Widow’s Might by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Background Information:
- Author was living and writing in the Progressive Era. It sought to alleviate and rid many
of the social evils that had resulted due to increased industrialisation, with a focus on
worker’s rights. She was one of the many political writers who critiqued capitalism and
was a strong feminist.
- The story reveals how traditional family and domestic life can prevent women from living
out their own goals and desires and highlights the importance of economic
independence and the freedom it brings to women. It allows them to live life on their own
terms.
- Gliman was a feminist author and the story was written in 1892 during a time when the
role of women was reduced to being a wife and serving her family/husband.

Title:
- The title is ironic and immediately makes the reader curious as the last word that comes
to mind when you think of a widow is ‘might’.
- In those times, it was expected that a widow would be deeply secluded and isolated in
mourning because even if they don't feel those emotions, they are supposed to portray a
weak and depressed image as that is what society was like. So for a reader, especially in
those traditional times, it is shocking to see someone shattering these boundaries.
- The ‘widow’ also shows the societal importance of marriage and the titles affiliated with
it. She lived her whole life for her family dutifully, but now she is finally living it for herself.
- Through the story she is always referred to as the widow, mother, Mrs. McPherson, but
never her actual name. She is always alluded to in terms of interpersonal relationships. It
shows how she is defined more by her duties and responsibilities than who she is as a
person.

Introduction:
- Themes: societal expectations, female independence, love versus duty, death, loss and
new beginnings, inverting gender roles
- The story satirises the role of women in society using the irony of the idea that the widow
can finally live her life after the death of her husband, unlike the rest of the women in her
society. This uses irony to shed light on the diminished role of women in a society that
criticises them for wanting to step outside those confinements.
- The widow was strong, in contrast to the assumptions made by society that a woman
who is alone is supposed to be frail and weak.
- The death gives the widow an opportunity to lead a new life

Main Points of Analysis

Irony:
1. Financial independence and breaking social/societal norms

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 - The struggle for women of her generation to become economically self-sufficient is a
topic she covers various times across her literary works. In this short story, the focus is
on a woman who has devoted 3 decades of her life to other people around her but now
finally comes to the realisation that she must put herself and her own wishes first. The
fact that it has taken her until the age of 50 and the passing of her husband to do so is
an indictment of how difficult achieving such financial freedom was for a woman of that
era.
- Gilaman also suggests that if a good woman is given the opportunity, she can prove
herself to be as capable as a man when it comes to business/profit ventures. And she
proves herself as more competent than many men. However, society is reluctant to give
women like Mrs. McPherson a chance to showcase her ability.
- The use of irony to portray how a woman who was confined and bound by society to live
as an ordinary wife, has finally broken down societal expectations and been able ‘to live’
and be financially independent is a crucial part of what makes this story appealing and
empowering.
- *strong point for character of Mrs. McPherson

2. The use of juxtaposition also creates irony

- The widow claims ‘I am alive’ while people in her situation are expected to feel dead
inside. This ironic statement makes it clear that women in society spend years in society
living for everyone but themselves.
- The concept of social norms and the traditional role of women is underscored and
inverted as she showcases her ability to excel at what was considered a ‘man's job’,
shattering the rigid concept that men do real jobs while women are only good for
housework. Mrs. McPherson turns out to be highly intelligent as she successfully runs
the business
- *Quotes: “she turned the business around” or “earns money” or “planned future”

Repetition and Idea of Duty:

- The word ‘duty’ is repeated while the children discuss their mother, emphasising how
that was the most important thing in their lives. Instead of the word love, they spoke of
‘duty’ between the widow and her late husband. The duties of women were to serve men
and have no life of their own.
- The story also shows the reader how duties were not enough for Mrs. McPherson to gain
the love of her children. She was burdened by them and looked at them as an obligation
she was forced to look after.
- When the children questioned “what will we do about mother’ she finally had the
autonomy to make that decision for herself as she states she is ‘going to do what’ she
‘never did’, she is ‘going to live’. This explicates the idea that only once she was free of
her duties, she could live freely. Her duty was rooted not in love but rather notions of
societal pressures and expectations.
- The repetition of duty again when Ellen and Adeline state that ‘for them taking care of
their mother was just like a duty’ / ‘it felt like a duty’ shows a lack of emotional sympathy.
This furthers the idea that this duty was not backed by a deep rooted love or emotional

