Analysis Of A Sorrowful Woman

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MiriYam Judd
American Experience
HHH Miriyam Judd
A Sorrowful Life
Nothing is ever as it seems. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. We live in a society where if you break the status quo even the slightest bit, you are looked down upon, labeled a freak or an outcast. We are told to be different, unique, ourselves; but when we are people judge us. We think we have control over our lives, but, in reality, we don’t. If we did have any whatsoever, why would we choose to live this way? Why would some choose to feel so much pain, deep in their core, that they just couldn 't take it anymore? Both Henry David Thoreau, in his Walden, and Gail Godwin in her “A Sorrowful Woman”, break the status quo completely. They seclude themselves from the …show more content…

As a typical housewife, the woman led a very structured life; comprised of waking up, taking care of her husband, son, and the house, going to sleep, just to wake up the next day to do it all over again. But after realizing she could no longer stand to be around her family, she could barely stand to look at them, she tried on many new roles. It wasn’t too long before she realized she was unable to live without the structure she was once used to. When she moved into a room away from her husband and child, she tried desperately to set some sort of routine in place. She brushed her hair at the same time in the same place every day, and once, when she had nothing else to do, she decided to write a sonnet: “She had choices for the sonnet, ABAB or ABBA for a start. She pondered these possibilities until she tottered into a larger choice: she did not have to write a sonnet.” She left her old life behind with the hopes that she may regain something she lost while only taking care of her husband and son, but the simple freedom to start the sonnet in different ways made her nervous and caused her to quit. She wanted to start fresh, but was unable to do anything different than what she had previously

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