Showing posts with label Alice Munro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alice Munro. Show all posts

How I Met My Husband...part deux

Chris Watters is a symbol for all the boys in the world that every girl wishes she could have but knows she couldn't. He is that bad boy who would never tie himself down to one relationship. He seems to have a girl in every state who is might be engaged to, and they are all chasing him across America. Not only that, but he's a tortured soul because he had to go through the war and trauma that ordinary people may not have had to go through. Edie of course falls in love with him, but her love is more puppy love than true love. She is more infatuated with him than anything else. He is the first boy who ever spoke to her like she was a woman, even though that was just after he saw her dressed up and in makeup. If Edie would have met him while he was flying his plane by where she worked and she wasn't all dressed up, he would not have given her a second look. The fact that he didn't mention that he was engaged was also very fishy because what guy who wants to be engaged doesn't shout it to the world? He is the kind of guy that Edie was able to look back and wonder what her life would have been like if they ended up together, but she knows that the safe, secure bet was to marry her husband, the Carmichael.

This story is told so that it is centered around Watters instead of Carmichael. Watters is the man who made her meet Carmichael because she waited for his letters for so long. I was very happy that Edie was able to admit to herself at some point that Watters was never going to write to her. Many girls spend their lives pining for their lost "love." Edie, on the other hand, found the good in her bad situation with Watters through her husband Carmichael.

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How I Met My Husband by Alice Munro

8:55 AM Posted by Emily Looney 1 comments
Along with the other two stories in this unit, I believe this short story has a lot to do with settling. The main theme seems to go along the lines of a person settling for something they eventually love whether or not it is the best thing for them. The plot of the story is about a worker girl at a "farm" who is there to help the family along and be a nanny to the two children. The irony about the farm is that the meaning has changed from a working place to a place that is there merely for the name. The family does not own animals or grow crops in any way, so the farm is not a working farm. Mr. and Mrs. Peebles do not even cook food well enough to Edie's disappointment because they are very concerned with being thin. This marks the cultural shift in which Americans began to look for the glamourous, easy route in life rather than the hard working way. Edie, on the other hand, is from a true working farm family who does not know riches like the people she is working for.

The minor characters, such as Mrs. Peebles and Loretta Bird, help to advance the story along by adding tone and personality to the story. Mrs. Peebles shows how fickle society was becoming during this time period because when she found out that Edie had kissed Chris Watters, she was very cold toward her and would not speak of the "mistake." She seems to not be a very caring woman because she does not show much compassion toward her children as most mothers should, and she treats Edie less than she should be treated after a simple misjudgement. Loretta Bird is a comic relief character who comes off to be the town gossip. She seems to want everyone to wallow in her "pain and suffering" that she goes through with her seven children even though she is not even close to hardworking like Edie knows.

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