Edith Cummings

“Roman Fever,” by Edith Wharton, follows two old friends, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley, accidentally meeting in Rome after many years apart. The two have a long history together and spent their whole lies in contest and conflict. Mrs. Slade is a loud and jealous woman, who always held a deep-rooted resentment for Mrs. Ansley. Mrs. Ansley is the more reserved of the two and self-controlled. The setting of their conversation holds deep significance. Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade both coincidentally are

Love stories are believed to always end with a stereotypical happy ending, as the lovers of the story will go to extreme lengths to stay together, which is common among literary works. Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, tells the story of two lovers that attempted to end their lives, but instead, their attempt resulted in gaining severe injuries. This novella starts with the narrator meeting Ethan From, who suffered from a medical condition, which resulted in his exclusion from society. As the novella’s

literary field. Remarkably, although Romanticism concluded around the late nineteenth century, more recent novels appear to be influenced by Romantic values. One example of a Romantic themed novel is Ethan Frome, written by early twentieth century author Edith Wharton. The protagonist of the story, Ethan, becomes trapped in the tensions created by the opposing forces of desires and morality. Although these two novels were written almost one hundred years apart, Ethan Frome and Frankenstein contain similar

after a whimsical thought, and what his hasty lifelong commitment has done to him. Edith Wharton takes the side of people making their marriages those of true love and planning them out to allow the solemn vows can be carried out lovingly to last forever. Edith Wharton is saying that when marriages end up not being sincere, those involved will live in silent resentment of each other so long as they live together. In Edith Wharton’s novella, Ethan Frome, the root of all of Ethan’s problems boil down to

“A Journey” is a short story written by Edith Wharton in 1899 as part of her collection of short stories called “The Greater Inclination.” This short story is about a wife and husband traveling from Colorado to New York. They travel in turmoil, due to the husband being very sick. He consequently dies, leaving the wife to reach New York on her own, while at the same time, covering up the death of her husband so she does not get booted off the train. While on the train, the wife has several encounters

“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

Love and tragedy has been a tale as old as time and is definitely not going anywhere. No matter what year it is, people are always searching for happiness and sometimes go about their motives the wrong way and ends up in a disastrous fate. In Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" it is apparent that the goal was money and fame with loose morals. Wharton's "Ethan Frome" was before World War 1 and when America was still kept to the classic standards of house, family, and farm. Both main characters lived

Edith Wharton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer is markedly unique, insisting on order, form, standards and disciplines which curb the romantic individualism. In addition to her fifteen novels, she has to her credit, seven novellas, and eighty-five short stories, poems, books on design, travel, literary and cultural criticism, and a memoir. Her writing is classical and it reveals the instability of human nature, the impossibility of perfection of human beings and

The House of Mirth is a novel that condemns the elitist world of women and promotes the idea that money can't buy happiness. Wharton wanted to present American aristocracy when that aristocracy was doing so well. The novel highlights each aspect of a person's social behavior because each detail can have implications. Wharton wanted to mock the society, but also to show the tragedies in it. Wharton considered New York society to be arrogant, trivial, and ridiculous. The burden of tragedy to her often

Ethan Frome is a novel published in 1911 written by Edith Wharton. In this novel a man named Ethan Frome, married to Zenobia Frome, falls in love with another woman named Mattie Silver. Mattie is the bright light in Ethan’s dark life. Wharton utilizes symbolism to create emotion and meaning throughout the story. She uses objects, numbers, and the setting to shed light on the various elements of the story that she deems important. The objects around the Frome’s home are very symbolic. The missing