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 attachment. Mrs. McPherson did not sacrifice so many years of her life out of love, but
more to fulfil what was expected of her. The repetition of duty highlights the lack of love /
care.
- “I have done my duty since the day I married him” which she counted to be “eleven
hundred days since” shows her internal agony serving as his wife.
- Mrs. McPherson’s declaration that she has ‘no children’ and the use of the word ‘were’ is
shocking yet in a certain sense, true. Her justification that she did her ‘duty by them’ and
‘they did their duty by’ her is interesting because for a mother to say she no longer has
children is controversial because a woman is meant to devote her whole life to her
children, even when they are adults.
- In Gilman’s time, society expected that a woman forfeited her right to exist as anything
but a mother from the moment her first child was born. Her shocking comments reveal a
truth that possibly many women are afraid to admit because of the negative
repercussions such an admission may have in society’s eyes. She stands for the idea
that women shouldn't be obligated to devote their entire lives to their children, especially
when they are grown, at the expense of their own identity. She is reclaiming what
societal expectations stole from her and breaking the cycle of duty that has bonded this
unaffectionate family together.
- This mocks the nature of the satirical society wherein even love between men and
women was a duty, a role they played to serve one another with the uncouth joy of
emotional detachment.
- The repeated insistence that everything they have done for each other is their
responsibility and them taking care of their mother is simply reciprocity of the duty she
fulfilled to them.

Familial Love versus Obligation:

- The story complicates the assumption that families are bound together by love. After the
passing of their father, the children admit that they did not really love their father and
remember their family as affectionless. They are bound together by duty and obligation.
- They were reluctant to return to their family home for the funeral but they have no choice
as rejecting their duty would go against the idea that family is supposed to stand with
one another - which is something they do in a compulsory / forced way, to keep up
appearances.
- When the widow rejects the empty offers the children give to take her in, she finally
dissolves the ties that have kept the family artificially bound together. She frees them
from the familial duty that none of them, including herself, actually want.
- The idea that families are not always held together by love but sometimes they stay
united out of a superficial sense of compulsion.

Characterisation:
1. Siblings: they worry about the costs and profits related to their father’s death and care
more about the cost of taking care of their mother than her wellbeing. They question
what they are ‘going to do with mother’ especially because she has ‘done her duty’ of

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 taking care of them all these years. They acknowledge that she has played her role of a
mother well and deserves ‘rest’.

2. James: Similar to his sisters, he despises his life on their ranch and wants to wrap up his
father’s affairs as quickly as possible so that he can return to his life back east. While he
offers for his mother to stay with him and his wife Maude, he would much rather prefer to
provide financial support instead of committing to the emotional labour of taking care of
her on a daily basis. He is more interested in his inheritance and the value of the
property as he calculates and recalculates its worth. Rather than mourning his father’s
death, he views the funeral as a business transaction. He condescendingly tells her to
sign the property over to him and is baffled when she refuses. He is symbolic of the
patriarchal society and believes that men handle finances while women tend to the
family. He is eager to take the property back as he feels that financial opportunity
belongs to men, however this would mean taking away Mrs. McPherson’s newfound
freedom as well. He is a reflection of the society that he grew up in and is expected to
inherit the same twisted value system.

3. Ellen: She lives in Cambridge with her husband, Mr. Jennings, and her sickly children
who demand a lot of her time and attention and she wants to leave as soon as the
funeral is over. She also offers to take her mother in out of a sense of duty instead of
true concern, but she plays the part of a good daughter. She is shocked by her mother’s
fierce determination to live independently and is only worried after she makes these
declarations.
4. Adelaide: She lives in Pittsburg with her husband, Mr. Oswald, who is well-off but
unwilling to support her widowed mother. They are concerned yet again out of duty, not
love.

5. Mr. Frankland: He is the lawyer tasked with carrying out Mr. McPherson’s will and finds
himself caught between the widow and her children. On one hand, he fights for Mrs.
McPherson’s desire to remain independent and acknowledges that it is within her rights
to do so, while on the other hand he is equally as shocked as the children to see her
defying societal norms.

