A Home for a Woman’s Rose
In Gail Godwin’s, “A Sorrowful Woman” Godwin approached the character of the woman very delicately. This immediately implied that the character would be somewhat fragile. In the story the woman is being understood as a wife, a mother, and a woman with an issue. As the story unfolds the reader taps into the intensity of the woman’s problem, and just how deep her pain goes. This emotional unveiling makes the character “human”. While the woman was in the midst of depression, however, she came off extremely selfish. “In the evening she read the notes they slipped under her door. The child could not write, so he drew and sometimes painted his. The notes were painstaking at first; the man and the boy offering the final strength of their day to her” (Godwin 42). The entire story is about her struggle, but between the lines it is about the boy and the husband, giving their all for her affection. The woman’s selfishness is very similar to that of Krebs, in Ernest Hemingway’s, “A Soldier’s Home”.
The act of selfishness is a very human quality. While negative, it brings life to both characters. In “A Soldier’s Home”, Krebs is so wounded by his trials and tribulations at war; he is oblivious to the feelings of those around him. After returning from war, Krebs is in a state of mind, where love is a weakness not an emotion, and he doesn’t allow weakness. He presents his selfish ways, when he is shown love and affection, which he vigorously and forcefully turns away at the sake of his sister and mother. Krebs could barley muster up the strength to tell his mother and sister he loves them, or to pray at his mother’s wish. To him, his state of mind was much too important to stray from.
The setting in “A Soldier’s Home” plays a very key role in the way Krebs approaches life post-war. Kansas is the main setting. Kansas is a state that is synonymous with slow-paced, steady lifestyles. Coming from a setting of a chaos that is war, Kansas is a...