Essay on Wharton's Ethan Frome: Development of the Novel and Characters

Ethan’s ignorance and hopefulness. He doesn’t fully comprehend his actions which also emphasizes his immaturity.

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

After her and Ethan Frome’s wreck though, she becomes what Zeena was and experiences what she went through. She becomes that resentful and despaired person, that the younger version of Mattie is majorly differentiated from. At the end, irony is displayed because Zeena seems to regain some of her health and beauty while Mattie lost all of hers.

He then married a woman he did not love out of fear of being alone. After all this, his wife's cousin comes to live with and help them. He then falls in love with her, but remains miserable because he knows that he cannot be with her. Happiness is definitely a wanting object in Ethan's life. Mrs. Hale is quoted as saying, " You've had a mean time, Ethan Frome."

After the smash-up, Ethan is still quite a handsome man but his state of mind has changed. Ethan has become consumed with guilt from the smash-up so much so that he has become “bleak and unapproachable” and “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” (page 3). This clearly conveys that Ethan has become bitter and cold.

That makes him stand between what he want and what he need and all he wants, just to stop at thinking. And Ethan's thoughts become his biggest barrier to reaching happiness. Ethan loves Mattie. Ethan dreams about the happiness of him and Mattie. We know that when Ethan says, "I guess we'll never let you go, Matt," he whispered, as though even the dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by the graves, he thought: "We'll always go on living here together, and someday she'll lie there beside me.". But there is no way that comes true when he becomes passive in front of Zeena. When Zeena figures out what is wrong in her family, and try to indirectly force Mattie to leave the farm, Ethan is passive with his feeble reasoning cannot protect Mattie. Then, Ethan plans to flee with Mattie. But once again, another thought comes up to Ethan's mind as an excuse for his passivity, and make him flinch. The narrator states, " If he gave the farm and mill to Zeena what would be left him to start his own life with? Once in the West he was sure of picking up work—he would not have feared to try his chance alone. But with Mattie depending on him the case was different. And what of Zeena's fate? Farm and mill were mortgaged to the limit of their value, and even if she found a purchaser—in itself an unlikely chance—it was doubtful if she could clear a thousand

Isolation can be the determining factor in changing one’s mindset. In Ethan Frome, Ethan faces many disappointments throughout the novel. In the novel, Ethan is an orphan since both parents have passed. His wife Zeena who is also his cousin has become the dominant one in the relationship taking over full control. While living in Starkfield, Zeena has suddenly become “sick” and is forced to bring in her cousin Mattie for help around the house. Zeena is depicted as a bitter prematurely old woman who is always “sick” while Mattie is the picture of health as well as the sweetest woman alive. When Mattie comes into the picture, she becomes the speck of happiness in which Ethan longs for but Zeena keeps taking away. This brings up a theme of failure throughout the novel.

However, the restraints that moral and societal concerns imposed by society on the desires of an individual are arguably the novel's most noticeable theme since the plot of the prose is centered on Ethan’s desire of a lady who isn't his better half. The novel describes ravaging soul of Ethan as he is torn between the obligation to his wife and the desire of his heart. Ethan describes Zeena as the epitome of coldness and despondency. When he saw her before she embarked on her journey to Bettsbridge, he found "the pale light reflected from the banks of snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless (Wharton 39). On the other hand, Wharton’s discerption of Mattie in the eyes of Ethan is related with natural life, warmth, and summer. At the start of the Novel, He perceives Mattie's face as "like a

As previously stated imagery concerning Mattie is very warm and summer-like. Mattie's face seems to Ethan like "a window that has caught the sunset". Her effect on Ethan was likened to " spring rills in a thaw". Mattie's mood changes were, to Ethan "the flit of a bird in the branches.". When Ethan puts his arm around Mattie when they are walking home it seemed that they "were floating on a summer stream." When Mattie tells Ethan that she would never want to leave his house, "The iron heavens seemed to melt and rain down sweetness."

Ethan marries Zeena and falls in love with Mattie as a direct response to his neediness for care and company. As well, Ethan also finds it a necessity to be accepted by Starkfield, which compels him to live with Zeena and finally stops him from escaping with Mattie. Ethan’s desire for love and acceptance could have been the outcome of a neglected childhood. He had been caring for his parents from a young age, as Harmon Gow tells the narrator, “Sickness and trouble: that’s what Ethan’s had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping”(6). Ethan spent most of his life caring for others and possibly lacked love from his own sick parents, which may be the reason for his neediness for society to be both proud of him and others to give him the care, which he had to give up from an early age, taking care of his parents. As many studies show, the young need love and affection in order to help with their self-esteem and it is a vital aspect of one’s mental health. Seeing the outcome of Ethan, a lack of care for the young, may cause detrimental effects on ones life as he or she grows

Mattie and Ethan never follow their love due to Ethan's morals and the respect he has for his marriage to Zeena. He wants Zeena to be well and he takes care of her when she is ill. Frome’s feelings for Mattie never oscillate and he wants to be with this woman who is not his wife. Even though Ethan only had one night with Mattie alone, he cannot help but think of what he has done as he sits in the kitchen. Mattie presents minority, beauty, and good health- all of which Zeena does not possess. It seems he favors the more hip, young, and beautiful women than dull, boring, and unattractive women.

Humans by nature are constantly thinking and acting based on different parts of their subconcious. This is true for people in real life, as well as characters in books. In the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the three main characters have particularly specific parts of their subconscious controlling them, and a psychoanalytic breakdown of each character will determine what section of the brain is influencing each character. Ethan Frome, Mattie Silver, and Zeena Frome are the three characters who all become miserable outcasts, of sorts, due to the lack of balance in their subconscious.

Isolation is used as a means of developing relationships between the characters, whether friendly or hostile. An obvious relationship that is formed is the one between Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver. Mattie was brought in by Zenobia, or Zeena, Frome as an assistant around their house. Ethan, being isolated from most other people that would bring him happiness, quickly begins to fall in love with Mattie. This is made clear early on, stating, "The girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear; he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imported left long reverbations and echoes he could wake at will" (Wharton 32). Due to the fact that Ethan had no one else but Zenobia in his life, Mattie was the only person keeping

In Edith Wharton’s novel, Ethan Frome, one major critical theory revolves around the psychological criticism. The novel revolves around this critical theory because Wharton wanted the reader to observe how the setting becomes dependent on the emotional state of the character and vice versa. Throughout the novel, Wharton makes changes to the environment to represent Ethan’s fondness for certain characters. On the contrary, Wharton displays how the setting directly influences Ethan’s mental state. As the reader perceives this influence that each character has on Ethan Frome, they can develop an understanding of the relationships established in the novel. This critical theory will be expressed throughout the literary analysis paper, specifically in the Novel Summary section and Literary Criticism sections. The following text will analyze the drastic changes in the environment and compare it to Ethan’s mental state.

This event, referred to as a “smash-up”(2) by natives of Starkfield, is revealed to be a pact between Ethan and Mattie to commit suicide by sledding into an old elm tree. Ethan finally knew Mattie's “avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too”(52). She confirms finally that she felt the same for Ethan as he had for her, and persuades Ethan to commit suicide with her so that they would “never have to leave each other any more”(52). This grand gesture shows the true devotion they felt for each other, and in agreeing with her, demonstrates Frome’s fatal flaw: he loves Mattie over reason or even life itself.