Ethan Frome takes place during the winter in rural New England. Life is dull and lonely in the town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. This isolated and oppressive place has the power to shape the lives of its inhabitants. The six-month long winters persuade people into keeping to themselves and staying indoors. Friends and neighbors hardly interact with each other because of the weather. People tend to allow the environment in Starkfield to affect their mood. The bleak, wintry, depressing setting in the book plays a significant role in the personalities and destinies of Zeena and Ethan.
Ethan Frome's life and his tragic destiny is shaped by the setting in the book. Ethan is depressed and run-down from life in Starkfield. The narrator believe that
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Ethan’s loneliness and his depression was the result of winters in Starkfield. One of the characters in the beginning of the story even said “Ethan’s been in Starkfield too many winters.” Winter is also blamed for Ethan’s decision to marry Zeena, who had been caring for his ill mother. Ethan questioned if he would have even asked Zeena to stay with him at the farm if his mother had died in the spring instead of the winter. Then Mattie and Ethan decide to commit suicide because they cannot stand life without each other. It is impossible for them to stay together with Zeena, Ethan’s wife, wanting Mattie to go someplace else. The development and destiny of Ethan Frome’s character primarily depended on the effects of the environment. Zeena is another character in which the weather and scenery has impacted their health and personality.
Before Ethan and Zeena’s marriage, Zeena was a completely different person. When Zeena came to Starkfield, she filled the house with her voice. She would laugh at Ethan and encouraged him to “go right along out” and leave her to finish her business. Ethan was allowed to go out into the town and converse with other men. Zeena was soon invited to stay at the from and eventually she got married to Ethan. When they married, both Zeena and Ethan agreed that they would sell the farm and sawmill and move to a large town. She made it quite apparent that life on an isolated farm was not the life Zeena was expecting to pursue. As a result, she chose to look down at Starkfield. One of Zeena’s biggest problems with Starkfield was that she wanted to be known in her community. She developed a “sickliness” that allowed her to be notable. When Ethan first met Zeena he thought that she was the epitome of perfect health, but she too, like Ethan’s mother, grew silent. Over the years, Zeena becomes adept to using her illness to control everything and everyone around her. She now only speaks in a complaining whine. Zeena’s change in character can be directly associated by her staying in
Starkfield. The setting in the book Ethan Frome greatly impacts the characters mentally and physically. Both Ethan and Zeena were affected in some way by their surroundings. The harsh winters is the cause of many of their problems. With this kind of weather, Starkfield becomes a barren , lonesome, and wretched place to live. This led to the miserable marriage between Ethan and Zeena. Zeenas change in character can be due to living in Starkfield. Just like the town, Zeena became depressed, lonely, and isolated from others. Since all of these problems can be linked to the surroundings, it leads one to question what would have happened if the story took place in a different environment. The harsh setting of Starkfield, Massachusetts ultimately leads to the disastrous ending of the book Ethan Frome.
This quote is explaining the feeling of Ethan when Mattie Silver comes into his home. Ethan was gloomy and pretty much sick of his wife and when Mattie comes to his house she brings hope and a whole new outlook on life to Ethan. Ethan feels that she is warm person and a polar opposite compared to Zeena. Her coming transforms Ethan?s cold and depressing existence.
“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen” (“Brainy Quotes” 1). In Edith Wharton’s framed novel, Ethan Frome, the main protagonist encounters “lost opportunity, failed romance, and disappointed dreams” with a regretful ending (Lilburn 1). Ethan Frome lives in the isolated fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts with his irritable spouse, Zenobia Frome. Ever since marriage, Zenobia, also referred to as Zeena, revolves around her illness. Furthermore, she is prone to silence, rage, and querulously shouting.
