Ethan Frome Revision

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Ethan Frome Revision

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Themes, Quotes, Symbols, Motifs, Story

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Theme- Gender Roles and Marriage

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Mattie is trained as a classic middle class woman- with naivety on how to make a living.

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Theme- Duty and Morality vs. Desire

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Ethan struggles against rules of society. He has such a strong sense of loyalty to his wife, he can not pursue his true love Mattie. His sense of morality conflicts with his desires. He has a strict ethics that can't allow him to lie to Hales about the money. Even in his act of defiance, suicide, he is still thinking about his duties- this causes them to fail the attempt- condemning them both to a kind of living death

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Theme- Determination and Free Will

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Ethan's dream of engineering is thwarted by the moral necessity to return to Starkfield for his parents. Yet, he is decisive- he just isn't good at showing it. Everytime he is on the verge of action there is an obstacle to which he gives in.

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Theme- Hostile of Indifferent Nature

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The characters are at the mercy of nature. This area has a profound effect on the personalities of the habitants and results in a reserved social behaviour.

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Theme- Society and Morality

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There is a conflict between Ethan's passions and the constraints placed on him by society and his morality. These control his conscience and impede his fulfilment of his passions. This results in a lot of frustration to the reader. He lacks the courage and strength of will so abandons his life aspirations.

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"Guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away."

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-Harmon Gow
-Prologue

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"Sickness and trouble: that's what Ethan's had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping."

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-Harmon Gow
-Prologue

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"He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his sentence."

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-Narrator
-Prologue

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Theme- Winter, the weather

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Starkfield- desolate, empty, plain, bare.
Sensitive souls such as Ethan get emotionally buried beneath the winter. The coldness has seeped into the resistant's bones.

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Pathetic Fallacy-

Comparing emotions to the surrounding environment.

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Motif-

Recurring Structures or contrasts that help develop themes

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Front 13

Motif- Illness and Disability

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Caring for the sick and lame defines Ethan's life. Ethan and those close to him either suffer from illness of disability.

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"I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access..."

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-Narrator
-Prologue

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Motif- Snow and Cold

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The characters complain about the snow endlessly. The winter is physically and pyscologically damaging. Everything is bleak, including people's personalities.

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Symbolism- symbols are objects, characters, figures or colours used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

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Front 17

Motif- Stars

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Front 18

Symbolism- Stars

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Front 19

Symbolism- Mattie's Red Scarf and Ribbon

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On the night of the church social she wears a red scarf, and on the night Ethan and her are alone she wears a red ribbon. Red stands out against the oppressive landscapes of Ethan's life. Red symbolises blood, vitality, love yet also the devil and sin- this could symbolise her role as a temptress.

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Symbolism- The Cat and The Pickledish

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The cat breaks the pickle dish which symbolises the disintegration of their marriage. The cat symbolises Zeena's tacit invisible presence in the house, as a force that comes between Mattie and Ethan. The cat also sits in her rocking chair. QUOTE

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Rocking chair quote-

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Front 22

"Every yard of the road was alive with Mattie's presence"

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She brings life to Ethan's life.

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"Though she was but seven years her husband's senior, and he was only twenty-eight, she was already an old woman."

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Front 24

"It was almost as if the other face, the face of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder."

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"Now, in the warm lamp-lit room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order, she seems infinitely father away from him and more unapproachable."

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ancient implications implies their hasn't been comfort, warmth and order in a long time.

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Foreshadowing- a technique used to give the reader hints on the future events that may occur.

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Front 27

"words of resistance rushed to Ethan's lips and die there."

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"his heart was bound by chords"

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"he opened his lips to speak to Mattie and found no breath."

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Front 29

"Ethan was ashamed of the storm of jealousy in his breast."

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Front 30

"Suffocated with the sense of wellbeing."

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Front 31

ACTION AND INACTION OF ETHAN FROME

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1) Zeena tells Ethan Mattie has to go
2) Could have refused
3) Resigns himself to take her

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1) alone with Mattie
2) could have kissed her
3) kissed her work instead

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1) going to get money from Hale
2) could have demanded it
3) gave him an extension

Front 33

Ethan is the main character in the novel written by Edith Wharton. Ethan is an unfortunate character who is isolated in the bleak town Starkfield, whilst caring for his hypochondriac wife, Zeena.

Back 33

At the beginning of the novel we begin in the present, for the middle section of the book we are taken back to the past to find out what makes Ethan so miserable and also paralysed.

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This is due to agreeing in a failed suicide attempt with Zeena's cousin, Mattie, his true. When Zeena demands Mattie leaves, she tells him that she would rather be dead than be apart- however their plan is unsuccessful.

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We find that this caused them both to be paralysed and miserable.

Front 35

PERPETUAL MISERY.

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Front 36

"Ruin of a man"
"Lank Longitude"

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there was something "bleak and unapproachable in his face"

"vitality of the climate and he deadness of the community."

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"The snow began to fall again...and Frome's silence with it."

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"sluggish pulse of Starkfield"

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STARS- "In a sky of iron the points of Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires."

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Front 39

COASTING- FORESHADOWING QUOTES

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Front 42

"Ethan stood looking at her, his heart in his throat. He wanted to say: "We shall never be alone again like this." Instead, he reached down his tobcco-pouch from a shelf of the dresser, put it in his pocket and said: "I guess I can make out to be home for dinner."

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Front 43

Mattie Silver- second name may relate to stars.

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Front 44

"When the door of her room had closed on her he remembered that he had not even touched her hand."

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"He saw a scarcely tremor cross her face, and without knowing what he did he stooped his head and kissed the bit of stuff in his hold."

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"If a fellow didn't keep his eyes open he'd go plumb into it."

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Front 47

"Ethan felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need Hale might have made shift to pay him; but pride, and an instinctive prudence, kept him from resorting to this argument."

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Front 48

"I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning."

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