The Theme Of Loneliness In Wharton's Ethan Frome

As seen through the novel Ethan Frome, a large part of the introduction is based on how dreary the town of Starkfield, particularly during winter. In some novels, winter can be portrayed as a type of purity or calmness, but the bleak, frigid cold of winter in Starkfield has a more unfavorable interpretation.

Starkfield is just as it’s name portrays; bare and rural. While this is a major characteristic of the setting, this depiction of the town is uniform throughout the novel. The characters (with the exception of Mattie) coincide with this dreary, dismal setting (Bernard 179). This cold New England setting reinforces the detriment the elements can have on an entire community (McDowell 90).

The opposites of the summer and winter seasons mirror

the feelings Ethan has for his wife (Zenobia) and the girl he has fallen in love with (Mattie). Zenobia has a bitter aura just as winter does. Mattie, on the other hand, comes across as radiant and charming just as is summer.
Ethan Frome feels obligated to marry his mother’s caretaker (Zenobia) after the death of his mother in order to evade the loneliness that comes along with the Starkfield winters.

Ethan’s depressing outlook soon transfers to Zenobia making her blend with the unwanted coldness that was a Starkfield winter. She quickly became something Frome wanted to escape but couldn’t just as the frigidness of his setting.

Before anything is spoken of Ethan, Starkfield is described as “gray and lonely” which may indeed be an insightful foreshadowing of the characters living within (Wharton ). The narrator seems, at the beginning, to believe the harsh winters has left Ethan with a certain wear on his face, but this had only been caused by the harshness that is Ethan’s love life (McDowell

68).
The imagery used in Ethan Frome is based upon the stifling cold of brutal winters. The oppressive bleakness of the snow begins to put a damper on the mood as Ethan is unable to get away from the desolate life he has fallen into.
Throughout the novel, Ethan seems to be at a loss for words. He can not portray his emotions as he wishes, and freezes up. He means well, but his true compassion is hidden under a blanket of snow along with the rest of the town (Bernard 179).
Ethan realized his love for Mattie in the summer while at Shadow Pond.

This event which brings Frome a feeling warmth happens in the summer. When this site in revisted in the winter, Ethan realizes Mattie will have to be wed to someone besides himself, which hurts him emotionally (Lawson 69). This place that had brought Ethan so much happiness was now a place in which Ethan felt nothing but sorrow. The significance of Shadow Pond had changed just as the seasons had.

The isolation of the farm and the cold winter illustrates how Ethan feels throughout his life: alone and isolated from his true feelings (Knights 76). His feelings of love for Mattie are unable to be shown, so he awaits his fate, frozen in the trap of love (Bernard 179). The bleak landscape helps set the tone for the readers. This desolate environment shows how much Ethan is suffering as he goes through his daily life (McDowell 30). There is a type of emotional starvation in the once thriving, but now pathetic life of Ethan Frome (Wolff 232).

As difficult as it is for Ethan to be tied down emotionally by his wife, he has also lost his physical attributes as well. No longer does Ethan have the strength he once did making surviving at his isolated farm even more difficult (Bernard

180).
Upon meeting the Ethan Frome in the frame of the story, the narrator describes Ethan as “bleak and unapproachable” (Wharton ). The narrator later says of Ethan, “He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe. . .” (Wharton ). Frome does indeed parallel the setting of the dreary Starkfield with his unwanted marriage with Zenobia and his persistent, immoral wanting for Mattie. He is constantly in need to get away from his wife that brings him down just as, in winter, there is a constant need to get away from the cold. (Bernard 179).
Throughout the flashback in the novel, Ethan realized how unattractive he perceives his wife to be, just as winter is represented as a cold, frightful thing. He also realizes how beautiful and alluring Mattie is. He starts to grasp how she (as the season of summer) brings a type of warmth upon him that his wife cannot (Murad 95).
The harsh winter turns into even more of a reality when Mattie and Ethan decide they’ve had enough of not being able to be with each other. Trapped by his marriage, Ethan sees suicide as his only way out. Why not incorporate the snow into this attempt as it is the reason for much of the despair in Ethan’s life. The snow acts as an accomplice to their planned suicide by means of sled.
After the failed suicide attempt, Ethan, now more miserable than ever, is still stuck with his undesired wife in the dreadful town of Starkfield. He realizes he will never escape the life he has. His injuries from the accident area constant reminder of the one who brought him warmth. A continual remembrance of the one whom made the miserable Starkfield winter feel almost as if it were summer: Mattie.