I not only thought Sabitha was a minor character, but belatedly, it occurs to me that she drives everything that happens in the first story. Edith's desire to first outwit and then please and entertain her friend is what sets the adults -- the pawns -- in motion.
Munro understands adolescent girls so well to make Edith loathing to impress Sabitha not because she is a good friend or an intellectual peer, but because Sabitha came back from Uncle Clark's with an impressive rack. "However they came, they seemed to indicate a completely unearned and unfair advantage."
And while Munro ends with Edith contemplating how in the world Johanna had triumphed in the machinations she set forth for her, I would bet it stung more that "she had taken the precaution of not speaking to Sabitha first, before Sabitha could not speak to her."
God, I love that line. Dear Edith -- the Sabithas are not worthy of your clever ruses!
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Ooops, sorry. I didn't see Erin's post on story two. Moving on ...
Oh yeah, Munro is a master of the young woman. There are more in the stories that follow. And she's a master of how the arrogance of youth gets transformed into someting more humbled and contemplative as we age.
I also enjoyed when Edith points out that Johanna will understand the word "gregarious" in a letter, even if Sabitha doesn't. Already she is identifying with Johanna on more subtantial levels than with her "bosom" buddy. And I think that's intended as a telling point regarding what kind of woman she'll turn out to be.
And when the subject of masturbation comes up and Edith is disgusted.
Edith knew all about the pleasurable agonies Sabitha was feeling, but she was appalled that anybody would make them public.
It's not just Edith's prudery (she had been shamed by her mom) that drives her reaction. It's like Edith has outgrown the anything-goes friendship of their younger years and has begun to develop her own interior life, a private world, a life of the mind — that will likely have more private "chill satisfactions" than shared intimacies with silly, frivolous women.
Brilliant point about Sabitha being the driving force, cl.
Good post. I was also impressed with Munro's painting of the Edith-Sabitha relationship, especially the scene after Sabitha returns from her vacation. I can remember just those kind of interactions and feelings when I was an adolescent. I knew girls just like Sabitha.
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