Ethan Frome Summer Assigment

Marina Stenders
Block:7
Brad Blackburn

Summer reading assignment letter c
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.
In Ethan Frome’s story, he is trapped by bitter futilities in a small city named Starkfield. The story begins through foreign eyes of a narrator who is new to the city and to Frome’s tragedy. When all the stable horses fall ill from an epidemic, the narrator seeks Ethan Frome’s help to take him down to the train station every workday. As one day a snowstorm struck them and the narrator found himself in Frome’s house where he learned the truth about Frome’s misfortunes. The novel already begins with events that change the course of the story. Such as the epidemic that stroked the horses if it hadn’t happened the narrator would never had learned the truth about Ethan. Or the snowstorm that cause the narrator to go into Frome’s house. These events are not there by chance. They occurred so the narrator, fresh eyes, could get a glimpse at Frome’s misery and begin the novel.
Throughout the novel many other events occur so that Ethan Frome’s life is changed forever. One of them is when Zenobia Ethan’s wife found out about a new doctor in Bettsbridge and left Ethan and her cousin alone Mattie at the farm. A coincidence that led to the flowering of Ethan’s and Mattie’s love for each other those days they passed alone made them desire each other even more. But Ethan did not know how Mattie felt and this warmth she caused him and the joy she brought to the house made Ethan’s passion mature. “He remembered that the night before, when he had put his arm about Mattie, she had not resisted. But that had been out-of-doors, under the open irresponsible night.”(Wharton, 92) The main misfortune that happened in the novel changed completely the course of the story. Ethan was taking Mattie to the train station, and he couldn’t let her go. They were planning to runaway together when Ethan got the crazy idea to go down a slope with a sled, which belonged to Mr. Hale. The first trial went all right, they missed the elm and came up. On the second ride, Ethan went in front and set the sled in a deadly path towards the elm, for a second he diverges from the elm, but adjusts it course right back when he sees a vision of his madly wife. They hit the elm and on the ground Ethan sees Mattie weeping like a hurt animal. Mattie turned paralytic and lost all her spirit. “And I say, if she’d ha’ died, Ethan might ha’lived; I don’t see’s there’s much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; ’cept that down there they’re all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues.” (Wharton, 181) If they had died Mattie and Ethan could finally love each other, and Ethan would have lived forever free from sickness and the curse that followed his family causing all the members to died also the poverty that left him in debts. Instead Ethan lost the love of his life, Mattie is half alive and very unhappy and Zeena seemed to have gotten better occupying herself to take care of the ill. The main tragedy was losing the one woman who brought joy to his world, a failed suicide attempt cause him eternal pain.
Ethan Frome’s story is full of accidents, coincidences and tragedies that resulted in his terrible misery. The snowstorm in the very of the story gets the narrator to the “eye of the hurricane” where he introduces us to Frome’s story. The coincidence where Zeena leaves the two alone and goes to the doctor permitting Ethan’s passion to flower for Mattie, by spending a day alone with her. As the main event the failed suicide attempt that prevented Ethan from his happy ending.