Sympathy & Understanding

I believe Edie to be a sympathetic character in the short story "How I Met My Husband." The story is told from Edie's young, innocent point of view; she tells us she "was fifteen and away from home for the first time." She then continues on to say that she had dropped out of school and came in last in the class. Her work as a hired hand automatically caused me to feel for this young girl. As the story continued, she revealed more of her unworldly personality. For instance, the drama with Alice Kelling, Mrs. Peebles and Edie divulges quite a bit of information about Edie's maturity and intelligence. Edie's maturity is exposed in the scene in which she "lost control, just like a six-year-old, [she] started howling." Her intelligence is expressed in this same scene with her misunderstanding of "intimate." It is in this part of the story that I can pinpoint areas of my heart going out to Edie. However, the premise of the entire novel creates sympathy; Edie is infatuated with the "wrong" type of man. We also feel for her because she "like[s] for people to think what pleases them and makes them happy." We can see through the story that this rings true in all she does.