Kaitlyn Gibbons
Prof. Ken Denberg
AENG 100Z
9-21-10
“How I Met My Husband”
“How I Met My Husband,” by Alice Munro is a story about a girl who is initiated into adulthood. The story focuses on how secrecy and how it is used to create the storyline. Also, Edie’s personality, point of view and naivety helps the reader connect to the story. Further, love is blind in an underlying theme which helps to convey the idea and reveals the characters true feelings. This is a great coming of age story that makes you think about love. This writer will show how the theme of secrecy, a growing girl and the theme of love is blind work together to show how growth, heartbreak and love occurred within the story.
One of the main themes throughout the story is secrecy. Edie initially succeeds at this job, partly because she withholds information. She is used to eating larger meals than those served in the Peebles household, she smuggles in boxes of homemade doughnuts. When the children find out, she is careful to “bind them to secrecy.” She is also able of keeping secrets from them as well. After Edie has met Chris and he refers to a time she accepted a cigarette from him, she “made a face to hush him, because you never could tell when the children would be sneaking around the porch, or Mrs. Peebles herself listening in the house.” Chris and Edie’s relationship is based on secrecy. There is suspense when he first meets her and she has Mrs. Peebles dress on. She goes over to meet with Chris to ask him not to tell. He tells her that his secret is safe with him. While over there he asks her opinion of the sign he made. As narrator she tells us “The lettering wasn’t all that handsome, I thought. I could have done a better one in half an hour.” But as character, she tells Chris, “It’s very good.” He promises to keep her secret; she flatters him while keeping her true opinion private.
