Edie's Mental Transformation

Edie’s Mental Transformation In “How I Met My Husband” by Alice Munro, written in 1974, the author presents the setting in the country in a small town of Palmerston, Canada. A young girl by the name of Edie, gets her first job working for the Peebles family. She meets a pilot, Mr. Watters, who she develops a crush towards. Edie believed in a fairy tale love; she imagines romantic illusions toward Mr. Watters, but at the end of the story she makes a practical decision for her life to have a secure lifestyle rather than wait around for her prince to come around to sweep her off her feet. Throughout the story the narrator shows emotions in relation of flirtation that takes place between Edie and Mr. Watters. The main themes of “How I Met My Husband” that Edie represent are inexperience and wisdom. The conflict of the story is when Mr. Watters flees, and Edie ends up marrying someone else who she did not truly love in the first place. Inexperience is represented by young Edie throughout the majority of the story, in how she interprets her and Mr. Watters’ interactions, and wisdom in the ending of the story by Edie as well, by how she realizes she is not the only woman in the world that is married simply for a safety net. This essay will focus on the narrator Edie, the 15 year old farm girl who narrates the events of her teenage life that take place while she is working in a modernized farm. The mailman she ends up marrying at the end of the story unintentionally makes her realize that she is not the only the female that is married to a man to who she does not truly love, but wonders the what if moments of women waiting for someone who never will come around or those who pass up opportunities of being with someone who loves them because they are too busy looking for a man who fits their criteria of a perfect man. Edie’s observations are crucial to understand in how she evolves into a wise woman. This analysis will look at how the character’s view on love and