"...I went out with him for two years and he asked me to marry him, and we were engaged a year more while I got my things together, and then we did marry." (Page 146)
Responding to Question 8: Discuss the effectiveness of the surprise ending. How does Carmichael differ from Chris Watters? Can it be argued that the surprise ending is also inevitable and appropriate?
Throughout the entire story, I assumed that the man she married was Chris Watters. The whole story up until the last paragraph is all about how Edie is infatuated with Chris, so it is natural to think she is going to marry him. However, the story is not an ode to their love. They never even had love. Unlike Chris, Carmichael is a gentleman. He didn't kiss her a few days after meeting her because he respects her. Chris took advantage of the ignorance and vulnerability of a young girl who was in love with the idea of love. She knew what she was doing, but she was not smart enough to understand that he was using her. Carmichael and Chris are polar opposites in the way they treat women. Chris was busy kissing a young girl he met in a small town he was visiting while simultaneously running from a woman who may or may not have been his actual fiance. (She was a bit of a stalker, anyway.) Carmichael met a girl, courted her properly, then finally married her respectably.
The story was written from Edie's perspective as an older, more mature woman, so the ending was quite appropriate. Despite the fact that it satisfied the title of the story, it also gave the reader satisfaction. If Edie had ended up with Chris, I would have thrown my book across the room out of sheer rage! (Maybe not literally because I don't want to have to pay to repair the book.) Munro did an excellent job of telling an interesting story that had a refreshingly surprising ending.
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