In "How I Met My Husband," what is your attitude toward Edie, the narrator—sympathy, condescension, disapproval, or something more complicated?...

My reaction to Edie in "How I Met My Husband" is something more complicated.

Whenever a question is asking for the reader's attitude towards a specific character, different answers will emerge.  Evidence from the text can justify different attitudes.  My reaction to Edie is a complicated one because I think that the text reveals her to be a complex character.

I think that Edie's intricacies as a character comes from her ability to observe so much around her.  For example, she can see how unhappy Loretta Bird is in her own life.  Edie also grasps the class barrier between someone like her and the Peebleses.  Edie's complexity is displayed the most in the story's ending.  As she continually waits for the letter from Chris Watters, she understands that it will never arrive.  As a result, Edie is able to articulate a profound observation:  "Till it came to me one day that there were women doing this with their lives, all over.  There were women just waiting and waiting by mailboxes for one letter or another."  Edie understands how human beings "wait" for hope, sometimes accepting illusion over reality.  When she says, "So I stopped meeting the mail" and recognizes the type of woman she wants to be, Edie shows depth.

Edie settles on being happy in daily reality rather than living in the splendor of dreams.  I think that my complicated attitude toward Edie is enhanced with the story's ending. Through Edie's narration, we find out that her husband, the postman, believes that Edie waited each day for him to arrive.  The reality is that she was waiting for a letter from Chris, and not for him.  However, Edie does not correct him.  She says that she likes "for people to think what pleases them and makes them happy."  In this emotionally complex ending, the reader is not certain if Edie has become a figure of sacrifice or one who lives in silence.  Does Edie let her husband think what he wants because she wants to fulfill his dream or because she has lost her own?  I find this emotionally rich terrain appealing in its complexity.