What is the theme of Gail Godwin's short story "A Sorrowful Woman"?

Gail Godwin’s short story “A Sorrowful Woman” deals with a
number of themes, including the
following:

• ambivalent
  feelings, as the opening two sentences suggest:


• One
  winter evening she looked at them: the husband durable, receptive, gentle; the child a
  tender golden three. The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see
  them ever again.


• cooperation in marriage, as the second
  paragraph suggests.


• the tensions that can result from
  being a mother and wife, as the third paragraph implies.
  


• the comfort of having an understanding spouse, as the
  fourth paragraph suggests.


• the idea that parenthood is
  not entirely pleasurable, as the fifth paragraph suggests.
  


• the wife’s growing lack of control, which is contrasted
  with the husband’s consistent calmness and adaptability (as the seventh paragraph
  implies).


• the contrast between the moods and
  personalities of the hired girl, the father, and the child (on the one hand) and those
  of the mother (on the other hand).


• the mother’s growing
  impetuousness and (self-) destructive behavior, as when she fires the young nanny.
  


• the exceptional devotion of the man, both as a husband
  and as a father, as suggested by his behavior after the nanny is fired.
  


• the consolations (but perhaps also the escapism)
  provided by art, as when the woman’s reading and writing are described.
  


• the increasingly odd behavior of the woman (which
  creates growing suspense), as when she no longer wants to see her own child and
  husband.


• The even more odd behavior of the woman when she
  engages in a flurry of activity just before apparently committing
  suicide.
  

The
absence of commentary by the narrator (aside from the opening epigraph, which may imply
sympathy for the woman) makes it difficult to know how to respond to this story. Is it
simply a slice of one particular family’s life? Does it suggest some larger meaning
about life in general? Should we feel sympathetic toward the mother? Is she genuinely
sick? If so, why did neither she nor the husband seek professional help for her? (He
doesn’t seem surprised by her apparent suicide.) Is the woman simply selfish, or can she
truly not help herself? These are the kinds of questions the story might raise in the
minds of some readers, and raising questions – rather than answering them – seems to be
the story’s main effect. Many will find it difficult to feel much sympathy for this
woman, but perhaps we are meant to question such a reaction. If there is a larger theme
to this story, perhaps it is “the mystery of life.”

By the
way, a story worth comparing and contrasting with this one is “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by
Charlotte Perkins Gilman.