Editha And The Yellow Room

The female perspective of today has changed quite a bit. For one thing the role of the female in society has changed drastically since 1892. The women of today compete for the same jobs that men do and this causes them to take care of themselves and fight for themselves. For another thing the role of the male has changed since the book was written. Since women today are a part of the working community, men are forced to reckon with the reality that women are as capable and stable as men. The two stories Editha and the Yellow wall-paper are compared, their two lead female characters that us Editha and Gilman are examined and contrasted.

Editha

Howells wrote “Editha” in an effort to explode the sentimentalism that led to an interest in the historical romance. Editha blindly and ignorantly believes in the heroic romanticism of war and is totally oblivious to the real consequences of battle. At this time in history, there was a shift in focus from individualism to natural and social forces that seemed to enslave humanity. Émile Zola epitomized this naturalism. Despite the fact that authors were writing about natural and social forces in the hope that people would improve and reform society, by the turn of the twentieth century, people were buying superficial and shallow novels by the millions. By 1900, the historical romance not only had captured the general reading public but also, critics asserted, had reduced the level of culture in the United States. Through his ironic indictment of Editha, Howells criticizes the sentimentality of the day, which counteracted the realism in which he believed.

The main subject of “Editha,” one of William Dean Howells's most successful and best-known short stories, is war. Howells was very much opposed to war and especially the Spanish-American War, which he considered imperialistic. He shows his dislike in his portrayal of Editha, a thoughtless, selfish young woman, idealistic but ignorant of the consequences of war(Stratman 78-79).

“Editha,” which questions what constitutes a justifiable war, is a tale whose brevity belies its weight. The story impales Editha, who embodies all the nonsense about the heroic romanticism of war and whose false sense of values drives her unfortunate fiancé to a premature death in a questionable war.

Egotism and ignorance like Editha's leads to the suffering of many people. Her fixation of belief about the correctness, indeed the necessity, of war impells her pacifist fiancé to act against his beliefs and convictions about the supremacy of world peace and engage in what he fears and detests most, battling and possibly even killing other human beings. George had said it was not this war alone, although this war seemed peculiarly wanton and needless. Every war was so stupid that it made him feel sick. His total love for Editha, however, leads him to act against his principles. When he goes to the town meeting the day war is declared, he intends to sprinkle cold water on the enthusiasm of the young ...