Ethan Frome Essay Essay, Research Paper

Ethan Frome Essay

Could you ever imagine living your entire life in the same town and if you try to leave something will keep bringing you back. In the novel, Ethan Frome, the main character Ethan Frome lives his life in this way. Through his silence, isolation, and illusions he causes himself to be trapped in Starkfield.

In the beginning, on the outside Ethan Frome seems like a normal middle-aged farmer but deep down there is a different story. Ethan is a very complicated individual, he feels isolated for several reasons. Harmon Gow Said, Guess he s been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away. Growing up Ethan dreamed of someday leaving Starkfield and moving to the city but he never did. He was isolated to Starkfield, he grew up there, he went to collage in an attempt to leave but meanwhile his father died and his mother grew sick. He was forced to move back to Starkfield and take care support her. He married Zeena; the women who lived with him and took care of Mrs. Frome, and for the rest of his life he lived in Starkfield because Zeena did not want to leave. He was also isolated himself from the truth, he kept secrets about his love for Mattie Silver and the way he truly feels about Zeena.

Around the end of the book I discovered more about Ethan s emotions and feelings. A silence is created because he hides everything inside and does not express himself or share his feelings. He keeps to himself, thinks a lot, wants to leave Starkfield but does not say anything. He did not know why he was so irrationally happy, for nothing was changed in his life or hers. He had not even touched the tip of her fingers or looked her full in the eyes. But their evening together had given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he was glad now that he had done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the picture. This quote is just another example of Ethan s silence; he loves Mattie but does not admit it to her until it is to late.

But suddenly his wife s face, with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrusts itself between him and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside. This is an illusion of Ethan s; him and Mattie are sliding down the hill toward the elm tree on their suicide run so they could be together forever. He sees an illusion of Zeena in front of them and instinctively swerved away.

Furthermore, the novel expresses many situations that involve illusion, isolation, and silence among the three main characters, Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena. However those situations involving Ethan seem to be most promenade.