Ethan Frome Silence Quotes

In the novel, Ethan Frome, there are two women that are apart of Ethan Frome’s pitiable existence, Zeena and Mattie. There are both acutely different from each other but they also share some similarities between themselves. Zeena and Mattie are different in many ways in the matter of appearance, their outlook on life, and their interest in Ethan Frome but eventually it shows towards the end of the novel that Mattie is not so much distinct from these qualities after “the smash up”.

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.

Suicide is a great tragedy which takes many innocent lives everyday. Often times, authors incorporate suicide within their literature because it is such a great tragedy. In the novella Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, an attempted suicide is the tragic ending which leaves two characters crippled. In the novella, Ethan Frome is married to a sickly woman named Zeena. He and her cousin, Mattie Silver, care for Zeena.

When his mother, too, had fallen ill, Ethan had had no time for “convivial loiterings in the village” (Wharton 61). Once a social and admired man, Ethan now lives in a life of solitude and silence. After his mother fell ill, “the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that of the fields” (Wharton 61). His mother had been a talker in her day, but after her illnesses, the sound of her voice was seldom heard. When asked why, her answer would be “because [she was] listening” or “they’re talking so [loud] out there that I can’t hear you” (Wharton 61). Towards the end of her illnesses, Zenobia Pierce came to help Ethan. It was only then that Zeena’s volubility was “music in his ears”, relieving him of the “mortal silence of his long imprisonment” (Wharton 61). After his mother’s death, Ethan married Zeena, hoping to rid him of the loneliness of the farm. However, Zeena, too, eventually fell silent, and Ethan must take of her like he once did for his mother. In addition, irony also takes place during Ethan and Mattie’s first evening together. Zeena, being a hypochondriac claims that her “shooting pains” have gotten more severe and therefore must leave to Bettsbridge to see a new doctor, leaving Ethan and Mattie alone. On what should have been a romantic idyll, the evening is in fact stressful and

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.

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.

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.

After reading the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the character Ethan was very different. He lived a very confused and depressed life. Ethan lived in a small town called Starkfield with his wife Zenobia (Zeena) Frome. Ethan had to drop out of school and come back home to be a caregiver for his family. Ethan was a weak and strong character in the novel.

The prologue centers Ethan Frome in the novella by Edith Wharton. Ethan Frome is an isolated human being struggling physically and emotionally from his accident occurring 24 years ago. Frome has suffered many issues in Starkfield, Massachusetts involving from his wife’s instability and being crippled. Frome’s story is deriving piece by piece by the narrator. The central idea is the constraint social and moral concerns of moral isolation. The setting provokes the reader's curiosity of the tragedy experienced by Ethan Frome. According to the Narrator, Frome constitutes the remains of a once powerful and sensitive man, now bound and frustrated by the crippling effects of a sledding accident. The setting implants Frome's moral isolation in Starkfield, Massachusetts leaving him hopeless, torturous and caring.

Ethan Frome is a tragic love story built around a man who has “stayed in starkfield for too many winters” and a loveless marriage with his wife. The hardships of his marriage and his poverty stricken life. Along with his growing passion for another woman leads to many problems in Frome’s life that are depicted in this masterpiece by Edith Wharton.

The novel Ethan Frome written by Edith Wharton is a classic novel of the early 1900’s. Wharton created a novel that is only fully comprehended in the cold winter months with snow swirling outside your home as you read with a cup of hot tea to warm you. It is an icy writing, with many different thoughts to extract from it. A main theme in this novel is society and morality are obstacles to the fulfillment of desire(SparkNotes: Ethan Frome Themes.) I agree with this yet I argue the main theme is that your circumstances determine your contentment. Through the stifling force of winter, Ethan’s alternating moods based mainly off of Mattie, and Zeena’s disappearing illnesses, it will be proven that their circumstances determined their contentment.

One can argue that where one goes and what he does is not always controlled; rather it is part of a preplanned destiny given to him by some otherworldly force. In The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Mr. Kurtz is a man who is seduced by the natural world to follow the primitive desires of evil. Marlow’s description of nature reveals it as the force that controls Mr. Kurtz and leads him on his path to evil.

History has already shown what is likely to happen. The ball has been down this court before and he could see already the light at the end of the tunnel—but without Candy in his life. The birdie in his mind said to him, “Obviously, it’s been a very difficult two days for you, Markel. You failed to see the writing on the wall Friday night. It’s just apples versus oranges, and it’s not a level playing field by any means. Another way to look at it is: it’s like you’ve taken a rare orchid and shut her away in a dark outhouse. You haven’t nourished her or paid her enough attention. Is it any wonder that her roots are struggling to survive? Candy is a trapped bird whose wings have been broken, she is a Fabergé egg that you have boiled

In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, the prologue and epilogue of the novel are narrated in the present while the intermediate chapters consist of flashbacks relayed by a third-person narrator. Through employing a non-traditional organization and a limited point of view, Wharton constructs a closed plot structure. Unlike other novels, Ethan Frome does not follow the typical apex-shaped plot framework. Instead, Wharton purposely manipulates the structure in order to provide