Journal #15 - William Dean Howell’s “Editha”

1. Write a sentence that summarizes the story’s overall message, and provide three direct quotes from the story that best illustrate this message.
The story’s overall message is that people do not know what they actually want and they make others do things without relizing the effect their descisions have on other people.
“’You shall not say that! Only, for once I happen to be right.’ She seized his hand in her two hands, and poured her soul from her eyes into his. ‘Don't you think so?’ she entreated him.”
“All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to take, for the completion of her ideal of him.”
“’No, you didn't expect him to get killed,’ Mrs. Gearson repeated, in a voice which was startlingly like George's again. ‘You just expected him to kill some one else, some of those foreigners, that weren't there because they had any say about it, but because they had to be there, poor wretches--conscripts, or
whatever they call 'em.’”

2. What tactics does Editha use to make George believe as she does about the war?
Editha uses ultimatums to make George believe as she does about the war. She threatens to end their engagement if he does not join the war. She badgers him so much about the war, that he eventually considers enlisting and goes to a meeting. When he comes home from the meeting he is drunk and ecstatic because the men chose him to be their captain.

3. Is there ever a time in which Editha truly understands what she has done? Does she ever experience an epiphany?
Editha only understands what she has done completely for a very short amount of time, when George’s mother is yelling at her. She doesn’t understand what she has done because, although she loved her fiancé and misses him dearly, she can still walk around her town as the widow of the soldier. She did not cry, or show any emotions, from the time she learned that her husband was dead to the moment she met his mother. Crying when she is with his mother shows that she is truly sorry for what she has done. Editha does not experience an epiphany. After she meets George’s mother, she goes right back to the way she was before; playing the part of the widow of a soldier. The story ends with Editha telling a woman about the meeting with George’s mother and talking about how rude and outspoken she was.