Irony in Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s brief, yet tragic novella, Ethan Frome, presents a crippled and lonely man – Ethan Frome – who is trapped in a loveless marriage with a hypochondriacal wife, Zenobia “Zeena” Frome. Set during a harsh, “sluggish” winter in Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan and his sickly wife live in a dilapidated and “unusually forlorn and stunted” New-England farmhouse (Wharton 18). Due to Zeena’s numerous complications, they employ her cousin to help around the house, a vivacious young girl – Mattie Silver. With Mattie’s presence, Starkfield seems to emerge from its desolateness, and Ethan’s vacant world seems to be awoken from his discontented life and empty marriage. And so begins Ethan’s love adventure – a desperate desire to have Mattie as his own; however, his morals along with his duty to Zeena and his natural streak of honesty hinder him in his ability to realize his own dreams. Throughout this suspenseful and disastrous novella, Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton effectively employs situational irony enabling readers to experience a sudden shock and an unexpected twist of events that ultimately lead to a final tragedy in a living nightmare.

Like in most surprise endings, irony plays a vital role – serving as the source of these twisted plots. Day after day, Ethan’s life never ends the way he desires. From the start, Ethan should not even be on the farm working as a farmer. In fact, Ethan was once a successful engineer studying at a technological college in Worcester, where he “dabbled in the laboratory with a friendly professor of physics” (Wharton 24). At Worcestor, he had “secretly gloried in being clapped on the back and hailed as ‘Old Ethe’ or ‘Old Stiff’” whereas now, whistling and singing became an irregularity (Wharton 6...

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... Frome once lived an unhealthy and decrepit life. In a loveless marriage, Ethan hoped to overcome this barren life; he dreamed of escaping with Mattie. Instead, duty triumphs over desire and Ethan is left to find a way out – death. Together, in a catastrophic sledding run, the two young lovers must forever lead a crippled life within Zeena’s gray and lifeless prison. Nonetheless, Edith Wharton presents a skewed romantic story filled with irony, turning it upside down.

Works Cited

Ammons, Elizabeth. “Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and the Question of Meaning.” Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1979, pp. 127-140.

Bernard, Kenneth. “Imagery and Symbolism in Ethan Frome.” College English, Vol. 23, No. 1, October 1961, pp. 178-284.

Notes Packet, 2011.

Wharton, Edith, Anita Shreve, and Susanna Moore. Ethan Frome. New York: Signet Classic, 2009. Print.