The Widow's Might by Gilman is a fictional novel set in Denver, Colorado, with a somber and cynical tone. The central character is Mrs. McPherson, while the antagonists are her children, who are after their inheritance instead of taking care of their widowed mother. In the novel, Gilman focuses on the topics of grief, greed, and the struggle for women to be economically stable.
The novel opens with a somber mood when the author introduces readers to the funeral scene where Mrs. McPherson and her children bid farewell to their dead father. Consequently, Gilman prioritizes grief as the central theme in the novel. The children are grown-ups, and they all live with their families on the east coast, but on this special day, they have come to bury their father. Mrs. McPherson is in a somber mood because she is now widowed and must look for a way to move on. After the burial, the children turn their attention to the inheritance discussion as they wait for the lawyer to tell them what they will get. Astonishingly, no child is ready to take in their mother if they do not get adequate inheritance to cover the costs of caring for her. The subject of greediness emerges because every child is after getting a larger share of the inheritance, and they can only take in their mother if they get enough inheritance. The other shocking revelation is that the children never bothered to see their sick father, leaving the whole responsibility to their mother.
Most of Gilman’s novels and short stories focus on women's independence and economic empowerment. The Widow's Might is not an exception to this trendy issue of women's liberation because Gilman positions Mrs. McPherson as an independent woman who is self-sufficient in taking care of herself after the death of her husband. When Mrs. McPherson overhears her children arguing about who will take care of her, she boldly tells them that she has enough money to live independently without relying on their support. According to Mrs. McPherson, she has saved enough money to take her to any destination in the world. Therefore, Mrs. McPherson reminds her children that she is not a burden to anybody and they should mind their business because she can take care of herself.
