The Parallel Lives of Ethan Frome and Edward Rochester

Ethan Frome is an award winning novel written by Edith Wharton a renowned aristocratic American novelist that lived from January 24, 1862 to August 11, 1937. The differences and similarities between her and the work that she has produced is astonishing especially when it comes to Ethan Frome and social constrictions. For this double comparison the reflections that need to be made are between the write Edith Wharton and her character Ethan Frome, childhoods, love lives, and married lives.

Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is vividly real to its readers, its issues continually relevant to society, but through its structure and moral lessons, it is intended to be read as a 'fairy tale'.

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.

In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, the author places Frome in situations where he is shown to be caring and/or sentimental to demonstrate the irony of his miserable life in Starkfield. In the beginning of the story, Harmon Gow describes how Ethan once gave up his education to care for his father, who “went soft in the brain, and gave away money like Bible texts before he died…” (12) and his mother, who “got queer and dragged along for years as weak as a baby” (12). At his heart, Frome is a very caring man with morals, choosing his family over his own personal needs. After his parents died, this left Frome with a limited number of skills or education, effectively trapping him in Starkfield. Soon after their deaths, Frome married Zeena because

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a novel chock full of symbolism where every line has another meaning, creating another world within the story of Ethan Frome. This inner world has a lot to do with love, and what it really means, and who understands it and who doesn’t. It is a complex inner story that has many twists and turns, and really forces the reader to think outside the box to understand the messages that Edith Wharton was trying to convey. Love and conscience are the plot and strife of Ethan Frome, and really help create a deeper meaning to the book. However, Zeena’s lack of understanding of the concept of love really shines through in everything that Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie do.

The social and economic components of society create difficulties that individuals must face as they endeavor to obtain their ambitions and defeat class conflicts. However, as an individual aspires to achieve prosperity they will face oppression and adversity, often preventing them from attaining their desires. It is this oppression that can have a significant impact on the mentality of a person. Throughout the novella, Ethan Frome the author, Edith Wharton, demonstrates the oppressive nature of socioeconomic factors and social institutions as they inflict despair upon Ethan Frome, a despondent and suppressed man with a deteriorating mental state. His low economic status, unrealistic aspirations and troubled marriage impede his desires of love

In the bitter town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, a traveler finds himself in a snowstorm and has to take shelter in the house of Ethan Frome, a old man with a bad leg. Many years prior, Ethan worked as a millworker. He later married Zenobia Frome who fell ill soon after. Zenobia’s young cousin, Mattie Silver, goes to the house to assist her. Ethan finds himself infatuated with Mattie and can’t bare the thought of living with his dull wife in that bitter town. Ethan dreamt of running away with young and beautiful Mattie. Did he stay to tend to his wife, or was he smart and got out of town?

Ethan Frome is an unfortunate individual who is trying to better himself, but in order obtain his goal, Ethan took advantage of Zeena, a nurse who is helping Ethan’s mother . There is a saying what goes around comes around and the action that he takes ends up doing the opposite of what is intended. His selfish acts are the result of his hunger to move forward, yet he still feels the guilt from his actions and tries to balance out his selfish with selfless acts, as a result Frome lives his life chained down by his own mistakes.

Ethan Frome, a novel by Edith Wharton, is a story about a man who is no longer in love with his wife, and soon finds love with her cousin. Ethan got married to an older woman named Zeena and is who he’s fallen out of love with. Mattie Silver, (Zeena’s cousin) moved in with them to help around their house because Zeena is sick. Ethan soon becomes head over heels for her. At this point, he can’t even stand the sight of Zeena and wants to run away with Mattie. As much as he wants to be with Mattie, he doesn’t wanna go against his vows of marriage with Zeena.

When an author crafts a book page by page, allusion and metaphors alike they tend to include their own life into the book. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton creates direct parallels between her love life and the characters in the book love life. She Creates a character Named Ethan, Mattie, and Zenobia who clearly represents herself, Morton, and her husband Edward during their love life crisis. In writing this book she was able to find a therapeutic end to the sexual conflicts and social contracts she was bound by in the early 1900s.

t's winter. A nameless engineer is in Starkfield, Massachusetts on business and he first sees Ethan Frome at the post office. Ethan is a man in his early fifties who is obviously strong, and obviously crippled. The man becomes fascinated with Ethan and wants to know his story. When Ethan begins giving him occasional rides to the train station, the two men strike up a friendship. One night when the weather is particularly bad, Ethan invites the man to stay at his house. In the hall the man hears a woman talking angrily, on and on. When Ethan speaks, the voice stops. The man tells us that he learned something that night which allowed him to imagine Ethan's story. Now we go back in time 24 years and learn about Ethan's life.

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.

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.

Rochester as a character and how he interacts with the people around him. Many examples from this passage give the reader insight into Mr. Rochester's thought process and how he is a truly judgemental harsh person, for example, when he thinks to himself, “At least it shadowed her eyes which are too large and can be disconcerting, She never blinks at all it seems to me. Long, sad, dark alien eyes.” it shows the reader how Mr. Rochester starts to harshly judge his own wife when he begins to be in close quarters with her, and before he even gets to know her well. He is already creating a preconceived image of her in his head which, leads him to start to be more cruel and manipulative to her. He starts to question when he started to notice all these things about his wife and says, “Or did i notice it before and refuse to admit what I saw? Not that I had much time to notice anything I was married a month after I arrived to Jamaica and for nearly three weeks of that time I was in bed with a fever.” This quote shows that he is grasping at anything to make himself believe that this is not the wife he wants. He is making up excuses that he was sick and didn't get to know her, and finding reasons to sooth himself that it is not him it's her, and anything to justify his cruel views towards her. This one section of the passage alone shows the reader many important aspects of both Mr. Rochester's Character and the relationship he has with

We named our child Ethan Leonard Rochester, whose bearing became the symbol that defined me and Edward’s overcoming our struggles. Quite literally, our son’s title means “Strong lion strength fortress” and this seemed oh so quite appropriate to me –I wanted my son to be firm against the evils of life to come. Reader, two years have passed since I married Edward, and Ethan is a blooming one year old, with honeysuckle blonde hair, --a recessive trait Edward tells me –a bright cheerful smile and large, brilliant and black eyes that I cannot help repeating, for they are dark as Satan’s eyes, but full of a rich chocolaty feeling.