Ethan Frome Essay, Research Paper

Ethan Frome is a story of ill-fated love, set during the winter

in the rural New England town of Starkfield. Ethan is a

farmer who is married to a sickly woman named Zeena. The

two live in trapped, unspoken resentment on Ethan’s isolated

and failing farm. Ethan has been caring for his wife for six

years now. Due to Zeena’s numerous complications they

employ her cousin to help in the house, the animated Mattie

Silver. With Mattie’s youthful presence in the house, Ethan is

awoken of the bitterness of his youth’s lost opportunities,

and a dissatisfaction with his life and empty marriage. Ethan

and Mattie in turn, fall in love. However, they never follow

their love due to Ethan’s morals and the respect he has for

his marriage to Zeena. Ethan eagerly awaits the nights when

he is able to walk Mattie home from the town dances. He

cherishes the ground she walks on. After a visit to the

doctor, Zeena is told that she needs more sufficient hired

help. Thus, she decides to send her incompetent cousin

away and hire a new one. Ethan and Mattie are desperate to

stay together. However, Ethan’s lack of financial means and

Zeena’s health are factors that will never allow him to leave

Starkfield. Unable to find any solutions to this problem,

Ethan and Mattie decide to commit suicide by sledding into

a tree. They figure it is the only way they can be together.

The attempt fails, and the two are left paralyzed. Now

Ethan’s wife must care for the two for the rest of their lives.

There were many themes found in Ethan Frome, but the

greatest of them all is loneliness and isolation. In college

Ethan acquired the nickname "Old Stiff" because he rarely

went out with the boys. Once he returned to the farm to care

for his parents, he couldn’t go out with them even if he

wanted to. Whatever he’s done has kept him apart from

others: tending to the farm and mill, nursing his sick mother

and caring for Zeena. Ethan’s isolation is intensified, because

he is often tongue-tied. He would like to make contact with

others but can’t. For example, when he wants to impress

Mattie with beautiful words of love, he mutters, "Come

along." In their own ways, Zeena and Mattie are solitary

figures, too. For years, Zeena rarely leaves the house. She’s

consumed by her illness. Mattie, on the other hand, seeks

refuge from loneliness at the Fromes’ farm. A year later she

chooses to die rather than return to a world of solitude.

Edith Wharton uses characters such as Mattie, to express

the theme of loneliness and isolation. Mattie Silver is unlike

any of the other characters in Ethan Frome. The town of

Starkfield is very colorless and dull. When Mattie enters she

is wearing bright clothing and ribbons tied in her hair. From

her first appearance, the reader becomes aware that Mattie

is very different from Ethan’s wife. Of all the characters in

this novel, Mattie is the most tragic. She was so energetic

and full of life that she wanted to free Ethan from this terrible

society he lived in. She suggested suicide as a means of

escape for the two of them. When the attempt failed, she

became paralyzed. She is now stuck in the cold, colorless,

world of Starkfield. The setting of Ethan Frome, also

expresses the isolation. Around the turn of the century, in

Ethan Frome’s time, the town of Starkfield was a cold and

lifeless place. Life is dreary and cheerless in Starkfield.

People stay indoors and keep to themselves. Weeks pass

between visits with friends or neighbors. Wharton calls

Starkfield a small farming community, and the town does live

up to it’s name. It’s desolate and it’s people are poor. Ethan

can barely scrape a living off the land. The town Starkfield

afflicts Ethan and helps to shape his destiny. Like the town,

he is sullen and run-down. Starkfield sits alone in its valley,

isolated from the world around it. Ethan is also isolated. He

left the lonely valley to go to college, but since returing he

has gone scarcely more than few miles from his remote farm.

Physically, and therefore, emotionally, he is trapped by his

wife, his farm, and his poverty. Ethan is in some ways, a

piece of the scenery, or as the narrator says, "a part of the

mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of frozen woe."

He lacks the strength to shake himself loose before it’s too

late. The author is able to clearly portray the themes of

isolation and loneliness through the characters and the

setting. In conclusion, I feel that Ethan Frome should be

included in a list of works of high literary merit, because it is

a classic. The book is about society in general and this

attracts many readers. I think that the magnificence of Ethan

himself attracts many readers. His character was so carefully

thought out. Although Ethan Frome was not a commercial

success when it was first written, many critics praised the

novel. Dr Kinnicuttt said that Ethan Frome was "a classic

that will be read an re-read with pleasure and instruction."

Henry James told Edith Wharton that the novel "contained a

beautiful art and tone and truth — a beautiful artful kept

downness." Many critics also disliked the book. People said

that it was too pessimistic to be recommended to the general

reader. A critic in The Bookman could not forgive Wharton

for her cruelty toward both her characters and her readers.

The novel shows how one will not follow their heart due to

what society may think. It shows how much society’s beliefs

in the 1900’s were valued. Despite low sales when this book

first became published and unfavorable remarks about Ethan

Frome, the novel is still read and loved by many people, in

many countries and languages, today.

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