Editha
A young woman intoxicated by romantic ideals of glory pressures her reluctant fiancé to enlist for war, then must face what her ideals truly cost.
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Editha Balcom believes love and life should be grand and heroic, and that the man who wins her should have done something to win her. When war fever sweeps the country, she demands that her gentle, skeptical fiancé George prove his love by enlisting. She gets the noble gesture she wanted, and learns too late what real war does to real people.
What happens in Editha
Editha Balcom is a romantic idealist who longs for life, and the man she loves, to match her ideal of heroic glory. When the United States drifts toward war, she becomes inflamed with patriotic fervor, knowingly “parroting the current phrases of the newspapers,” and decides her fiancé George Gearson must enlist to be worthy of her. George, thoughtful and reluctant, distrusts the cause but ultimately enlists, partly to please her. Editha sends him off with a letter insisting he embrace the war wholeheartedly. George is killed in his first engagement. Editha, devastated but still wrapped in self-pity, travels to visit George’s grieving mother. Mrs. Gearson confronts her with bitter honesty about the reality of war and the vanity of romantic ideals. Editha is briefly shaken, but a later remark from a society painter allows her to slip comfortably back into her flattering self-image.
Where and when Editha happens
The Balcom porch and parlor
A comfortable domestic setting where Editha’s romantic fantasies and patriotic fervor flourish.
Mrs. Gearson’s little house in Iowa
A low, dim house in a little western Iowa country town, on the edge of the cornfields, where the grieving mother forces Editha to confront the real cost of war.
The eve of the Spanish-American War
A moment of swelling national war fever that Howells uses to critique romantic patriotism.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- 1 Romantic ideals
Editha wishes the man who won her had done something heroic to win her.
- 2 War fever
News of war ignites her patriotic passion and her conviction that George must prove himself.
- 3 The ultimatum
She urges George to share her faith in the war and writes him a letter: the man she marries “must love his country first of all”; then she holds it back.
- 4 Enlistment
Skeptical but swayed, George joins the army and marches off to war.
- 5 The death
George is killed in his very first engagement, fulfilling Editha’s ideals at catastrophic cost.
- 6 The confrontation
Editha visits Mrs. Gearson, who scorns her romantic notions and exposes the cruelty of war.
- 7 Self-restoration
A painter’s flattering comment lets Editha reclaim her comforting self-image as a noble heroine.
Characters and how they connect
Editha Balcom
Protagonist
A young romantic idealist who confuses sentimental fantasies of glory with genuine virtue and love.
George Gearson
Fiancé
A thoughtful, reluctant young man who enlists against his better judgment and dies in the war.
Mrs. Gearson
George’s mother
A grieving, clear-eyed woman who exposes the brutal reality behind Editha’s romantic ideals.
Mrs. Balcom
Editha’s mother
A milder, more cautious woman who quietly doubts her daughter’s feverish enthusiasm.
The lady painter
Acquaintance
A society visitor whose flattering judgment lets Editha restore her self-flattering view of herself.
Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
Family
Connection
Themes in Editha what the story is really about
Romantic idealism versus reality
Editha’s borrowed, heroic notions of glory collide with the brutal facts of war and death, which she refuses to truly absorb.
The cost of war
Howells exposes the human price hidden beneath patriotic rhetoric, embodied in George’s pointless death and his mother’s grief.
Self-deception and vanity
Editha repeatedly reshapes events to flatter herself, revealing how easily ideals mask selfishness.
Moral responsibility
The story probes Editha’s guilt for pressuring George, and her refusal to fully accept it.
Symbols & motifs
The newspapers’ phrases
The “current phrases of the newspapers,” which she knows she is parroting, stand for the second-hand, glamorized idea of war that warps her judgment.
Editha’s letter
The letter she presses on George at the gate comes back to his mother with his other things; Mrs. Gearson’s verdict that it “left him free” names the burden of conscience Editha tries to push away.
Mourning black
Editha’s dramatic mourning dress symbolizes how she performs grief while feeling self-importance.
The painter’s portrait remark
The flattering judgment stands for the social mirror that restores Editha’s comforting self-image.
Recurring motifs
Heroic rhetoric. Grand patriotic language recurs as Editha dresses ordinary cruelty in noble words.
Color and light. Vivid imagery of sunset, glow, and dress recurs as Editha aestheticizes her emotions.
Letters and words. Written and spoken declarations recur as substitutes for genuine moral understanding.
Conflicts
Person vs. person
Editha clashes with George over the war and later with Mrs. Gearson over the meaning of his death.
