Prince Charming and Peter Pan in Munro's "How I Met My Husband"

was raised to be charming, not sincere.--Cinderella's Prince, Into the Woods, Sondheim and Lapine In the September, 2010 issue of this journal, I described Alice Munro's often-anthologized short story How I Met My Husband as exemplifying what Coral Howells calls Munro's tendency toward revision of popular romance plots (Alice Munro [Manchester, England: Manchester UP, 1998]: 60). Now I'd like to get more specific, examining the same story as an ironic revision of the story. Critics have identified three other Munro stories as ironic workings of (Charlotte Goodman, Cinderella in the Classroom: [Mis]Reading Alice Munro's 'Red Dress-1946, Reader 30 [Fall 1993]: 49-61; Howells, 57; Beverly J. Rasporich, Dance of the Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro. [Edmonton: U of Alberta P, 1990). But How I Met My Husband involves more ironic twists than usual: the apparent Prince Charming turns out to be an entirely different mythic character, one far less congenial to romantic happy endings, and rather than being saved by him, the figure must save herself from him. The story is told retrospectively by a married woman, Edie, who is recalling a time shortly after World War II when, as a fifteen-year-old, she worked for a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Peebles as a hired girl (Alice Munro, How I Met My Husband, Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You [Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1974]: 50). Right away, Edie's situation parallels Cinderella's. Separated from own mother and forced to work for the mother of two other children, Edie performs household drudgery while Mrs. Peebles has hair done, goes on picnics, and takes daily naps. Despite efforts, Edie suffers condescending treatment from the spoiled surrogate mother she works for: after Mrs. Peebles's first words in the story, Edie as narrator explains, She didn't say that to hurt my feelings. It never occurred to her (45). The parallel becomes obvious when Edie meets the apparent Prince Charming figure, Chris Watters, a barnstorming pilot who has landed across the road from the Peebles's house, planning to give airplane rides for a dollar. With employers temporarily gone, Edie rummages through Mrs. Peebles's closet, puts on a satin dress, and applies employer's rouge, lipstick, and eyebrow pencil. Almost immediately, she encounters a stranger--Chris--standing at the screen door (49-50). Thus, the poor maid first encounters the leading man while masquerading as one of the elite, wearing fancy clothing that is not own. The parallel becomes even clearer when Chris asks, Were you going to a dance? (50) After this example of meeting cute, we naturally expect romance, even marriage--and plot details encourage those expectations. Chris calls Edie beautiful (51) and teases about getting married someday (54); alone in bed, Edie fantasizes about Chris (58). Most of all, there's simple process of elimination: the story is called How I Met My Husband, and until the last four of its 198 paragraphs Chris is the only unmarried man to be found. But Edie isn't the only unmarried woman: about halfway through the story Alice Kelling arrives, declaring herself Chris's fiancee (55). Given the story's trappings of escapist romance, at first Alice seems just a complication, an obstacle the lovers must overcome. …

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