6. Mrs. McPherson: She conveys that she is a person with hopes and dreams, even though
society and her own children regard her as an object that fulfils obligations. She is not
bitter or self-centred, rather allows the children to take their own part of the inheritance
and frees both herself and them of the societal pressures forcing them together. She has
a rebellious attitude and does not allow anyone to stand in her way.
- *more about her character to be added

Symbolism:
- Clothes: underneath her mourning clothes she wears a travelling suit which represents
the exciting new beginning of her independant life of freedom, which she will live in
pursuit of her own aspirations and dreams. Her husband’s death allows her new life to

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 be born. Similarly, the children are not sad by their father’s passing, rather relieved that
they are free form the loveless family they secretly despised. By portraying death to be a
catalyst to new beginnings, the story challenges the conventional idea that loss has to
be tragic and overwhelming. Instead, the story highlights the idea that losing a loved one
can be freeing, not destroying. The widow has always dreamt of travelling to places but
was unable to do so by financial and familial ties. Gilman critiques the mindset that
marriage and motherhood are all that girls should look forward to, and that boys are
taught to expect the same of women. Her travels represent adventure and the discovery
of new possibilities for women.
- Death: it is supposed to be depressing and dark like the room that they have all gathered
in, however Mrs. McPherson triumphantly opens the curtains to let light in to represent
how her husband’s death has brought in the bright light of opportunity and freedom into
her life.
- Cloak / Black Veil: Mrs. McPherson’s black veil and mourning cloak represent the
inauthenticity of her grief, as well as the freedom and empowerment her husband’s
death has given her. Throughout her husband’s funeral, Mrs. McPherson’s face is
obscured by the veil, and her children comment that it’s impossible to tell how she’s truly
feeling because they have yet to see her face. They regard it as a typical symbol of
mourning and expect that she’ll look old, tired, and devastated underneath. After she
stuns her children with the revelation that she is in possession of all her husband’s
assets and has no intention of surrendering her newfound independence, she
dramatically removes her veil. First, she opens the window shades so that the blinding
Colorado sunshine fills the room, fundamentally altering the dark, funereal atmosphere.
Then she throws off the veil, which she explains is borrowed. That borrowed veil
symbolises the inauthenticity of her grief. Rather than a symbol of genuine sadness over
her husband’s death, Mrs. McPherson’s grief is like a costume she has borrowed to live
up to what society expects of a widow. After shedding the veil she removes her black
mourning cloak and reveals a travelling suit underneath.
- Throwing It Off: Gliman shows how Mrs. McPherson finally emancipated herself from the
stereotypes and confinements of society as she ‘threw off the long black veil’. She is
unburdened at last. The ‘black veil’ adds a sense of sadness and fear that people would
expect a woman in her position to feel. A ‘long black cloak’ has a negative connotation of
something dark and evil giving the reader an image of a broken woman shunned by her
overbearing duties. The dramatic scene as it is ‘dropped at her feet’ makes it seem like it
is almost in slow motion. Her children's reactions show the reader how shocking and
unexpected the situation is. The removal of it symbolises freedom from patriarchy and
duties. The readers sympathise with the fact that the widow spent half her life being
‘someone else’s wife’, but she rises above it and breaks out of the cage.
- Black Coat: the fact that her children had ‘never seen mother behind that big black coat’
shows that they literally did not know her. After the marriage she was forced to become
someone society expected her to be. The taking off of the coat also represents her finally
able to be herself.
- Her grief was a performance / costume she wore to act out the emotional devastation
society expected of her.

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Dialogue:
- Ellen reveals that their mother was never the best caretaker and expects that the 3 years
she spent taking care of their father must have drained her. This reflects the exhausting
reality of being a woman in that era. While caretaking is largely devalued, and for wives /
mothers uncompensated or appreciated, it is a thankless endeavour that they have no
choice but to do.
- Society traps women and expects them to spend their whole life caring for their family.
Their husband’s needs will always come before their own.
- Mrs. McPherson hires a male nurse to do the caretaking expected of a woman and by
doing this she reverses gender roles and takes back some of the power she lost. She
took on the role of the boss, which was considered a male role. This is empowering.
- Mrs. McPherson’s declaration that their father is dead yet she ‘is alive’ highlights the way
her children have been talking about her as if she is dead too. By making plans for her
life without consulting her, they rob her of agency and fail to consider that she may have
goals of her own. On the contrary, after his death, her life has truly just begun. His death
grants her personhood. She is no longer an accessory to the family she is expected to
serve but rather an independent person.

Imagery:
- Light and hope
- Fairytalelike entrance of light which represents hope, like a resolution.
- ‘Sunshine poured into the room’