Saving Sourdi Summary

Bailey Martin English 101 1-5-09 Compare and Contrast A Sorrowful Woman by Gail Godwin and “Saving Sourdi” by May-Lee Chai are two stories about how family will always be there for you, no matter what. The central themes in both of these stories are similar, but the methods the authors use to portray them differ. May-Lee Chai was the first of her family to be born in the United States, so it wasn’t hard for her to relate while writing “Saving Sourdi”, which is about a struggling Asian family living in the south. Growing up, the two oldest sisters, Sourdi and Nea, were inseparable and always looked out for each other. But, once Sourdi turned old enough to, she married a man named Mr. Chhay and moved away from her home and family to start
One night, Ma got a concerning phone call from Sourdi hysterically crying. Nea had made the assumption that Mr. Chhay had been hitting her, so she took it upon herself to hitch a ride in the middle of the night to “Save Sourdi”. Once Nea got there and confronted her sister and husband, she realized she had overreacted, and her presumptions of Mr. Chhay were completely wrong. Sourdi tried to sympathize, but this time her sister had crossed a line; and Nea knew it. “Sourdi stood in the driveway with the baby on her hip. She waved to us and the snow swirled around her like ashes. She had made her choice, and she hadn’t chosen me.” May-Lee’s message of the story, was no matter what happens, family is above everything else. A Sorrowful Woman by Gail Godwin is a story about an ill wife, who wants to spend as much time with her son and husband as possible with her little time left. The title of the story leads you to believe the wife is the main character in the story, but when you read, as times start getting harder and his wife starts getting sicker, you see the husband becomes more, and more of the “glue” that holds his family