Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith grew up in New York City in a wealthy,
fashionable family. At the age of twenty-three, she
met and married a friend of her brother. The two
were quite dissimilar, and it was clear very early
that the marriage was a mistake. Because of the
society in which they lived, however, a divorce was
out of the question, and it was not until thirty years
later that she obtained a divorce.
Significantly perhaps, the author’s husband, who
was fourteen years older that she was, began to
have health problems. In her autobiography, she
comments that he complained a great deal and
verbally abused her when he was ill. In Ethan
Frome, the parallels between Wharton’s life and
Ethan’s are unmistakable.
Literary Elements
Imagery – the use of words to evoke
impressions and meanings that are more than just
the basic, accepted definitions of the words
themselves.
Motif -- a situation, incident, idea, or image that
is repeated significantly in a literary work.
Symbol – an object, person, or place that has a
meaning in itself and that also stands for
something larger than itself, usually an idea or
concept; some concrete thing which represents
an abstraction.
Frame Story – a story that surrounds another
story or that serves to link several stories together.
The frame is the outer story, which usually
precedes and follows the inner, more important
story.
Tragic Hero – the main character in a tragedy;
in order to fit the definition, the hero must have a
tragic flaw, which causes his or her downfall.
Novella – a short novel.
Ethan Frome
Ethan Frome is a bitter and ironic tragedy of three
people trapped in a setting they cannot escape.
Setting – The main action of the novel takes place in
the late nineteenth century in Starkfield, Massachusetts.
It is recounted by a narrator some twenty-four years
later.
Ethan Frome, an inarticulate small farmer and sawmill
operator, struggles to express his love for a young
woman who comes to live with him and his meanspirited, hypochondriacal wife.
Main Characters
Narrator -- a young visiting engineer who pieces
together the story of Ethan Frome from various sources in
Starkfield.
Ethan Frome – an impoverished New England
farmer and sawmill operator, twenty-eight years old at the
time of the main story. He is an inarticulate man of
passionate feelings, romantic longings, and unrealized
dreams.
Harmon Gow -- former Starkfield stagecoach driver
and “village oracle.”
Mrs. Ned Hale (Ruth Varnum) -- the
narrator’s talkative widowed landlady.
Denis Eady -- cheerful young man who admires
and flirts with Mattie in the main story and later
becomes a well-to-do grocer.
Mattie Silver -- Zeena Frome’s cousin who comes
to live with the Fromes. Lively yet delicate, she
becomes the object of Ethan’s romantic yearnings.
Zeena (Zenobia) Frome -- Ethan’s wife, seven
years his senior. A bitter, domineering woman, jealous
and fearful, obsessed with her own illnesses.
Andrew Hale -- Starkfield
house builder who, like
Ethan, has fallen on hard times.
Jotham Powell -- Frome’s hired hand, a man of
few words.
Thoughts to Ponder
How much of who we are depends on our
circumstances?
How greatly does our own attitude towards these
circumstances affect our choices?
Is it possible to follow one’s own inclinations as well as
fulfill family or group responsibilities?
Can you relate to the conflict between doing what you
think will make you happy and what you believe to be
morally right?
Themes
Conflicts existing between personal inclinations and group
obligations.
How much control do we have over the choices we make?
Is suicide ever a solution?
People need to communicate openly with one another.
How do we know what is true or real?
Interesting Facts
Although it is often called an American classic,
Ethan Frome was originally written in French. Wharton
had hired a tutor to help her improve her command of
the language. Too polite to correct her speech, the tutor
suggested that she produce written exercises.
The result was the first version of the story, written
in a small black notebook. Not only was the original
French version much shorter than the final English one
but the main character was named Hart, not Ethan, and
the ending was completely different. With the French
version, however, Wharton had established the
framework for the novella.
Frame Story
A frame story is a story within a story. The
“frame” is an outer story that precedes and
follows a more important inner story.
In Ethan Frome, the outer story is the narration
by a visitor to Starkfield. He tells how he put
together the facts about Ethan Frome’s accident.