Person vs. self
Editha struggles, briefly, with guilt before retreating into self-justification.
Person vs. society
The story sets individual conscience against the swelling tide of popular war fervor.
Literary devices
- Dramatic irony
- The reader sees the hollowness of Editha’s ideals long before she does, if she ever truly does.
- Situational irony
- Editha’s demand for heroic glory produces a swift, meaningless death rather than triumph.
- Characterization through contrast
- George’s skepticism and Mrs. Gearson’s realism sharpen the portrait of Editha’s delusion.
- Symbolism
- Mourning dress and a packet of love tokens tied with red, white, and blue ribbon externalize Editha’s self-deceiving inner world.
- Free indirect discourse
- Howells filters narration through Editha’s thoughts, exposing her vanity from the inside.
Important quotes
“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.”
“What you got that black on for?”
“I thank my God he didn’t live to do it!”
“The mystery that had bewildered her was solved by the word; and from that moment she rose from grovelling in shame and self-pity, and began to live again in the ideal.”
The ending of Editha, explained
The ending exposes Editha’s incapacity for genuine moral growth. After George dies, his mother Mrs. Gearson shatters Editha’s romantic illusions with bitter truth about war’s reality and the obscenity of glorifying killing. For a moment Editha is stunned and seems to glimpse her own guilt. But when the lady sketching her portrait later calls Mrs. Gearson’s outburst vulgar, Editha seizes on the word: the mystery that bewildered her is “solved by the word”, and she begins “to live again in the ideal”, a noble, wronged heroine once more. The conclusion is Howells’ sharpest irony: Editha is offered hard self-knowledge and chooses comforting self-deception instead, leaving her ideals and vanity fully intact while a man lies dead because of them.
Common misreadings
MythEditha learns her lesson and changes by the end.
ActuallyShe is briefly shaken but ultimately rejects the truth, returning to her flattering self-image when a painter validates her.
MythGeorge dies a glorious battlefield hero.
ActuallyHe is killed quickly and pointlessly in his first engagement, undercutting all the heroic rhetoric Editha worships.
MythThe story celebrates patriotism.
ActuallyHowells, a noted anti-imperialist, satirizes romantic war fever and exposes its human cost.
Test yourself
1. Why does George Gearson enlist in the war?
George is skeptical of the war but enlists primarily because Editha pressures him to prove his worthiness.
2. How does Mrs. Gearson respond to Editha after George’s death?
Mrs. Gearson confronts Editha with the harsh reality of war and scorns the glorification of George’s death.
3. What does Editha do at the very end of the story?
When the lady painting her portrait calls Mrs. Gearson vulgar, Editha seizes on the word, slips back into comforting self-flattery, and learns nothing.
Editha had grand, romantic ideas about heroes and thought life should be full of glory. When a war started, she told her boyfriend George he had to join the army to prove he loved her. George did not really believe in the war, but he joined to make her happy, and he was killed almost right away. His mother was furious and told Editha that war is not glorious at all. Editha felt bad for a moment, but then someone insulted the mother, and Editha decided she had been a heroine all along, learning nothing.
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Compare & connect the story universe
The Story of an Hour
Both Realist stories use sharp irony to expose the gap between a woman’s self-image and the truth of her situation.
The Necklace
Each follows a vain, self-deceiving woman whose romantic illusions cause real and lasting harm.
The Yellow Wallpaper
Both critique the social ideals imposed on women and the dangerous gap between rhetoric and reality.
Paul's Case
Both protagonists prefer a glamorized fantasy to truth and are unwilling or unable to face reality.
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- What is the main theme of Editha by Howells?
- Why does George enlist in Editha?
- What does Mrs. Gearson reveal to Editha?
- How does Editha explore the theme of romantic idealism versus reality?
- How does Editha explore the theme of the cost of war?
- What is the central conflict in Editha, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how William Dean Howells develops the theme of romantic idealism versus reality in Editha. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the newspapers’ phrases in Editha. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does William Dean Howells use dramatic irony to shape the reader’s experience of Editha?
- Some readers assume that editha learns her lesson and changes by the end. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- What is the main theme of Editha by Howells?
- Why does George enlist in Editha?
- What does Mrs. Gearson reveal to Editha?
- Is Editha a dynamic or static character?
- How is irony used in Editha?
- What is Howells saying about war in Editha?
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. The story first appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in January 1905; quotations are from the public-domain text Howells collected in Between the Dark and the Daylight: Romances (Harper & Brothers, 1907), Project Gutenberg eBook #12100.
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