For my blog post this week I decided to write about Edith Wharton’s short story, “Writing A War Story.” In this story, a young author and nurse, Ivy, is working in a hospital in Paris when she is asked to write a short story for a magazine that will be sent to soldiers.  A quote that really stood out to me was,

But that very afternoon the ‘artistic’ photographer to whom she had posed for her portrait sent home the proofs; and she saw herself, exceedingly long, narrow and sinuous, robed in white and monastically veiled, holding out a refreshing beverage to an invisible sufferer with a gesture half way between Mélisande lowering her braid over the balcony and Florence Nightingale advancing with the lamp (Wharton, 253)

The mention of this picture is ironic because by the end of the story the only thing that the soldiers care about is the picture, no one cares about the story itself. I find this way of describing her picture and then making the soldiers only care about her picture a smart way for Wharton to comment on the participation of women in the war and also women as writers. WWI was the first time women and men, regardless of their marriage status were able to spend time together. Women were able to prove that they could handle being in difficult situations. However, women were also still objectified and it seems to me that Wharton is really trying to make sure that the reader understands that.

The soldiers want to remember Ivy as the “hot nurse”, not by her intelligence and ability to write. This piece sets up the mood for our class— women struggling to be taken seriously.