Ethan Frome, a novella written by Edith Wharton, communicates a story of Ethan and his life living with his ill wife, Zeena, when a new lover comes into his home. Ethan and Zeena live in a place called Starkfield, a cold and lonely location situated in the New England area. Mattie comes into Ethan’s life to help her cousin, Zeena, around the house as her sickness has obstructed her ability to do housework. This causes problems for Ethan because he starts to fall in love with Mattie as she stays with the Fromes. The isolation of Starkfield prevents Ethan from living his life the way he wanted to. That causes Ethan to abandon his dreams of college and moving away from Starkfield. Ethan becomes hindered by the isolation of Starkfield because of
Ethan marries Zeena so he won't be alone after his mother dies. She seemed like a very cheerful, vivacious person while his mother was sick. After their marriage all this changed. She became a very nagging, sick wife. Because of Zeena's "complications" they had to hire someone to help around the house. Mattie, Zeena's cousin, needed a place to live and seemed fit for the job. She moved in and Ethan took and immediate liking to her. He found someone that cared for him, was always happy, and could share his youth. All of which, Zeena was incapable of doing. Ethan longed to be with Mattie, but he was loyal to Zeena. Being married to Zeena was Ethan's first failure.
Meanwhile, how could she keep the farm going? It was only by incessant labour and personal supervision that Ethan drew a meager living from his land, and his wife, even if she were in better health than she imagined, could never carry such a burden alone" (Wharton 73). This evidence demonstrates Ethan's quality of his kind and loving nature towards others. The reason is when he wants to leave Zeena, he thinks about her future and how she will suffer to support herself. He cannot bear Zeena's pain, so he puts her future and their marriage before his dreams. His dream is to "leave with Mattie the next day" (Wharton 72). Another example when Ethan is a very concernful person is when "she would have suffered a complete loss of identity" (Wharton 38). This quote demonstrates Ethan's concern for Zeena because Ethan's dream is to move to the metropolitan area, but Zeena's sickliness will make her look inferior to the city. Ethan's concern for Zeena's image prevents him to "sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town. Ethan's love of nature did not take
In Ethan Frome, the theme of winter is predominantly used, with its confining nature, to portray each character’s hardships. For example, the theme of winter is directly linked with Ethan Frome and the harsh conditions he has to endure to survive. To Ethan, the wintry snow in Starkfield seems elegant and appealing, but as he sees later on, the snow is unveiled as a major obstacle, preventing Ethan from achieving his dreams. Winter manifests itself as the ice, cold, and snow symbolically representing the isolation that Ethan experiences. As the narrator states “when winter shut down on Starkfield, and the village lay under a sheet of snow… must have been in Ethan Frome's young manhood,” The solitude that winter brings causes Starkfield to
Ethan Frome lives in the town of Starkfield. Within the first few pages of the book, the reader can realize Ethan is not a valued member of the community. Early in the book, the family that is housing the Reverend
Ethan Frome is the main character of Edith Wharton’s tragic novel. Ethan lives the bitterness of his youth’s lost opportunities, and dissatisfaction with his joyless life and empty marriage. Throughout the story Ethan is trapped by social limits and obligations to his wife. He lives an unhappy life with many responsibilities and little freedom. Ethan Frome studied science in college for a year and probably would have succeeded as an engineer or physicist had he not been summoned home to run the family farm and mill. Ethan quickly ended his schooling and went to run the family farm and mill because he feels it is his responsibility. He marries Zeena after the death of his mother, in an unsuccessful attempt to escape silence, isolation, and loneliness. Ethan also feels the responsibility to marry Zeena as a way to compensate her for giving up part of her life to nurse his mother. After marring Zeena he forgets his hope of every continuing his education and he is now forced to remain married to someone he does not truly love.
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.
The narrator, upon meeting Ethan Frome for the first time, thought "he seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface." He "had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, but had in it…the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters" (Wharton, 9).
