Analysis Of The Novel ' Ethan Frome '

Ethan Frome was characterized as an isolated and poor lived character. He was very society based. In his younger years, he was a follower, he lived his life based on what everyone else was doing. After he graduated, he thought the correct thing to do was fall in love and get married, however, he found out the hard way that that is not how life should be and he realized that many years later after he suffered.

When Ethan passes by his family’s graveyard, the narrator says, “For years that quiet company had mocked his restlessness, his desire for change and freedom” (Wharton 30). Ethan reflects on his year attending college in Worcester and working for an engineer in Florida before his marriage to Zeena. After his marriage, Ethan makes plans to move with Zeena to a big city where they can “see the world,” yet his circumstances stand in his way of his success (Wharton 42). Ethan never forgets his desire for a better life. The fifty-two year old Ethan Frome continues to buy a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, a magazine that tantalizingly displays ads for “Trips to the West,” business success stories, and the latest scientific discoveries (Wharton 9). However, as the young Ethan grows wiser and realizes the impossibility of life beyond Starkfield, his dream

In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, setting is an important element. The setting greatly influences the characters, transportation, and activities.

Fate is an all powerful and unavoidable development of events that leads you to what you deserve based on how you life your life. In the novel “Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton the three main characters; Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena, all suffered a torturous fate due to many wrong doings, primarily, all the secrets they kept for their own individual benefit. Ethan’s lie was being in love with Mattie, Mattie’s lie was being in love with Ethan, and Zeena’s lie was being deathly ill, however, these lies resulted in sneaking around, hiding, and betrayal throughout the novel. In addition, the perspective the book was written in allows the reader to pass unfair judgement on the characters based on a bias point of view.

In //Ethan Frome// Edith Wharton illustrates how Ethan views Zeena versus Mattie through the parallel scenes of when Ethan is greeted by Zeena/Mattie at the door of his farmhouse first coming home from the dance and second coming home from. Although both scenes play out almost identically, Wharton uses the slight differences to emphasize how Ethan sees Mattie as beautiful, submissive, and attractive compared to Zeena who he only sees as an obstacle. As Ethan comes up to the door the first time when Zeena waits for him, he is so infatuated by Mattie that Zeena has become but a hurdle for him to overcome. He even dreams about if a dead vine dangling was a"crape streamer tied to the door for a

Winter, a melancholy season, bring to the people the feeling of loneliness. The lonely person becomes lonelier. In the cold winter, just a little ray of sunshine is enough to warm a person's lonely heart. However, no one knows that little ray of sunshine in cold winter is a start point of the tragedy of love. Like "Ethan Frome" is written by Edith Wharton. The story revolves around the love triangle of three characters, Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie. Zeena, Ethan's wife, with illness, she represents the lack of energy. Contrariwise, Mattie, Zeena's cousin, who makes Ethan falls in love, represents the full energy of life. Mattie is a little ray of sunshine of Ethan in the cold winter. That makes Ethan feels thrilled, and the love triangle begins

The main season in the novel is the ’enemy’ of winter. Edith Wharton uses the climate to match the feelings of people in Starkfield, walking with a ’sluggish pulse’.

Felipe Armesto once said, “Every hero is somebody else’s villain”. Every individual who considers someone to be a hero can also be portrayed as a villain. In the novel, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton she portrays her male protagonist as both a hero and a villain. As a result, the reader can view the plot as any other human who can make mistakes. Ethan Frome a tragic hero whose greatest challenge is finding true happiness in his life. This observation presents the question: how can an individual play both roles where someone could feel sympathy for him, but also show contempt? It is this emotional reaction that the reader has for the protagonist that makes this more appreciable by a contemporary audience.

With reference to at least two characters in the novel Ethan Frome, show in detail how Wharton uses setting to reflect character.

Wharton describes a still and serene snow scene to depict the entire mood of Starkville, the dull town where Ethan lives. Wharton shows that before Mattie arrives, Ethan continues a monotonous and bleak life at his vaccant farm with little human interaction. The white, dull, and cold snow represents the emotionless life that Ethan experiences. There is no color or hope, like sprigtime, in Ethan’s life. His future holds more of the same harsh and bitter lifestyle on his farm, while he cares for his lifelong companion, Zeena. Wharton uses the white snow as a way to further understand the rut Ethan

Many people oppose society due to the surroundings that they face and the obstacles that they encounter. Set in the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is the story of a poor, lonely man, his wife Zeena, and her cousin Mattie Silver. Ethan the protagonist in this novel, faces many challenges and fights to be with the one he really loves. Frome was trapped from the beginning ever since Mattie Silver came to live with him and his wife. He soon came to fall in love with her, and out of love with his own wife. He was basically trapped in the instances of his life, society’s affect on the relationship, love, poverty, illness, disability, and life.

Throughout Ethan Frome, winter seems to be a prominent season that is spoken of or described. In symbolic terms, winter is a time of dormancy. It is a time when life gives way to stillness and people take the time to reflect and still their minds and souls. Although winter does, in fact, reflect despair, death, loneliness and pain, it is not all negative. The main component of a winter storm is snow and what color is snow? White. White symbolizes hope, rebirth, naivety and much more just like life in a winter wonderland might. In the case of Ethan Frome though, there seems to be a far darker meaning behind it. The fact that he's "...been in Starkfield too many winters" (Pg. 4) shows the real symbolism that's been the long-lived dormancy of Ethan's life.

The setting of the story is significant to the atmosphere of the book and diction of the characters. The wintery season throughout the whole book helps set the gloomy, sluggish and lonely tone of Starkfield. The setting of the book also plays a role in the decisions the characters make as well as the conflicts they face. Starkfield plays a cruel part in Ethan Frome's life. He is a man that dreamed of a bright future outside of Starkfield made a decision early in his life-that he would later regret- because he dreaded being alone in Starkfield during another winter.

The novel opens, twenty years later, in Starkfield with The Narrator who develops the desire to know all about Ethan Frome’s past life. His curiosity gets him bits and pieces from the locals, but Ethan Frome remained mysterious. Due to a horrendous blizzard, The Narrator is given the opportunity to live in Ethan’s past and answer all of his questions. The reader starts off with the knowledge of Ethan Frome’s younger life. He desired to become an engineer ,but while pursuing his dreams, his father passes away and his mother becomes very ill. During that winter, Ethan hires Zeena, his cousin, to take care of his mother because he realized that it was too much for him to do on his own. When his mother passes away, he suffers from isolophobia, the fear of isolation, and decides to marry Zeena. The reader is made aware that the environment is cold representing a sense of isolation from the outside world. The Narrator finally learns about the “smash-up”(Wharton 1) according to the locals, that threw away all of Ethan Frome’s chances of escaping prison, also known as life.

Edith Wharton uses setting to compliment the loneliness Ethan feels while living at his farm. The village Frome lives in is, at the start of chapter 1, described as being under “two feet of snow” (Edith Wharton, 11). Snow can oftentimes be interpreted negatively because of the bitter cold it brings, symbolizing hardships and, often, death. Death of loved ones is never easy on an individual, and people are known to draw into themselves when someone close to them has passed, resulting in their own isolation. Indeed, the topic of death is brought up shortly afterwards, when Frome mentions how his father’s death, and the “misfortune following it”, led him to halt his studies (Wharton, 11). Frome was so overcome by a feeling of loss that he’d given