1911 in literature

In Chapters VI - VIII in the novella Ethan Frome, both Ethan and Zeena make references to things or ideas they value most. The author Edith Wharton, utilizes these characters’ attachments to convey information about both Zeena and Ethan, as well as the couple’s relationship. While Ethan values meaningful companionship and connecting with the outside world, Zeena values her pickle dish and her cat. Edith Wharton uses symbolism to explore the detrimental effects of physical and emotional…

Running on Empty Ethan Palmer is a teenager living in Halifax, Nova Scotia with his father and sister. The death of his mother has caused Ethan’s personality to significantly change and resulted in him struggling throughout high school. To cope with his mother’s death, Ethan uses his passion for muscle cars to escape his reality and suppress his feelings of anger. Throughout the story, Ethan has several confrontations with his father regarding the direction of his life, crashes his car and…

One of Ethan Frome’s centric ideas is that Ethan retreats from life into a vision. He escapes his reality to enjoy a few blissful moments in his dream, but never acts to make that dream come true. Harmon Gow says, “Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away”(Wharton 6). While having every reason to leave Starkfield and his querulous wife, the man doesn’t. Ethan’s moral and social values combined with his indecisiveness cause him to retreat from life into a…

In the novel, Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton uses the country setting of Starkfield. The name “Starkfield” gives the reader a cold, hard impression of the snowy New England setting. Wharton conveys Starkfield as a place of primitivism and ignorance because of its isolation and bitterly cold climate. Ethan Frome, the protagonist, is a subject to his environment as he lives a cold, cyclic life. However, Ethan isn’t the only one who is affected by his environment, as Zeena and Mattie also live in…

Stuck on a farm, forced to deal with the eventual death of both his parents and lost in the beauty of the house maid Mattie Silver, Ethan Frome is a victim in Edith Wharton's novel Ethan Frome. Throughout the novel, Wharton highlights the circumstances Frome's faces that lead him to his incident on the sled when Mattie and he crash into a tree. Wharton begins Frome’s journey of poor circumstances when his father dies and he is left in Starkfield to tend for his sick mother while still…

Modeled after Edith Wharton's novella of the same name, the 1993 adaptation of Ethan Frome does a pleasant job in retelling the original story. In the film, as in the novella, Ethan Frome depicts the story of a scandalous love triangle between Ethan (Liam Neeson), a farmer, Zeena (Joan Allen), Ethan’s sickly wife, and Mattie (Patricia Arquette), Zeena’s caretaker set in a dull New England town. These three characters, all with very different in personalities, trapped in a claustrophobic…

Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome is structured specifically to create an aura of suspense and thrill. The prologue acts to give a fleeting insight to the mysterious character of Ethan Frome, but intentionally neglects to offer an explanation as to why he is in his current condition, thus keeping the audience on their toes. Such strategies used by Wharton create an overall effect of mystery and confusion until the very end. The switch of point of view to third person omniscient puts readers in a front…

Analytical Book Report “…and I say, if she’d ha’ died, Ethan might ha’ lived; and the way they are now, I don’t see’s there’s much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; ‘cept that down there they’re all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues” (77). Ethan Frome is a fictional drama and romance novella written by Edith Wharton. Throughout this story, the protagonist, Ethan Frome, must contend with some difficult aspects of his past. This…

Edith Wharton intertwines color symbolism in her novel Ethan Frome to provide descriptions about the characters and their personalities. Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie are symbolized by colors many times throughout Ethan Frome, and are all symbolized by a specific color as well. Zeena is representative of the color black, as it represents her darkness. Mattie is representative of the colors white and red, as it shows her effervescent personality, but reveals her turbulent side as well. The color grey…

Significance of Setting in Ethan Frome In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the setting plays a significant role in many facets including the plot, the decisions of the characters, and the development of the overall atmosphere. The setting of the novel, Starkfield, is a cold, lifeless place with long winters that often make the townspeople downhearted. The town’s six month winters cause the people to stay indoors and keep to themselves. The long, bleak winters also have a remarkable…