How To Create Atmosphere In Wharton's Ethan Frome

3. Re-read the flashback of the night before in Ethan and Zeena’s bedroom. What does it reveal about their marriage? Does it help to explain why they do not have any children?

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.

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.

By taking the reader through Ethan Frome’s winding emotional journey, Edith Wharton in Ethan Frome, examines the effects of both physical, as well as emotional isolation on the human condition. The novel is set in the frigid winter, likely in the late 1800’s, in the rural, secluded, fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Ethan’s downtrodden farm is on the outskirts of this already remote, small community. Wharton strategically uses the isolated setting, Ethan’s unmitigated poverty and his loveless marriage, to cut her protagonist off from desperately needed meaningful connections. First, the failing health of his elderly parents forces Ethan to forego his dreams of a urban engineering career, to return to his isolated rural farm,

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

In //Ethan Frome// Edith Wharton uses Mattie and Zeena as foil pairs to illustrate the inevitability of isolation corrupting and embittering the victims of its hold. Mattie and Zeena both start out as kind and thoughtful individuals, but as they are forced into isolation on the farm, they inevitably end up becoming unbearable hags despite their previous energy. Both Zeena and Mattie initially arrive energetically as help for Ethan because the primary woman of the house is ill before Ethan falls in love with them. Originally, Zeena is kindly and able to "understand [Ethan's] case at a glance" (29) just as Mattie also came "without a sign of discontent escap[ing] her" (25) regardless of having to deal with the hard life. Wharton sets up Mattie and Zeena's pasts as almost identical to first establish that they both were equally thoughtful before they became trapped in Starkfield; however, Zeena realizes after marrying Ethan and becoming imprisoned on the farm that she cannot leave, but rather is now a captive of the farm's isolation. Once Zeena has married Ethan, they had originally planned on selling the farm and abandoning it, but after the farm proved to be unsalable, Zeena found "life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected" and soon afterwards "developed the 'sickliness'" that is depression from the isolation of the Starkfield farm (30). Despite Zeena's

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.

Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton is set in Starkfield, a small community plagued by harsh winters that seem to ebb away at life. In this town lives Ethan Frome, a crippled man who seems to be the physical embodiment of mortal suffering. An new arrival to the town, is drawn by Ethan. He is compelled to uncover the story behind the enigmatic man. What he discovers is a tragic tale of human suffering, an excellent example of tragic irony.

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

When Ethan?s mother died, he feared of being alone during the cold and depressing winter. He asked her to marry him and that was it. Ethan only used her as a crutch to get through the a hard time. He did not marry her because he loved her, he married her because he was in fear of being lonely. During the spring, the atmosphere in Starkfield isn?t as depressing. If his mother would have died in the spring he wouldn?t have needed anyone to keep him company as desperately so he might not have married Zeena.

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.

A novel is only as great as its author’s efforts. The ability to tie everything together in the end of a novel without leaving any unsolved questions, or relying on the ex machina technique, is the goal in which all inspiring authors reach for. Novelist Edith Wharton once said, “At every stage in the progress of his tale the novelist must rely on what may be called the “illuminating incident” to reveal and emphasize the inner meaning of each situation. Illuminating incidents are the magic casements of fiction, its vistas on infinity.” This idea came from Wharton’s own work, The Writing of Fiction. In a different work of hers, a novel by the name of Ethan Frome, Wharton explores the concept of the illuminating incident very thoroughly. I have

Ethan Frome is a tall character with disfigured shoulders, whose personality is timid, shy, repressed, reticent, and purpose as the protagonist is to attempt to confess his emotions to Mattie Silver, and deal with various situation throughout the story as he attempts to develop a relationship with Mattie. Two quotes that provide an insight into their personality are this excerpt reveals Ethan’s reticent, and shy personality being he had the opportunity to show his feelings to Mattie, however, he was unable to do so. In addition, the quote, elicits Ethan’s repressed personality, being he is reminded about Zeena when he is attempting to show his affection to Mattie.

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

In Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton illustrates Ethan's perpetual lack of control over his destiny through Nature which binds him to Starkfield with no hope of escape. Nature always has control over his life, and even when he attempts to take back any control over his life, it unrelentingly oppresses him. In the prologue, Wharton establishes that Winter dominates Starkfield like a military, blockading the people into isolation. Nature's winter surrounds the people and sends the "wild cavalry of March winds" to assist "the storms of February" that