In the romantic tragedy of Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton uses Mattie Silver as a literary foil to her older cousin, Zeena Frome. Often, Wharton uses descriptive imagery, contrasting brightness and warmth, to darkness and cold, to highlight the differences between the two women. Mattie is typically shown in the light, reflecting or creating a source of heat. Ethan senses the change that came with Mattie’s arrival in his home. “...The coming to his house...was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth” (32). Feeling entombed in his bedroom with Zeena, Ethan looks at his door and thinks about Mattie. “...he had seen her lips in the lamplight he felt that they were his” (50). Lastly, after Zeena leaves for for a doctor’s appointment, Ethan recognizes…
In addition, to confliction being one of Ethan Frome’s downfall manipulation was one of the major downfalls that made him weak. Throughout the whole story the reader is able to see how manipulation plays the second biggest part in the story. It seems as if each chapter opened up a new ways to manipulate. Manipulation came from characters the reader would least expect. In the book Ethan Frome the main character seems to manipulate himself into believing in a situation that don’t have to come true.…
In Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, Ethan and Zeena take different meanings to the intentions of the other as Zeena is leaving for the doctor’s office; in this, Zeena perceives her husband as lazy while he was advancing other romances, whereas Ethan sees his wife as repetitive as she is trying to compromise civilly.…
One of the most striking scenes in Edith Wharton’s novella, Ethan Frome, is the depiction of the would-be romantic evening that Ethan has with his wife’s cousin, Mattie. At this point in the novel it is clear that Ethan has feelings for Mattie and is unsure if she feels the same way.…
Ethan Frome: protagonist; extremely passive; in love with his wife’s cousin, Mattie; smart-used to study physics; often forced to give up things that are dear to him; enjoys nature; may get jealous; gives up aspirations for others; 24 years old in chapters one through nine but 52 in prologue and epilogue…
Literature often shows coincidences, accidents and tragedies that completely change the course of the story. In Shakespeare’s romance Romeo&Juliet if the word from the Friar had gotten to Romeo before the news of Juliet’s death, they would never suffer from such a tragic ending. Accidents and coincidences are very present in throughout literature works. In Ethan Frome the novel by Edith Wharton, the main character Ethan Frome has a dark past; he lived in misery for most of his life married to a sickly woman Zeena. When he finally faces a little bit of joy in another woman named Mattie Silver, he loses her joyful spirit in a terrible accident and is forced to re-build his life with a crippled arm and lots of misery. Edith Wharton novel has as one of its main themes accidents, coincidences and tragedies. Clearly noticed throughout Ethan Frome’s life story resulting in his terrible gloom.…
Various people portray their emotions towards another in numerous ways. Some display them openly and others do that subtly. In Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, Mattie has a relationship with Ethan and displays it in both ways. At the beginning of the novel, her feelings for him were difficult to decipher. Throughout the story, Mattie would show some hints of affection, but it would still be uncertain how she exactly felt about him. However, at the end, it became obvious that Mattie felt strongly about Ethan. Overall, Mattie was deeply passionate towards Ethan as shown by Ethan’s trust and comfort he provided for her. In the end, she had directly stated her love to him.…
Edith Wharton quite deliberately brings together human emotion and the environment in her novella Ethan Frome. The characters are circumscribed by the environment in which they exist and the impossibility of escape from the environmental forces of nature, heredity and place shape the characters of the text. A moment of hope arises as Mattie and Ethan walk home together from the dance and a more romantic sense of possibility emerges. The reader is drawn to the love of Ethan and Mattie quite subtly – it grows almost organically from innocent moments shared and this is perhaps why the reader does not see their ‘affair’ as adulterous. We share the hope that glimmers in the bleak cold that is Starkfield and its characters.…
Edith Wharton often wrote about people who were trapped by the moral strictures of society and were thus unhappy: she herself spent more than twenty years in a loveless marriage in which she had become involved in order to please her parents. How does Ethan Frome reflect this favorite theme of the author? How and in what ways would you describe the Protagonist as being trapped by the Society in which he lived? These are the questions I am going to answer for you and we will have some direct quotes from the book. In the book Ethan Frome Ethan is at a crossroad in his life. He is trapped by the moral strictures of society. In the book it says “ He was a poor man, the husband of a sickly woman, whom his desertion would leave alone and destitute and even if he had had the heart to desert her he could have done so only by deceiving two kindly people who had pitied him.”…
Ethan Frome is a dramatic romantic story based on the love triangle between Ethan, his wife Zeena, and their housekeeper Mattie Silver. The author introduces multiple themes and conflicts throughout its words and pages. Within these themes of love, poverty, and isolation the author introduces three distinct symbols being the outdoors, bedroom and kitchen which come to mean much more than originally thought of as the novel progresses. These three symbols highlight and contain the major conflicts that arise all throughout the novel.…
“There are two big forces at work, external and internal. We have very little control over external forces such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, disasters, illness and pain. What really matters is the internal force. How do I respond to those disasters? Over that I have complete control.” - Leo Buscaglia. Ethan Frome is a book full of internal and external ‘disasters’. These disasters compel the characters to make choices. Ethan Frome’s decision to semi-pursue a relationship with Mattie was influenced by internal forces, because he is attracted to Mattie, unhappy in his marriage, and was never truly in love with Zeena.…
Within Edith Wharton’s “Ethan Frome”, Wharton began the story with a nameless narrator visiting Starkfield, Massachusetts on some engineering business. This nameless narrator describes his first few encounters with Ethan Frome, a mysterious crippled, 52 year old man. Ethan provides transportation for the narrator and they quickly become friends. One day the weather in Starkfield proved to be too dangerous to navigate through, so the narrator took shelter in Ethan’s home where his story began to unravel. The story flashes back to a young Ethan going into town to pick up his wife’s cousin Mattie. Ethan was attracted to Mattie instantly they both developed feelings for each other the more they spent time together. Ethan’s…
I am a victim of introspection(Sylvia Plath), Ethan Frome is a victim of this and society. Ethan Frome is a man that married a girl for the wrong reasons then finds his true love but society gets in the way ,written by Edith Wharton published in 2004.Ethan isn’t the only victim there is , Zeena, and Mattie. This shows that everyone in the world is a victim to society. Society is an obstacle for them and it could destroy their lives.…
Many people long to escape their own lives when faced with hardship. These people tend to lead unfulfilled, empty, cold lives. In Edith Wharton’s novella, Ethan Frome, the main character, Ethan, is trapped in Starkfield, a cold barren place and a reflection of Ethan’s own empty life. Ethan constantly tries to escape the hardships and cold landscape which holds him captive. As Ethan obsesses over the idea of escaping his own sad life, he ruins the lives of those around him, and blinds himself from the wonderful possibilities his life already holds. Every major character in Ethan Frome attempts to evade the hardships which are thrust upon them, but each character learns that hardship is not something one can escape; it is something one must embrace,…
And in Ethan Frome, it is Ethan Frome that leads the story into tragedy and his tragic flaw is his silence. The protagonist Ethan Frome is not able to express himself, his feelings and his loneliness to anyone around him. This eventually leads to a failed marriage, a miserable life, and to the tragic ending. Without communication, he ruins his life and his relationship with everyone around him. “She seemed infinitely father away from him and more unapproachable” (Wharton 81). If Ethan is brave enough to talk to Mattie about his feelings and truly expressed himself to her, things may have been different. Instead, he keeps it all to himself and eventually is more isolated then ever. In the end, his silence brought about suffering and sorrow to everyone around him including himself, and left the place in…