How I Met My Husband

"So I said yes, and 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." - Alice Munro.

For this blog entry, I am going to formally answer a question included in the text book.  The question is this:

Describe the plot structure in the story.  How is the arrangement of the plot elements effective?  At which points were your expectations as a reader overturned?

The plot of the story is told in chronological order, starting from what happened first and ending with what happened last.  Throughout the entire story, though, I thought the man Edie was going to marry was the pilot, Chris.  It wasn't untill literally the last paragraph of the entire short story that I found out that it was actually the mailman who she ended up marrying.  That last paragraph was when my expectations were overturned.  I thought it was ironic how Edie never out told what the mailman's name was yet we knew the pilot's name was Chris.  I sort of feel like Edie still had feelings for Chris even as she was married to the mailman for this specific reason.  But now I am getting a little off topic.  The arrangement of the plot elements is effective because it helps to explain just what the title says, how she met her husband.  It was in falling for the pilot that led her to her husband.  The reader needed to know these key details becuase it was the only way for us to understand how Edie came about waiting everyday by the mailbox for that letter and getting to know the mailman.