Editha

“Editha” is a criticism not only of the romanticizing of war but also of the exploitation of God, America, and the individual that results. Editha casts herself as a devoted American and Christian. In encouraging George to enlist in the war, she tells him “[t]here is nothing now but our country” (2) and that “God meant it to be war” (3); in her letter to him, in which she warns she cannot marry him until he makes the decision to enlist, she writes, “There is no honor above America with me” (4).

However, Editha’s sentimental statements are no more than empty platitudes. She draws on God and country in order to stir George’s emotions, in the hopes that his enlisting will allow for “the completion of her ideal of him” (1). Editha is, in fact, unconcerned with “Providence” (3) or America; rather, she believes George is “very nearly perfect as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself” (1). Editha desires that the man she marries “would have done something to win her” (1); George’s enlisting in the war is the perfect way for him to “be a hero, her hero” (1). Rather than order him to enlist, Editha attempts to manipulate him into believing it is his decision alone: It is not enough for him to join the army—he must do it out of sense of honor, not because he is being told to do so. Editha’s desire for him to come to the decision of his own volition is twofold. It not only enables him to fit the masculine ideal, but it also prevents her from appearing “pushing, threatening, compelling,” which is “not a woman’s part” (5). In this way, “Editha” is a study of the futility of ideal gender roles.

Editha’s “parroting the current phrases of the newspapers” (2) in her conversations with George suggests that the government similarly inflates the glory of the war to entice men to enlist. Although to George, this war “seems peculiarly wanton and needless” (3), the papers present it as necessary for “the liberation of people who have been struggling for years against the cruelest oppression” (2). These phrases feel vague and empty, mere propaganda meant to elicit emotion rather than to actually justify the war.

Editha’s lack of concern for the war itself is demonstrated in a variety of subtle ways. Immediately after telling George “fervidly” that he must defend his country “right or wrong” (2), Editha rises to fetch lemonade, dispelling the seriousness of the moment and suggesting she is not as immersed in the subject as she would have George believe. Although she promises that if he returns from the war “with an empty sleeve,” then her two arms will “be his for life” (8), her irritation with George’s mentioning how his own father lost an arm in the Civil War indicates her indifference to those whom war has touched. George’s mother, Mrs. Gearson, chastises Editha for the hollowness of her concern, telling her during her visit that girls think if their men return home from war with “an empty sleeve, or even an empty pantaloons, it’s all the more glory” (10). Mrs. Gearson, a pacifist who has seen firsthand the suffering war causes, is incapable of indulging Editha in her pursuit of the ideal. Mrs. Gearson expresses her anger that Editha is responsible for her son’s death and that Editha “thought it would be all right” for George “to kill the sons of those miserable mothers […] that you would never see the faces of” (10). After, she orders Editha to take off her mourning clothes, which Editha’s insincerity makes hypocritical and disrespectful.

The conclusion of the story indicates that Editha will not absorb this somber lesson. The artist sketching Editha’s portrait validates Editha’s belief that Mrs. Gearson is “vulgar” and wonders how anyone can “feel that way about war,” enabling Editha to cast off the “darkness” of “shame and self-pity” and to “begin to live again in the ideal” (11). The portrait being sketched of Editha is the perfect symbol of her everlasting belief in the ideal: It freezes in time the ideal depiction of Editha’s beauty, which “lent itself wonderfully to the effects of a colorist” (11). This idealized version of Editha is fitting for a woman who acknowledges only the ideal in war, in America, in men, and in herself.