Qualities In Ethan Frome

In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, setting is an important element. The setting greatly influences the characters, transportation, and activities.

In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the minor character Mattie Silver serves as a foil towards the main character Ethan Frome. Throughout the novel, Ethan is a man who faces many challenges in his path causing what little happiness he has to vanish therefore illuminating the work as a whole. One may realize the faults of Ethan’s ways through theme, symbolism and irony.

Ethan Frome, written by Edith Wharton; this novel is about a farmer, Ethan, who lives a sad life in the town of Starkfield; he had many ambitions for the future only to have them crushed by his wife, Zeena. When Zeena’s cousin, Mattie, comes to live with the Fromes, Ethan soon realizes that he has developed feelings for Mattie and she was the object of his affection. Ethan immediately becomes involved in a love triangle between Mattie and Zeena. Unsure whether or not to follow his heart and run away to marry Mattie or just ‘shrug off’ his feelings for Mattie and pretend like they were never there, Ethan is faced with a tough decision. A few days later while Mattie and Ethan are out sledding, Mattie has the idea of running into an elm tree,

Ethan is neither rich, nor politically powerful. He has neither high status, nor a form of superiority greater than any other respectable member of his community. However, Ethan Frome initially possesses a moral loftiness due to his adherence to the values esteemed by his community. Ethan begins as a modern form of tragic hero by living a life of duty, integrity and conformity. He is a protagonist who lacks the traditional qualities of a hero and thus, is a modern anti-hero. Thus, Ethan Frome’s noble stature is derived from his initial moral loftiness. Furthermore, some may argue that Ethan is not a tragic hero because his hamartia is not due to a traditional shortcoming such as hubris. Ethan does not suffer from excessive pride, but rather is supremely humble. However, Ethan does suffer a tragic fall. In forsaking the values of his community, and putting his own needs ahead of others, he is left more trapped and miserable than before. While Ethan’s tragic flaw is defying the code of his community, it nonetheless leads to his downfall leaving him in tragic

Edith Wharton’s brief, yet tragic novella, Ethan Frome, presents a crippled and lonely man – Ethan Frome – who is trapped in a loveless marriage with a hypochondriacal wife, Zenobia “Zeena” Frome. Set during a harsh, “sluggish” winter in Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan and his sickly wife live in a dilapidated and “unusually forlorn and stunted” New-England farmhouse (Wharton 18). Due to Zeena’s numerous complications, they employ her cousin to help around the house, a vivacious young girl – Mattie Silver. With Mattie’s presence, Starkfield seems to emerge from its desolateness, and Ethan’s vacant world seems to be awoken from his discontented life and empty marriage. And so begins Ethan’s love adventure – a desperate desire to have

As I was saying before, the presence of Ethan in Starkfield for the whole of his life has added to his plight. The metaphor is showing how the residents of

All through the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, Ethan has several excuses to why he can not run away with Mattie, those being, public moral standards, Ethan’s own morals, and finical reasons. These reasons are stopping him from being with Mattie, his true love. One of the reasons Ethan will not run away with Mattie is because of the public’s moral standards. The time period in which this book was written it was looked down upon to have a divorce. And on top of that Zeena , Ethan’s wife, was sick at the time.

Edith Wharton filled her novels with a feeling of ruin, passion and restriction. People can fall in love, but rarely do things turn out well. But but few of even her books can evoke the feeling of "Ethan Frome," which packs plenty of emotion, vibrancy and regrets into a short novella. While the claustrophobic feeling doesn't suit her writing well, she still spins a beautiful, horrifying story of a man facing a life without hope or joy. It begins nearly a quarter of a century after the events of the novel, with an unnamed narrator watching middle-aged, crippled Ethan Frome drag himself to the post-office.

Rural literature explores ideas, themes, and situations that occur “in the country”. The simple life that exists outside the hustle and bustle of many towns is enticing to those that live everyday with the noises and chaos that surrounds city life. People seem to find interest in some of the characteristics that define rural. There is something relaxing and serene about the thought of seeing the stars and smelling fresh cut grass; just the slower pace that rural life offers is inviting. The fact is, however, that while many rural places have certain things in common, they are all quite unique in their own way.

Ethan being very needy marries Zeena, and once she turns cold, Ethan suffers. Ethan had been very lonely, living with his sickly mother.

Many people oppose society due to the surroundings that they face and the obstacles that they encounter. Set in the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is the story of a poor, lonely man, his wife Zeena, and her cousin Mattie Silver. Ethan the protagonist in this novel, faces many challenges and fights to be with the one he really loves. Frome was trapped from the beginning ever since Mattie Silver came to live with him and his wife. He soon came to fall in love with her, and out of love with his own wife. He was basically trapped in the instances of his life, society’s affect on the relationship, love, poverty, illness, disability, and life.

In Edith Wharton’s novel, Ethan Frome, one major critical theory revolves around the psychological criticism. The novel revolves around this critical theory because Wharton wanted the reader to observe how the setting becomes dependent on the emotional state of the character and vice versa. Throughout the novel, Wharton makes changes to the environment to represent Ethan’s fondness for certain characters. On the contrary, Wharton displays how the setting directly influences Ethan’s mental state. As the reader perceives this influence that each character has on Ethan Frome, they can develop an understanding of the relationships established in the novel. This critical theory will be expressed throughout the literary analysis paper, specifically in the Novel Summary section and Literary Criticism sections. The following text will analyze the drastic changes in the environment and compare it to Ethan’s mental state.

Ethan frome is the main character of Edith Wharton's novel. Ethan lives a miserable life, resents his lost opportunities and hates living a loveless marriage. He is often trapped between his obligations to his wife Zenna what what society limits him to. Ethan studied a year in college and if he hadn't been called upon to tend for his mother, the mill and the farm, he probably would have been really successful in his profession. He felt as if it was his responsibility of care for the mill and the farm. After his mother died, he asked his mother’s caretaker, Zeena to marry him because he thought it was his responsibility to do so since she had taken care of his mother and because he was trying to escape the loneliness and silence of his

The novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton tells the story of Ethan Frome and the tragedy he faces in his life. The story mainly focuses on the relationships between and among Ethan, his wife, and his wife’s cousin, with whom he is in love. Wharton uses different literary devices to develop the plot, including irony as one of the most effective. The use of irony in the novel, especially in the climatic sledding scene, greatly adds to the development of the tragedy.

Edith Wharton, author of the novel Ethan Frome, speaks through her narrator to tell the ironically realistic tale of a poor, wishful New England farmer, who quickly realizes that his desire for happiness is futile. Ethan Frome’s acquaintances in town describe him as a man who has lived in the small town of Starkfield, Massachusetts for “too many winters,” yet Ethan is only fifty-two years old (Wharton 10). As the narrator relates the “tale of unremitting isolation, loneliness, intellectual starvation, and mental despair,” it is obvious that Ethan’s suffering is something “neither poverty nor physical suffering could have put there” (Faust 817; Wharton 13). The misery from which Ethan suffers is the heartbreak over the unaccomplished dreams of his past. In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, the author examines the effects of reality on the fulfillment of the dreams of the characters and the narrator through social conventions, isolation, and fatalism.