His isolation manifests itself throughout the book with either characters speaking about him, or through depictions of the author, Edith Wharton. One example where this unveils itself is when Harmon, who develops a lot of the town gossip, speculates on the cause of Ethan Frome 's ruined and prematurely aged appearance. He speaks about Ethan saying, “Guess he 's been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away” (Wharton 6). His remark expresses the theme of the landscape 's shaping of character and fate. This describes the theme of isolation as it says that Ethan has been in Starkfield too long, and is essentially isolated. Here, it becomes apparent that through his stay in Starkfield, an ironically stark place, he transforms into an isolated human being. Another way in which Ethan’s isolation becomes apparent occurs in the prologue, where Wharton describes Ethan in comparison to the setting of the book. Wharton exclaims he represents “a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface… in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access” (Wharton 14). The book takes place in the fictional place of Starkfield,
Based on how I was raised, I was angry that Ethan liked another while his own wife struggled with her own health. I thought he could do more to help his wife. The quote shocked me, I didn’t think of Zeena like that. I thought of her as a sickly, caring wife. I was wrong and this section gave me a new version of what was happening.
Due to Mattie's injuries, and Ethan's inabilities to leave Starkfield, he remains at his home in an uncomfortable relationship with Mattie and Zeena. Even though he still had Mattie at his side, he was not living the life he wanted in the "west" with Mattie. There was no real "difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard." Ethan gave up his life to stay at the farm with the woman he loves, and the woman he does not, resulting in him being subconsciously tied to Starkfield. Ethan's "father's accident" and his mother's falling "ill" results in Ethan's sacrifice of his career "to be an engineer" and makes him stay in Starkfield to marry Zeena. Even with opportunities that come along to change Ethan's continuous cycle of his life, he still ends up sacrificing everything to fulfill his duty and obligation to his wife
Edith Wharton, belonging to the bourgeoisie, perpetrates the stereotype of the pitiful, unfortunate lower class by not allowing Ethan or his family a way out of their predicament. While she does not allow Ethan and his family financial support, she also does not allow them any happiness within the relationships they have with each other. Ethan is in a unhealthy relationship with Zeena, Mattie and Zeena do not get along, and Ethan and Mattie have fallen in love with each other. None of these relationships works out in the end, leaving all of them to live in eternal misfortune. A symbol that supports the entrapment of the poor is winter. The winter cold does not allow agriculture to thrive in Starkfield, limiting their source of income. The imagery of snow is also associated with being miserable and being stuck or trapped within its icy grip. Wharton uses these images to further limit her lower class characters, dooming them to live seemingly terrible lives. This story perpetrates the idea of the proletariat constantly being under the economic and social control of the bourgeois. Just like how the poor inhabitants of Starkfield were under the constant looming influence of bourgeois culture, Wharton was literally in control of the way the poor are depicted in her novel. This shows that the bourgeois acknowledge the proletarian life, but do nothing to change it because it would not benefit
The way that he describes her is in a very unfeminine and dark way, just like the weather and the snow in Starkfield. Her personality is very shallow and cold. Just like the weather, she is viewed in a negative aspect. Ethan yearns to get out of the grayish, bleak snow, but Zeena is the only one that holds him back. Ethan often thinks what “would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter” (Wharton 38). If his mother had died during spring, then he wouldn’t have married Zeena because the winter’s there are so desolate and hopeless. After Ethan’s mother died, Zeena immediately became ‘sick,’ making Ethan stay and to take care of the farm. The winter shaped both Zeena and Ethan’s actions, especially during the cold climate. Whenever Ethan is around her, “looking at her shut face, he feel[s] the chill of such forebodings” (Wharton 39). Zeena is at her worst when it’s cold and brittle; her mood and actions change along with the snow. Just like the other characters in the novel, the snow and cold is the reasoning behind her personality. Psychologically, many characters go through a depression-like state when the weather is as bleak and grey like the weather in Starkfield. A lot of people in the Starkfield community are “rich in pathological instances” (Wharton 38). They are obsessed with every type of illness, but unfortunately Zeena has always