Edith Wharton

Charity Case: The Devolvement of Power in Sexualized Women Written a century ago, Edith Wharton’s novella Summer depicts the life of Charity Royall, who is essentially an orphan. Lawyer Royall—a prominent figure in the town of North Dormer, where the story is set—retrieved Charity as a small child from an indifferent mother from the Mountain as a favor to her father, a man he recently helped convict of manslaughter. Lawyer Royall makes his first sexual advance toward Charity when she is…

Ethan Frome, a 1911 novel by Edith Wharton is a novel featuring uniquely American characters. The novel itself begins and ends in the present, that is the time that the book was published, but the bulk is told in flashback. The flashbacks serve to explain how Ethan has ended up as he has and filling in the back story, which includes no shortage of pain and suffering to the point that it is beyond any possible justification. The book itself is also moral in many respects and while these can be…

variety of sources. In a summary most of these sources’ definitions point to literature as any expanded written text. This will arise a trial on rather selectional books are literature or Literature. Animal Farm by George Orwell and Ethan Frome Edith Wharton are two novels that literature but, do these texts qualify as Literature is a debatable and a conclusive statement is that Animal Farm is Literature and Ethan Frome is…

have many purposes. One way to achieve this is through the use of symbol, allegory, and fantasy. They can give the story a richer meaning without the addition of extra words, but they require careful attention from the reader. “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton is replete with symbols that give the narrative a deeper meaning which help illustrate the theme. According to Perrine, a symbol is “something that means more than what it suggests on the surface” (301). This can really be anything: an…

In the early-modernist novella, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, a series of themes are displayed, one of such being that of intolerance. In the contemporary vernacular, the definition of intolerance is regularly associated with discrimination or prejudice. Ethan Frome, the namesake of the novella, has been facing a serious dilemma for over a year, whilst his wife, Zeena Frome is slowly dying of illness and his true love, Mattie Silver, is on the verge of leaving him forever. These three…

Edith Wharton uses Mrs. Manstey’s view to call the rich neglectant idiots while the poor pathetic losers. Mrs. Manstey allows herself to lose everything she loves because of her poor financial state. When she feels herself about to lose another love of hers, a view into the boarding houses overgrown junky backyards, she decides to speak up. She takes a rare visit out to plead her case to Mrs. Black I never had what I wanted… It was always one disappointment after another. For years I wanted to…

Hiding Secrets “Roman Fever,” written by Edith Wharton, is a short story that starts with two old friends, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, visiting Rome with their daughters, Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade. The two ladies sit at a restaurant of their hotel and enjoy the beautiful view of Rome. While the daughters play with each other, Ansley and Slade reflect back to their youth years, and compare each other’s daughter. Alida Slade brings up a situation that Grace had done in the past. Alida knows…

When I had to read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, it gave me a lot to think about the treatment of those who are disabled. Wharton writes about the treatment of Ethan by the townspeople. The narrator says, “There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face , and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty two” (Wharton 3). Just the description from the narrator’s point of view gives…

“generation [known] for knowing more about each other's private thoughts” (Wharton 306). He remains oblivious and with that, his relationships grow stagnant. After the death of May, Archer’s first born son Dallas explains the very cause of Archer’s frozen attitude towards life revolves around the couple “just [sitting] and watch[ing] each other” (Wharton 306) attempting to guess “at what was going on underneath” (Wharton 306). The very nature of Archer’s mindset becomes what confines him to a…

tale between two dear, childhood friends. However, as the reader gets deeper into the heart of the story, this is clearly not the case. Looking within the pages, one can see how Wharton uses irony to tell her tale. The irony brings the story to life and makes it an exciting, passionate story of romance and revenge. Wharton uses irony as a way to draw the reader in, with twists and turns and flare that make the story unique and addicting. Imagine the story without irony; it would be a story about…