Essay on Wharton's Ethan Frome: Ethan Frome as Fairy Tale

In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, Zenobia ‘Zeena’ Frome serves as the chief antagonist. Zeena is portrayed as a malcontent, apathetic wife who adds to her husband (Ethan Frome)’s feelings of imprisonment and stands as an obstacle to his desires. While readers come to support or empathize with Ethan’s dreams for a life outside of Starkfield, full of adventure and passion, Zeena is vilified and often loathed by readers. Ethan paints her as a villain because she, coupled with crushing poverty, blocks Ethan’s deepest desires. However, while portrayed as the novel’s villain, Zeena does not actively seek to ruin Ethan’s life, her nature as a villain is much more unintentional. Throughout Ethan Frome, the perspective of the narrating Ethan

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

Poverty is defined as deficiency, or inadequacy. It can be used to represent more than just the lack of money. Poverty is constant throughout the novel, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton. Poverty is evident in almost every area of Ethan's life.

The novel Ethan Frome is a short story packed with detail. It takes place in Starkfield and is about a farmer named Ethan Frome. Ethan made poor decisions because he was trapped living with two women; his wife, Zeena, and his wife’s cousin, Mattie. Ethan fell in love with Mattie. When Ethan and Mattie fell in love, they made a horribly rash choice making this novel a tragedy. A tragedy in literature is wherewhen a main character or hero suffers a downfall because of a character flaw, error in judgement, or forces beyond human control. The short novel, Ethan Frome, written by Edith Wharton, is a tragedy because of Ethan Frome’s character flaws, errors in judgement and the forces beyond his control.

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

The Novella of Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, is a tragedy. Ethan Frome suffered tragedy because of his character flaws, errors in his judgment, and forces beyond his control. Ethan Frome married a woman, Zeena, he was lonely and not truly in love with her. When her cousin, Maddie comes to live with them Ethan becomes infatuated with her. When Maddie has to leave, Ethan and Maddie decide to kill themselves so they never would have to leave one another. In the novella of Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, Ethan is a unique character who suffers a downfall due to character flaws, and errors in judgment, and most important forces beyond human control to in which he gains wisdom.

Elizabeth Ammons writes in her essay “Ethan Frome as a Fairy Tale,” that “Ethan Frome is designed to be read like a fairy tale” (Ammons 138). Although the novel itself is bleak and a little dark, we still recognize the characters as ones from the fairy tale Snow White. In the novel Mattie Silver comes to live with Ethan and Zeena. Mattie takes care of Zeena along with the household chores. When Mattie and Ethan begin to fall for each other Zeena notices. The silent tension in the house grows greater and greater every day Mattie is in the house. In a search for their fairytale ending the two try to take their own lives, little did they know it would lead to nothing but misery. In her novel Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton

In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the minor character Mattie Silver serves as a foil towards the main character Ethan Frome. Throughout the novel, Ethan is a man who faces many challenges in his path causing what little happiness he has to vanish therefore illuminating the work as a whole. One may realize the faults of Ethan’s ways through theme, symbolism and irony.

An ineffective hero, known as a tragic hero, possesses many characteristics. Ineffective heroes are doomed from the beginning, but most importantly, are wounded physically or emotionally, in most situations, as a result of their own flaws. Ethan Frome of Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, possesses characteristics of an ineffective hero. He suffers from the beginning of the novel, stuck living with his sick parents, and as a result of his flaws, he marries Zeena and falls for Mattie, resulting in both his physical and emotional fracture. However, Ethan cannot succeed and ultimately suffers, as a result of his neediness.

Denied a normal life, Ethan is shown he is noble by putting his life on hold to go help his family. “Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn’t ever anybody but Ethan. Fust his father-then his mother-then his wife” (Wharton,11). Ethan had a dream to settle in a

Edith Wharton uses Mattie to express isolation and being lonely. She comes to the country with ribbons in her hair and more joy in herself. She wanted to free Ethan from the terrible society he lived in. Life in Starkfield is bleak and boring. No one comes outside or enjoys themselves. This is mainly why Ethan wants to escape the barren and poor neighborhood. Ethan is also isolated as well. He opposes society mainly because he cannot be with the one he loves and he doesn’t want to ruin his marriage to Zeena as well. When Zeena falls ill, she goes to the doctor for a couple of days and returns only to find her expensive china now ruined. Angry, she tells Ethan that she needs more hired help and plans to send Mattie away. Upset, Ethan did not know what to do . He decided to write a letter to Zeena telling her to run the farm and be by herself. However, he

The use of magical occurrences or fantasy in Brockmeier’s story plays a crucial role in the development of the overall moral lesson in the story.

When Mattie is to be sent away, Ethan and Mattie grow desperate looking for a way out of their impossible situation. They decide that it is better to die in a sledding accident together than live their lives apart. Ethan hesitates slightly, “But in a flash

Tracing back to the year that changed Ethan Frome’s life forever, the reader finds themselves outside of a church where Ethan Frome is mesmerized by the sight of this girl, Mattie Silver, who is actually his wife’s sister. When Mattie

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and the impossible love of Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver. These two stories have more in common than you think. They both end sourly, as each resists a “happy ever after” ending. Both romances also seem to convey that love isn’t always what it seems. And both their characters set unrealistic expectations for the others. As these stories unfold side by side, they seemed unlikely qualifiers of similarities, at first. But as one reads more and more, each tale exists to try to give a message to all who read. In reality, life and love don’t often end happily ever after.