Editha

“She had always supposed that the man who won her would have done something to win her.”

Part of Editha’s desire for George to enlist for the war is inspired by her desire for him to “do something worthy to have won her—be a hero, her hero” (1). She and George became engaged when he “simply asked her for her love” (1). The war offers Editha a chance to have the grand romance she has dreamed of. In this way, her desire for George to be a hero is neither about George nor the war but rather about her own vision of herself. This quotation is one of the first examples of how Editha’s life revolves around the ideal. Her dissatisfaction with the reality of her romance will mirror her inability to understand the reality of war.

“She was conscious of parroting the current phrases of the newspapers, but it was no time to pick and choose her words. She must sacrifice anything to the high ideal she had for him.” 

Editha tells George that any war is glorious if it is “for the liberation of people who have been struggling for years against the cruelest oppression” (2). In response to George’s questioning whether it is “glorious to break the peace of the world,” she says that “[i]t was no peace at all, with that crime and shame at our very gates” (2). In trying to convince George to enlist, Editha repeats the platitudes reported in newspapers, which suggests her motivations are equally self-serving: Just as the sentimentalizing of the war helps sell newspapers, it helps Editha achieve being engaged to a hero.