Journal # 15

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 of the story is that war is not something that should be fanaticized and romanticized about. In the first couple of line of the story the short interplay between Editha and George reveals Editha’s feeling about war. “It’s war,’ he said. and he pulled her up to him and kissed her. She kissed him back intensely, but irrelevantly, as to their passion, and uttered from deep in her throat. ‘How glorious!’” She thinks that war is something that men go to, to become heroes and patriots that are brimming with courage. This quotation also reveals Editha’s feelings about the war and war in general “ But now, it flashed upon her, if he could do something worthy to have won her--be a hero, her hero--it would be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning.” The quotation highlights that she wants her husband to be “a hero, her hero” she is do far removed from the war that she does not realize that people die, are injured and even emotionally changed because of it.

2. What tactics does Editha use to make George believe as she does about the war?

"But don't you see, dearest," she said, “that it wouldn't have come to this if it hadn't been in the order of Providence? And I call any war glorious that is for the liberation of people who have been struggling for years against the cruelest oppression. Don't you think so, too?” This illustrates the tactics that Editha uses to make George believe as she does about the war. She paints the war as something that will bring honor and respect to George. She claims that is is not so much about fighting an enemy but as liberating an oppressed people. The way the Editha explains war, she only highlights the good parts of is such as the courage that comes from fighting and freeing oppressed people. However she fails to even mention or give note to the horrors of war.

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

Editha only truly understands what she has done when she goes to visit Mrs. Gearson, George’s mother. His mother explains to Editha that young women want to romanticize war, but in reality war is a terrible thing, the physical and emotional damage that it causes families, and society as a whole. She does seem to experience an epiphany and she breaks down and cries over her George’s death but she soon gets over her feeling and continues living a life in the ideal world.