How I Met My Husband- Question 4

In Monro's How I Met My Husband, Edie is the character that is focused on throughout the entirety of the story.  Edie is initially perceived as a type of failure and individual of a lower class.  Though we know it not to be true, Edie's role as a hired girl lowed the initial view of her.  She is obviously serving the higher class and by Mrs Peebles negative reference to farmers and Edie's internal response to this, we know she comes from a farming family. "Let's not stand her gawking like a set of farmers"(Monro, 131).   Through this quote comes other examples that make the reader feel pity for Edie.  Because of these incidents, Edie really is a sympathetic character.  However, through experiences and other situations that show that Edie is like any of individual, her working situation gives less need for the sympathy initially given. Although we do feel pity for her, we begin to have less pity for her because of her working situation.  We begin to have pity for her because of her naivety and her situation with Chris Watters.  Though we receive the sense that Edie feels that she was not forced to do anything and that she is not too terribly harmed by the experience, the modern reader of today cannot help but feel sympathy and a tad of weirdness while reading about a 16 year old being seduced by a war veteran.