unhappy only because of her husband. In terms of transitions from one scene to another, I think both stories function the same. For example, the word "when" is used several times in both stories to indicate a transition from one scene to another.
ReplyDeleteI think the women in "A Sorrowful Woman" doesn't hate her husband. Rather, she loves him because she writes a lot of love sonnet to him before she dies.
DeleteI think those two stories mainly talking about same situation that shows us there are no much freedom for women. however, the ways are different that one is focus on the daily life and another one is pay attention to the woman thoughts after she got the news of her husband death. A sorrowful woman describes that a woman who are so bored with her life but her husband just do such things that even doesn't know how to care his wife in right ways. The author basically start every paragraph with specific time and shows how her life looks like, and actually her life is nothing new and boring. Therefore. she would like to end her life by the end of story because her life is meaningless, and I think she also feels hopeless with her life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in the way that Godwin transmits this tedium by writing the date in the begin of each paragraph.
DeleteI think “The Story of an Hour” and “A Sorrowful Woman” are similar pieces of literary work. Both stories offer a revealing glimpse of extremely unhappy marriages in which the women are suffering more. However, In “The Story of Hour” the author doesn’t reveal it to readers whether Mrs. Mallard is happy with her marriage and life or not, but he implies it in different parts of the story that she is not happy with Mr. Mallard, her husband. For example, after she hears that her husband died and a railroad wreck, she feels free and independent, and saying over and over, “free, free, free!” which gives a hint to readers that she was unhappy in her life. In addition, she breaths quick prayers and says that life would be long, and coming days would be her own. Whereas in “A Sorrowful Woman” from the story title it is obvious that the woman/character in the story is unhappy in her life even though in the story reader reads that her husband is very carrying and fulfilling all her wishes. In “A Sorrowful Woman” the author implies and let it to readers to understand that not all women want to be a wife, mother and burden over others. Some want to be independent. They want to be free of sorrow. At the beginning of the story the author says, “There once was a wife and mother one too many times”, I think this quote implies that the woman should not have been a wife or mother. To further discuss the two stories, the authors, Kate Chopin and Godwin, used transitions/connectors such as, when and after to move from scene to scene and to show time relationship between actions. For example, in The Story of Hour the author says, “When the storm of grief had spent, ‘When she abandoned herself’, ‘When the doctors came,”. The same transition example can readers find in “A Sorrowful Woman”.
ReplyDeleteI think that “The Story of an Hour” and “A Sorrowful Woman” are very similar because both stories are about women trapped in their unhappy marriages. Both women have husband that seem to be wonderful, but actually they are unable to understand their wives. Referring to how both writers move between scenes in their stories, there are also some similarities. One of the most evident it's the symbolism of stairs. In both stories the writer uses stairs to move from their marriage or real world into their minds or their own feelings. In both stories the writer uses the room to speak about the women's real feelings. So, in these rooms these women could be free; they can express their feelings with no deterrents. In addition, in both stories the author uses the window in these rooms as a symbol of the feelings of both women. They feel they are just spectators of the life. They can see how other people enjoy and live their own lives, while they are trapped in an unhappy married and in a role that they don't want to take anymore. However, in this symbol there are a difference in both stories. In “The Story of an Hour”, Louise looks through the window remembering this feeling, but she is hopeful. In contrast, the woman in "A Sorrowful Woman" looks through the window with this sad feeling of how irrelevant and unhappy is her life.
ReplyDeleteI hadn`t thought about the symbolism of the windows in both stories in the same way that you explained above. The thought that both female characters watch their lives as spectators is really interesting and seems very suitable to both stories.
DeleteThe first thing that I identify in each story is a female character handling issues of being a wife in times where women didn't have a voice. While in “The Story of an Hour” portrays the story of Ms. Mallard, a young woman with a heart trouble, who could only experience freedom after receiving the news that her husband died, but not so ironically, dies when finds out he is alive; In "A Sorrowful Woman" the main character find herself disinterested in things that the womans like her are supposed to. She has no interest in taking care of her son or the house. Furthermore, her husband doesn`t seem to give her the support the she needed when she`s feeling depressed, but instead, he just offers immediate solutions to her problems. He may have had good intentions when he hires a housekeeper to help his wife; however, that probably just made his wife feels unimportant and replaceable. I believe his attitudes just made her feel worse and led to her death.
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