Journal #15

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


If someone is living a life like Editha, it can be very dangerous because you are not living in reality.

“To take the part that her whole soul willed him to take, for the completion of her ideal of him.”

“It isn’t this war alone; though this seems peculiarily wanton and needless; but it’s every war—so stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn’t this thing have been settled reasonably?”

“He told me he had asked you to come if he got killed. You didn’t expect that, I suppose, when you sent him.”



2. What tactics does Editha use to make George believe as she does about the war?
She starts telling him that it is a ‘holy war’ and that it is his duty to fight in it. She basically makes him choose to fight or leave. George starts to worry when he gets a letter and the engagement ring enclosed. She pressured him to go to the war and tells him he would be honored and remembered.

3. Is there ever a time in which Editha truly understands what she has done? Does she ever experience an epiphany?

No, I don’t think she understands what she has done. George’s mom tells her what she has done, but it really doesn’t sink in for her. She has an ephiphany when the lady said ‘vulger’. When she has her epiphany however it isn’t for the better, but rather going back to her old way of thinking.