A Sorrowful Woman Summary
The two stories, A Secret Sorrow by Karen van der Zee and A Sorrowful Woman by Gail Godwin,
discuss women who struggle to fit in their lives/personalities. They both demonstrate the unhappiness
in their lives and how it negatively affects them. Both stories have sorrow in the title to show the main
theme throughout the story, in which they both depict sorrow in their own unique ways. In A
Sorrowful Woman by Godwin, the unidentified woman experiences sorrowful emotions to her family,
where she ends up not speaking or seeing them. Contrary from this, A Secret Sorrow by van der Zee,
the woman is sorrowful due to the fact that she is unable to give her husband the children he wants.
Although both stories illustrate their own unique ways of sorrow in the characters, in my opinion, A
Sorrowful Woman , is the better piece of literature. Both stories illustrate many differences, but also
demonstrate similarities in three main categories, in which make Godwin s a better piece of literature;
predictability, plotline, and endings.
The similarities and differences between the two stories in the category of predictability are easily
visualized. The two stories share many similarities in how the novel progresses, allowing the reader to
make inferences on what will happen next. In the story A Secret Sorrow, it becomes predictable from
the quote, We ll adopt them. There are orphanages the world over, full of children in need of love and
care (van der Zee 37). After reading this quote the reader can infer that the characters, Faye and Kai,
will adopt children, raise them together, and live happily ever after. In the other story by Godwin, it
becomes predictable by the quote, The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see
them ever again (Godwin 38). This quote is predictable because the reader can infer that the unnamed
woman, will continue to distant herself from her family because she can t stand the sight of them.
Although this is predictable in this story, it happens to be the only predictable line throughout.
Although both stories share that they are predictable in some areas, but they also both are different in
this area. In A Secret Sorrow, the whole story is predictable because it is
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