The inner story that relates the events leading up
to the climactic accident is told in flashback.
Narrator and Point of View
In Ethan Frome, the narrator of the frame tale is an
engineer who is visiting Starkfield on a job assignment.
In the beginning, he tells the story from the firstperson point of view, referring to himself as I. The
reader knows only what he knows.
However, when Chapter 1 begins, the point of view
shifts to the third-person limited, and the thoughts
and feelings of one character exclusively—Ethan,
referred to as he, because the reader is seeing the
events through his eyes.
TRAPPED
In modern times, human beings are accustomed to having free will. If they do not
like their job, they can quit. If they despise their spouse, they can get divorced. If
they hate where they live, they can move. With the cold, unforgiving winters of
Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, her characters do not share this luxury.
•Holds are placed on Ethan’s life, so much so that they influence or dictate
everything he does.
•Starkfield is a cold binding place, unable to release all those who feel they must
leave. The past always shapes the future, and Ethan has had a very unfortunate
past.
•His wife’s implacable command places Ethan at her mercy. The only chance of
freedom, Mattie Silver, turns out to be a farce.
•Ethan’s “passion of rebellion” is present but is unable to manifest itself due to the
confining conditions of his predicament.
•The suicide attempt represents a last ditch effort to escape and fails. Sickness
plays a vital role in Wharton’s work. Ethan’s illness, in a sense, is not cause by
any shortcomings of character, but rather, is the sorrowful consequences of a life
devoid of free will, where society and circumstances bring about his grim fate.
Foreshadowing: The repeated references to sledding being
dangerous foreshadow the climactic scene in which Ethan and
Mattie crash into the elm. The narrator introduces the main character
as a ruined man who has had an accident, foreshadowing that his
relationship with Mattie will end tragically.
Motifs: 1. Illness and Disability: Illness in the characters’ physical
states indicates that, inwardly, they are all in states of destitution and
decline. All of the main characters suffer from illness and disability at
various times during the novel. 2. Snow and Cold: The story is built
around cold, ice and white snow The characters constantly complain
about the cold, and the climactic scene uses sledding for the
attempted suicide. These motifs work to emphasize the novel’s larger
theme of winter as a physically and psychologically stifling force.
Symbols: 1.Mattie’s red scarf and red ribbon: Red is the color of blood,
ruddiness, good health, and vitality, all of which Mattie has in abundance, and all
of which Zeena lacks. In the oppressive white landscape of Starkfield, red stands
out, just as Mattie stands out in the oppressive landscape of Ethan’s life. Red is
also the color of transgression and sin, relating to Ethan and Mattie’s secret love
affair. 2. Zeena’s Cat and Pickle Dish: The cat symbolizes Zeena’s tacit invisible
presence in the house, as a negative force that comes between Mattie and
Ethan, reminding them of the wife’s existence. Meanwhile, the breaking of the
dish, Zeena’s favorite wedding present, symbolizes the downfall of the Frome
marriage. 3. The Final Sled Run: Ethan’s decision to go through with his final
sled run symbolizes his inability to escape his dilemma through action of any
kind.
Winter: isolation, cold, loneliness, immobility, "stark"(haha)
Dead vine: dead spirits in house and graveyard
Cushion: rejection of Zeena
Farmhouse: lost "L", forlorn, lonely
Red pickle dish: got for marriage, cat breaks it, red for passion, Zeena treasures it
Elm tree: fate
Cat: Zeena
Butterfly: freedom
Mattie's hair: freedom, happiness, openness, beauty, love
Zenna's hair: crimped, confined by pins
Themes:
Lack of communication in marriage leads to misery.
Lack of assertiveness leads to lack of control.
Failure to assert oneself is a negation to life.
Poverty and isolation crush the human soul.
Man has limited control over fate.
One can never fulfill his desires for complete passion when an inordinate
sense of responsibility interferes.
In order to fulfill your own happiness you have to hurt or gravely disappoint
a family member or a friend. What would you do, and why? Is hurting
another person ever justified? What price are you willing to pay for personal
happiness?