William Dean Howells Editha Romanticism

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William Dean Howells' discusses his views on romanticism in "Editha" by choosing to write about a character that symbolizes romanticism. William Dean Howells was known to show his feelings through political and social issues when publishing a story. Howells was not good at hiding that fact that he was strongly against the Spanish American War. Even though the war is never really mentioned in the story, it is obvious that he wrote this story to show that he was against it. Not only was he against the war only, but he didn’t agree with the people who supported it just to be considered patriotic or to show some American pride. Editha was a character who was part of that group of people who supported the war even though she didn’t really know …show more content…

Editha romanticized love too much and wanted something bigger and better and this is shown in the story when Editha says that George “simply asked for her love... and she gave her love... but if he could do something worthy to have her, be her hero- it would be grander." George loved Editha so much that he did everything Editha would tell him to do and there was no better way to show his love for her than to comply with what she wanted so he enrolled to be captain of Company A so that Editha would be proud of him. After that, Editha became kind of uninterested and began to show her real feelings towards the whole thing. Editha wrote George a goodbye letter mentioning why she was calling off the engagement because the man she was going to marry "must love his country first." Editha knew that was she was doing was selfish and that it wasn’t fair but she still sent him the letter to please herself, but Editha began seeing George and everything else different once George enlisted in the war. George made her feel like if he didn’t love her anymore and that she was

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