Ethan Frome Essay

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.

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.

Symbolism can give additional meaning to a variety of texts. From music to movies to novels, symbolism creates an even deeper meaning than found in a surface reading. The symbolism found within Ethan Frome adds to the inherent meaning of the text to give it an even deeper meaning. Edith Wharton uses the pickle dish, the Oak tree, and the cat as symbols to achieve deeper meaning. The pickle dish is of great significance in the novel. It is used to represent Zeena's virginity.

Ethan is responsible for his misfortune because his loyalty makes it so that he is unable to say no and follow his dreams. For example, instead of helping his mother and then returning back to school, he stuck around Starkfield, just because a women who temporarily helped cure his loneliness did not want to move. Ethan Frome decided to marry Zeena without really getting a chance to know her. He thought she was good company for the time, so he put himself in an unhappy marriage. In a marriage one is suppose to know and love the other person before getting married. Instead of finding help for his sickly old wife, while he went back to school for a few more years, he decided to stay around and be in poverty, verse receiving and education and making something out of himself. He also decided to fall in love with his wife's cousin. Knowing that Mattie Silver is Zeena Frome's cousin, should of been one reason for Ethan to back off, but instead he keep getting to know her more than he knew his wife and eventually started to fall in love. Ethan Frome might of been responsible for his own misfortune, but he was also a victim of fate. He was a victim of fate because he had to return home from school due to the death of his father. He had to learn to farm, which he was incompetent of, to make a living for him and his mother. Shortly after the death of his father, his mother stopped speaking to him, which left him lonely and craving for attention. His loneliness and desperation is how he got himself in the situation of marrying Zeena and falling in love with Mattie

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 novel "Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton was based on the moral of Fate vs. Freewill. Ethan Frome's decisions (free will) caused him many accidents later in life. After meeting Mattie Silver, Ethan's wife cousin, Ethan began to feel thrilled every time he was near Mattie. Despite of being married to Zeena, Ethan began to have an affair with Mattie. After coming back from seeking treatment, she began to suspect that Ethan and Mattie had something going on, so she decided to replace Mattie with someone else. Before Mattie left, Ethan and her went to village hill to purposely commit suicide to died together, but only ended up being injured.

As I was saying before, the presence of Ethan in Starkfield for the whole of his life has added to his plight. The metaphor is showing how the residents of

in to take care of his mother. He never did return to the college to

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.

This quote was found on page 13, in the introduction when Harmon Gow is explaining to the narrator who Ethan Frome is.

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 novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton tells the story of Ethan Frome and the tragedy he faces in his life. The story mainly focuses on the relationships between and among Ethan, his wife, and his wife’s cousin, with whom he is in love. Wharton uses different literary devices to develop the plot, including irony as one of the most effective. The use of irony in the novel, especially in the climatic sledding scene, greatly adds to the development of the tragedy.

Literature has remained as a distinctive aspect of society for thousands of years. A society’s literature exists as a window in which one can peer into and discover more about its culture. Although a very diverse concept, literature is generally defined as written or printed material, either in the form of novels, poems, or journals. However, a more restrictive approach considers literature as “a higher art form” (Lombardi), or one that manipulates language to convey an experience. Ethan Frome serves as a notable example of literature at its best. The novella complements aspects of literature, such as strong characters and meaningful themes, with takeaway value and unpredictability.