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.

The overall message is that it is important for people to not only live in an idealistic world like Editha, but instead a realistic one.



“It isn’t this war alone; though this seems peculiarly 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.”

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







2. What tactics does Editha use to make George believe as she does about the war?
Editha uses religion to convince George to want to go to war. She makes references between the war and God. She makes him believe that god would want George to fight in the war. She also shows him the positives of the war such as the brotherhood between the soldiers. She sort of uses a guilt trip on him. Editha tells him that he doesn’t love his country if he doesn’t want to fight for it, which persuades him further.





3. Is there ever a time in which Editha truly understands what she has done? Does she ever experience an epiphany?
I think Editha understood what she did but in the end it didn’t change her ways. She grieved the loss of George and realized he would still be alive if she hadn’t talked him into going to war. She carried through with his wishes in the case of his death but she continued persuading others to join in fighting in the war.