Ethan Frome

“An interesting example of a s successful New England story written by someone who knew nothing of New England!” This quote was said by a critic who has read the novel “Ethan Frome.” The novel contains the aspects of love, hatred, and poverty throughout the novel. “Ethan Frome” was written by Edith Wharton and was written to practice the work of realism. Edith Wharton makes this novel as real as it could possibly get with the love affair between Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver, the hatred relationship of Zeena Frome and Mattie, and the lack of money and wealth in their family. Ethan and Mattie, throughout the book, have a love affair that is just too great in hand. Even though Ethan has a wife, Ethan starts to fall in love with Mattie once she…

stress the “journey” in order to create a climax where the tension between two characters reach a peak. An example of such a technique used by an author is the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. Although it does not state it explicitly in the text, one could infer that through Mattie’s actions and words, she at first is hesitant to love Ethan. It is only until the very end until Mattie sees that he is her true love and becomes completely devoted to him. At…

Ethan Frome takes place during the winter in the town of Starkfield and surrounding rural areas. The harsh winter is crucial to the development of characters in the novel and also to overall theme. The winter causes the characters to become isolated and make decisions that they would not normally make. For example, Ethan and Mattie make a rash decision when they decide to commit suicide by sledding into a tree rather than choosing to face their problems. The narrator describes winter in the…

The book Ethan Frome was a fictional work written by Edith Wharton. The book was set in the fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Edith Wharton is an esteemed writer who received a Pulitzer Prize for her book, The Age of Innocence. Ethan Frome details the story of a man and his struggles with maintaining his daily life and marriage with his sickly wife. Throughout the book, each character is faced with life-changing choices that would affect at least one other character within the tale.…

This paper will present how things change in Ethan Frome. I will mention about how the book jumps back and forth from future to the past and back to future. Then I will mention about the relationship between the characters in Ethan Frome. Next I will talk about the ending of the book. Lastly I will give my opinion about the book and if I would recommend this book to anyone. When you first star to read the book Ethan Frome it is in the future. The book starts off when a ‘visitor to Starkfield,…

Independent Reading Quarter One Ethan Frome is a man with personal issues that come from his past experiences. The past experiences that he has faced have let a mark on him mentally that cannot be erased. From this stems his inner conflicts when it comes to desire and society. These inner personal conflicts can be connected as well with the main characters in the books “The Awakening” and “1984”. The internal conflicts that he faces in this novel are the direct result of society as it is in the…

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…

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…

How can one possibly think the name Starkfield in the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a coincidence? The isolation of the town as well as the cold severity of the constant bleak winter explicitly illustrates the literal meaning in the name Starkfield. Nothing an author presents is ever fortuity in well written literature, in particular in the novel Ethan Frome, written by Edith Wharton. The novel Ethan Frome is written in a manner utilizing flashbacks, a switch in point of views, a…

Edith Wharton was the author of Ethan Frome and many other celebrated novels. She was born in into a wealthy family in New York on January 24, 1862. The third child and only daughter of George Frederic and Lucretia Rhinelander Jones, the young Edith spent much of her childhood in Europe, mainly France, Germany, Italy. There she spent most of her time developing both her gift for languages as well as a deep appreciation for beauty – in art, architecture and literature. Returning to New York in…