Ethan Frome Sparknotes

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.

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”.

Poverty is defined as deficiency, or inadequacy. It can be used to represent more than just the lack of money. Poverty is constant throughout the novel, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton. Poverty is evident in almost every area of Ethan's life.

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.

In the book Ethan Frome, the characters are caught between what is right and wrong. Mattie has a torn desire to be with her sister’s husband and Ethan does not stop her because he feels the same way. The theme for the book is duty and desire. Ethan has a desire towards Mattie because she does not complain and is thought of as

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

Zeena was nasty and treated everyone so badly. Her nasty words and her tone really got to Mattie but not so much Ethan. “Zeena made no reply: She did not seem to hear what he had said” (Wharton 51). She is a selfish person and she does not listen to what anyone else says but herself. Also, Zeena automatically switched up on maids too quickly. “But when Zenobia's doctor recommended her looking about for someone to help her with the house-work the clan instantly saw the chance of exacting a compensation from Mattie” (Wharton 48). It was not necessary to switch up on maids that quickly but Zeena did not care at all and she did it anyways leaving Mattie upset. Lastly, Zeena seemed to be a hypochondriac. “Zeena had always been what Starkfield called “sickly” and Frome had to admit that, if she were as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm than the one which lay so lightly in his during the night walks to the farm” (Wharton 32).Zeena always had the intention of being “sick” but she was not sick enough to hire a maid or being able to control Ethan. She could of took care of herself without a problem. If Zeena was not so moody, selfish, and disrespectful, this could of changed the

Secondly, Ethan Frome has had many failures within his life such as his marriage to Zeena. One may ask how is Zeena and Ethan’s marriage a failure? Ethan only marries Zeena after she could not nurse his mother back to health and she ends up passing away. When Ethan mother dies, Ethan is in a sullen mood or funk and in turn

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

Ethan being very needy marries Zeena, and once she turns cold, Ethan suffers. Ethan had been very lonely, living with his sickly mother.

    Though too intelligent for rural life, Ethan finds himself stuck in an average man's shoes. Leaving any opportunity he had to become someone in life, Ethan moves back to Starkfield to take care of his ailing mother and attend to their farm(Wharton 29).  Rather than living a lonesome

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.

As previously mentioned the themes of these stories have unsurprisingly similar themes, three to be exact, that relate to both the time period, due to Realism, and the way that they retaliate to different events, due to Naturalism. First of the three themes is, a differing opinion in a marriage, shared by all of the protagonists in these stories. Ethan, who is the love-sick farmer, desperately desires to deliver the dire news to his wife, that he does not love her and wishes to marry her younger cousin. This follows realism, in the certain reality that he does not want to spend the rest of his life with Zeena Frome, a reality that Zeena does not share, shown in the actions she takes to make Ethan stay with her and not with her cousin. The protagonist

Although Frome can be held responsible for his moral inactivity, he can be considered a morally inadequate man in his present state. His inadequacy, however, was not a constant in life or a sudden occurrence-- it snowballed from his youth and finally solidified through the ‘smash-up’. His earlier experiences in a university and the joy it brought him was quickly interrupted after a year by his sickly parents. The unfortunate circumstance forces Ethan Frome to move back to the depressing Starkfield he had just escaped. His parents’ illnesses bring along Zenobia, who would be another future, unseen oppression along with Starkfield. For years, Ethan lives in depressing conditions that decline as time goes on. The chance to finally leave them behind, however, comes in Mattie, Zenobia’s cousin and maid. Ethan’s inability to act on this chance of escape finally seals his fate when Mattie is paralyzed and he is critically injured. Although jinxed with unfortunate circumstances, Ethan Frome’s life could have been bettered if one small step or action was taken by him for himself with the intention to create personal joy or pleasure.