Wharton's Writing Style In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s writing style is characterized as simple and control. Her choice of vocabulary and sentence structure, which is complete as the lives led by her protagonists, is deceptive. Throughout the novel, Wharton builds up patterns of imagery, patterns of behavior and specially charged works. All of which serve a definite style and structure purpose. She chooses adjectives and adverbs carefully and uses them infrequently. Her attention to minor details and her use of structure to relay Ethan’s complicated and tragic life story to readers enables her to portray her characters as victims of the rules of society. Wharton shows silence by her personal experience when writing and did not readily discuss her writing. Wharton relied on personal

The narrator appreciates the winter’s spare loveliness at first. He eventually realizes that Starkfield and its inhabitant spend much of each year in what amounts to a state of the sage of the elements. The novel suggests that sensitive souls like Ethan become buried emotions beneath the winter. Their resolve and very sense of self sapped by the oppressive power of the six-month long cold season. Ethan yearns to escape Starkfield, when he was younger, we learn he hoped to leave his family farm and work as an engineer in a larger town. Zeena and poverty are both forces that keep Ethan from fulfilling his dream, the novel again and again positions the climate as a major impediment to both Ethan and his fellow townsfolk. The physical environment is characterized as destiny and the wintry air of the place seems to have seeped into the Starkfield residents very

Ethan is concerned with personal morality and puts forth a number of complicated moral quandaries. He has feelings for Mattie, which is now coming in between his marriage with Zeena. By denying Zeena a single positive attribute while presenting Mattie as the epitome of glowing, youthful attractiveness, Wharton renders Ethan’s desire to cheat on his wife perfectly understandable. The conflict does not stem from within Ethan’s own heart, his feelings for Mattie never waver. The conflict occurs between his passions and the constraints placed on him by society, which control his conscience and impede his fulfillment of his passions. Although he has one night alone with Mattie, he cannot help but be reminded of his domestic duties as he sits in his kitchen. He plans to elope and run away to the West, but he can’t bring himself to lie to his neighbors in order to procure the necessary money. Ethan opts out of the battle between his desires and social and moral orders. Lacking the courage and strength of will to face down their fear, he chooses to abandon life’s burdens by abandoning life