A Sorrowful Woman

“The husband told her in his richest voice to lie down, take it easy, and he was already on the phone to call one of the baby-sitters they often employed. Shortly after, she heard the girl let herself in, heard the girl coaxing the frightened child to come and play.”

The husband’s “richest voice” and comment to “take it easy” are meant to allay the women’s anxieties, much like the numbing sedatives. However, like the draughts that seem to work temporarily and then increase her agitation, the husband’s solution to bring in a sitter only heightens the woman’s sense of isolation. The girl “let herself in” while the woman eavesdrops upstairs, a role reversal that displaces the mother and makes her feel like a stranger in her own home.

“‘Would it help if we got, you know, a girl in? We could fix the room downstairs. I want you to feel freer,’ he said, understanding these things.”

The husband believes the hired help will liberate his wife from her duties, but the girl’s presence only exasperates the woman further. Despite the narrator’s insistence that he is “understanding,” the husband does not comprehend how a younger, more vibrant substitute would upset his wife. The nanny’s ability to succeed in all the woman’s tasks heightens the woman’s sense of failure. The woman cannot embody the gender roles that seem to come so naturally to the girl, and she feels more trapped than liberated.

“‘The girl upsets me,’ said the woman to her husband. He sat frowning on the side of the bed he had not entered for so long. ‘I’m sorry, but there it is.’ The husband stroked his creased brow and said he was sorry, too. He really did not know what they would do without that treasure of a girl. ‘Why don’t you stay here with me in bed,’ the woman said.”

The story subtly alludes to sex as a bargaining tool, as the man has not been in the woman’s bed “for so long.” The woman wants to fire the girl, and the text suggests she offers sex in exchange for the husband’s cooperation. This exchange gestures to the constraints of gender, as the woman’s worth and power are tied to her body and its utility.

“‘I don’t know what we’ll do. It’s all my fault, I know. I’m such a burden, I know that.’ ‘Let me think. I’ll think of something.’ (Still understanding these things.) ‘I know you will. You always do,’ she said.”

Although the woman wants to defy her roles, she feels guilt for not fulfilling those expectations. The woman blames herself for disrupting the family’s routine, and the husband’s reassurances become less convincing the more he repeats them. Her confidence in his ability to find a solution is a subtle indication that they are both used to him making the decisions.

“‘We will manage,’ he said, ‘until you’re better, however long that is.’ He did his work, collected the boy from the school, came home and made the supper, washed the dishes, got the child to bed. He managed everything.”

The husband shows remarkable gallantry in his willingness to rearrange his life and take over the wife’s responsibilities. He is patient and supportive, and does not falter in performing duties traditionally deemed feminine. However, his praiseworthy acts point to a double standard, as he is heroic in part because he is not expected to perform these duties.

“Very sedately she left her bed and went to the child’s room. Things were much changed. Books were rearranged, toys. He’d done some new drawings.”

The child’s room changes considerably during the woman’s absence, and the orderly books and new drawings reveal that the husband and child have managed to cope without her. The books and drawings also signify the importance of literature and art in self-expression. Inspired by the changes in the child’s surroundings, the woman moves into the girl’s room the next day, hoping to create a narrative of her own identity.

“‘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.’

So the husband came alone. ‘I have explained to the boy,’ he said. ‘And we are doing fine. We are managing.’”

The husband performs the difficult task of severing the child from the mother. Although he is initially appalled and turns away, his acquiescence is described as admirable. The incident alludes to “Hansel and Gretel,” a fairy tale in which the stepmother convinces the loving but passive father to abandon his children in the woods. The reference brings another layer of meaning to the husband as both a good and weak man.

“She sat in her window and brushed her hair for hours, and saw a boy fall off his new bicycle again and again, a dog chasing a squirrel, an old woman peek slyly over her shoulder and then extract a parcel from a garbage can.”

The view from the woman’s window reveals relatively common activities except for the curious behavior of the old woman. The mystery of the old woman’s actions suggests a macro setting outside the woman’s home where other women in society disrupt the appearance of normalcy.

“The child could not write, so he drew and sometimes painted his. The notes were painstaking at first, the man and boy offering the final strength of their day to her. But sometimes, when they seemed to have had a bad day, there were only hurried scrawls.”

The detail that the son has not learned to write emphasizes his young age and the likelihood that he does not fully grasp the severity of his mother’s changing attitudes toward him. The woman feels like a burden as the husband and child expend “the final strength of their day” to keep up with their notes. Her awareness of their “bad day[s]” may be one reason why she bakes them a loaf of bread to acknowledge their efforts.

“The force of the two joyful notes slipped under her door that evening pressed her into the corner of the little room; she had hardly space to breathe. As soon as possible, she drank the draught.”

The husband and child misunderstand the gesture of the woman’s baked bread, believing it is a symbol of her recovery. Her return to the kitchen implies a return to her duties as wife and mother, and they are overjoyed in their notes. Conversely, the woman feels more suffocated by their happy expectations and can only proceed with her activities by medicating herself.

“Now the days were too short. She was always busy. She woke with the first bird. Worked till the sun set. No time for hair-brushing. Her fingers raced the hours.”

This string of short sentences describes the women’s flurry of activity in the days leading up to her suicide. She initially seems reinvigorated by spring, her wintry sedation far behind her. The bird and sun suggest life and energy, and she ceases her hair-brushing trances. All signs point to a new beginning and a personal transformation, but the woman has a different purpose for her projects. She can only work with such speed and devotion because she knows these will be her last gifts to her family.

“Finally, in the nick of time, it was finished one late afternoon. Her veins pumped and her forehead sparkled. She went to the kitchen cupboard, took what was hers, closed herself into the little white room, and brushed her hair for a while.”

The paradox of the woman’s vitality in her own suicide suggests that she views death as something positive. Suicide releases her from an unfulfilling life and frees her family from the burden of caring for her. The throbbing excitement in her veins and shine in her face are not only effects of exertion; they also reveal her eagerness and preparedness for death.

“He dawdled in a stream of the last sun for that day and watched his father tenderly roll back her eyelids, lay his ear softly to her breast, test the delicate bones of her wrist. The father put down his face into her fresh-washed hair.”

The child observes the mother but does not understand his father’s discovery. The “last sun” represents the woman’s death, yet from the child’s naïve point of view, she is merely sleeping from exhaustion. In his eyes, the father is not checking the woman’s eyes, chest, and wrist for signs of life, he’s merely embracing and caressing her. The child’s perspective enhances the tragic ending, creating a discordant atmosphere and contributing to the sense that the woman is ultimately unknowable.