Frome By Edith Wharton: Setting Analysis

Edith Wharton, author of the novel Ethan Frome, speaks through her narrator to tell the ironically realistic tale of a poor, wishful New England farmer, who quickly realizes that his desire for happiness is futile. Ethan Frome’s acquaintances in town describe him as a man who has lived in the small town of Starkfield, Massachusetts for “too many winters,” yet Ethan is only fifty-two years old (Wharton 10). As the narrator relates the “tale of unremitting isolation, loneliness, intellectual starvation, and mental despair,” it is obvious that Ethan’s suffering is something “neither poverty nor physical suffering could have put there” (Faust 817; Wharton 13). The misery from which Ethan suffers is the heartbreak over the unaccomplished dreams of his past. In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, the author examines the effects of reality on the fulfillment of the dreams of the characters and the narrator through social conventions, isolation, and fatalism.

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

The Winter is the opposite of summer, during the winter not only does the winter change but the town's appearance. The houses that once looked artificial were exposed and looked abandoned. “Winter comes down savagely over a little town on the prairie...The roofs, that looked so far away across the green treetops...they are so much more uglier then when their angles were softened by vines and

In the play, the setting takes place in an "abandoned" and "gloomy" farmhouse out in the country. Almost

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

“There was no way out- none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light to be extinguished”(Wharton 29). Miserable routines caused by terrible occurrences trappes Ethan Frome every single day. Edith Wharton opposes the idea of following any routine. Wharton expresses that routines and cycles prevent a person from expressing their own desires or achieving their personal goals in life. These cycles prohibit a person from seeing changes within their environment and possible opportunities that could improve their life. Even if a person breaks free from a routine, an endless amount of reasons exist to pull them back in. Ethan Frome momentarily escapes from his daily routine to pursue his education, but not far into this break he has to return in order to help his family. Ethan Frome somehow found a way out of his miserable routine, but failed to take that exit; resulting in a life much worse than before. Finding a way out seems like a reasonable solution to escape bad situations, but taking such a great risk to completely change one’s entire life, seems nearly impossible for any citizens of Starkfield. In the novella, Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton exemplifies how routines deny a person from reaching their full potential through the constant pull Ethan and other members of Starkfield receive to follow their normal, average routine and not follow their desires.

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

The effect that the landscape has on the characters is very significant. Through the use of figurative language, Kent is able to covey the landscape and how it emphasizes many of the emotions felt by the characters. In the text characters live in Icelandic society where long distance communication is hard and fast communication is even harder. With the weather being the way it is; bitterly cold and oppressive, it reflects on each character and their emotions felt through the book. Particularly the oppressive snowfall throughout the text leaves the characters feeling claustrophobic and confined. In turn this allows each character to express these feelings in their own individual way. Margaret, the mother is trapped in her own house in a repetitive cycle of her own making. Agnes is caught in her own inner turmoil, and Margaret’s daughters are also trapped in a cycle, fated to live a

Executive Order 9066, passed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1942, forced all Japanese-Americans to pack up their lives and move to internment camps, a place where they would live in shabby barracks and get treated unfairly by guards. This order confineded the American citizens in heinous camps for up to three years. Because of their heritage, which could be as little as one sixteenth Japanese, the citizens were obligated to move; they became trapped in these camps where unhappiness was present in every aspect of life. Similarly, in the novel Ethan Frome, the title character is trapped in his unhappy life due to marriage, family, property, and financial liabilities. The author, Edith Wharton uses the motif of entrapment to prove how obligations lead to unhappiness throughout the novel.

We learn from the first paragraphs that focusing on the scenery will help her forget the nervous depression which she has been diagnosed with: ""So, I will let it [her illness] alone and talk about the house"(947). The main character’s focus on the environment is the reason for which the reader gets plenty of information about the setting.

In association with Ethan’s obsession, Mattie, Wharton uses the color to describe her attributes such as her “cherry coloured scarf”(Wharton 15) and “colour of the cherry scarf in her fresh lips and cheeks” (Wharton 28). Wharton emphasizes her “streak of crimson ribbon” (Wharton 44). What these descriptions have in common includes that all represent the temptation and passion that Mattie represents for Ethan. Mattie description includes having “flushed red” (Wharton 45), embarrassment may be the first assumption because woman of Wharton’s era were often presented as being demure, however, I find that when Mattie flushes red, a juxtaposition is created between her and Ethan’s wife, Zeena, who is often presented as having a sallow pallor and having now life to her whatsoever. Mattie symbolizes life and health that Ethan desires.

When Harmon states that Ethan has been in the town of Starkfield too many winters leads to the narrator finding out that Starkfield and the town members become emotionally buried under the snow covered blanket of Starkfield?s winters. Winter in Starkfield is depressing and cold and it seems to rub off on the residents of the town. People of the town say he is cold and depressing, simply because he has been in Starkfield too many winters.

His struggles are exacerbated by his surroundings such as Zeena his wife, the bleak Starkfield landscape, and his home which often takes on an oppressive quality. Mattie was Zeenas cousin and Ethans lover. This novel shows how even though Ethan and Zeena are married; Ethan loves Mattie more than he could possibly love Zeena. "It's bad enough to see the two women sitting there - but his face, when he looks around that bare place, just kills me" (Chapter 10).

During the 19th century, having morals and executing the expected behavior of social norms was emphasized. Often times, people would face the struggle between following their conscience versus societal norms. This is portrayed numerous times throughout Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Frome,” and Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd.” In “Ethan Frome,” the protagonist, whom the novel is named after, faces a continuous battle with himself as he tries to suppress his desires for another woman, Mattie. In Melville’s work, characters such as Captain Vere and Billy Budd experience internal conflict while on ship.

Throughout the whole story, a very bleak mood is portrayed. The setting contributes to this gloominess. For example, the weather is awful. James, seeing how cold it was, said, “I seen the smoke coming out o’ the cow’s nose.” Later he says, “The sleet keep falling. Falling like rain now- plenty, plenty.” Once James turns up his collar to protect himself