A Secret Sorrow Analysis

Formula fiction is defined as literature in which the storylines and plots have been reused again and again until they are predictable. One such piece of literature is A Secret Sorrow by Karen Van Der Zee. A Secret Sorrow as well as more serious fiction such as A Sorrowful Woman are fantastic stories that provide entertainment and pleasure. A Sorrowful Woman, however, is the better of the two stories because of the male protagonist, the female protagonist’s internal conflict and the child. Both A Sorrowful Woman and A Secret Sorrow have male protagonists whom are there for the female protagonist in their time of need. In both stories the male protagonists are receptive and understanding of the female’s problem. However in A Secret Sorrow Kai is the knight in shining armor that comes to the rescue and solves the problem. Kai sees the problem and confronts it head on; he grabs Faye and says “No, Faye, no. You’re going to tell me. Now. I’m not letting go until you’ve told me everything.”. In Contrast, the husband from A Sorrowful Woman has a meek personality; the wife says “...he understood such things.”, and the husband does understand the problem but he lets the problem fester and grow worse rather than find a solution. The flaws in the male protagonist makes him more realistic and more believable than the knight in shining armor from A Secret Sorrow.

In both stories the internal conflicts partially or completely stem from children. In A Secret Sorrow it is the female protagonist’s inability to have children that causes her internal conflict. In A Sorrowful Woman the child is partially the cause of her internal conflict because he is very high maintenance. She has to make up a story out of the thin air while pretending to read it from a book after a long day of cooking, cleaning and generally taking care of him. After She snaps the boy only makes it worse for her such as when “ The boy followed them up the stairs, saying “It’s all right, Mommy,” but this only made her