ethan frome critical essay

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Personal or Social Tragedy? A Close Reading of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome

Photograph of writer Edith Wharton, taken by E. F. Cooper, at Newport, Rhode Island. 

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"…after all, the tragedy unveiled to us is social rather than personal… 'Ethan Frome' is to me above all else a judgment on that system which fails to redeem such villages as Mrs. Wharton’s Starkfield." —Literary critic and author Edwin Bjorkman

Readers of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome (1911) can hardly fail to be moved by the suffering of the title character. Ethan is, quite literally, a physical and emotional wreck. His misery captivates the narrator. Indeed, the whole body of the novel represents the narrator’s effort to reconstruct the tragic circumstances of Ethan’s life. Yet even as the story concludes, we are not quite sure what or who to blame for Ethan’s ruin. Was Ethan ruined by his personal problems (his loveless marriage) or by “the crushing, choking atmosphere” of his social environment? Had Ethan been able to express his love for Mattie, could he have lived happily in Starkfield?

This lesson will challenge students to weigh the textual evidence for and against the claim that Ethan’s woes lay in staying in Starkfield—and not in the details of his personal relationships. In the process, students will engage in a close reading of pre-selected passages from the novel, along with a few passages of their own choosing through at-home reading journals. These close reading exercises will culminate in an in-class debate and possibly the crafting of a short argumentative essay, in which students will have an opportunity to respond to Bjorkman’s thesis.

Guiding Questions

Is Ethan’s story a personal tragedy born of his indecision and personal failures, a social tragedy forecast by the oppressive New England setting, or both?

Learning Objectives

Situate Ethan Frome within the context of American regionalist literature.

Gather, annotate, and analyze key quotations from Ethan Frome.

Respond to contemporary reviews of Ethan Frome.

Use textual evidence to support their own claims about the plight of the novel’s protagonist.

Lesson Plan Details

Who is responsible for Ethan’s ruin and misery? Ethan himself? Zeena? Fate? Starkfield? What would it have taken for Ethan to be happy? Marrying Mattie? Having more money? More courage? Better luck? Leaving town? Ever since the book’s publication, these questions have been central to the critical reception of Ethan Frome . The critic Edwin Bjorkman, for example, offered the following comment in a 1913 essay:

"Glancing over the all too brief volume [Ethan Frome] in retrospect, I can find only one point where it suggests a certain degree of failure, of growth still unachieved…   "As I read the book now, I come away with an impression that, in the author’s mind at least, the one thing needed to change Ethan’s life from a hell to a heaven would have been the full and free expression of his love for Matt. "Romantic love, as idealized for us by our forefathers, has long ago gone into bankruptcy. Had Zeena died and Matt married Ethan—well, it is my private belief that inside of a few years life on that farm would have been practically what it was before Matt arrived, with Matt playing the part of a Zeena II—different, of course, and yet the same. For the life in our Starkfields is cursed or saved not by this or that single incident, not by the presence or absence of this or that individual, the curse lies in staying there, in breathing the crushing, choking atmosphere of Starkfieldian sterility."

Bjorkman points to a fundamental ambiguity in Wharton’s narrative—is the oppression of the environment such that opportunities for personal growth are choked out? Is this a problem for the society as a whole, or is it, instead, simply a problem for Ethan and his family?

Wharton conception of Ethan Frome was motivated, in part, by her response to a previous generation of (mostly female) “New England fiction” writers, who wrote with some affection about the small communities tucked away in the New England landscape. What follows are Wharton’s own comments on the New England fiction of the late nineteenth century, and its influence on the writing of Ethan Frome :

"I had known something of New England village life long before I made my home in the same county as my imaginary Starkfield; though, during the years spent there, certain of its aspects became much more familiar to me.   "Even before that final initiation, however, I had had an uneasy sense that New England of fiction bore little—except a vague botanical and dialectical—resemblance to the harsh and beautiful land as I had seen it. Even the abundant enumeration of sweet-fern, asters, and mountain-laurel, and the conscientious reproduction of the vernacular, left me with the feeling that the outcropping granite had in both cases been overlooked. I give the impression merely as a personal one; it accounts for 'Ethan Frome,' and may, to some readers, in a measure justify it." —From Wharton’s Introduction to Ethan Frome

"But the book to the making of which I brought the greatest joy and the fullest ease was 'Ethan Frome.' For years I had wanted to draw life as it really was in the derelict mountain villages of New England, a life even in my time, and a thousandfold more a generation earlier, utterly unlike that seen through the rose-coloured spectacles of my predecessors, Mary Wilkins and Sarah Orne Jewett. In those days the snowbound villages of Western Massachusetts were still grim places, morally and physically: insanity, incest and slow mental and moral starvation were hidden away behind the paintless wooden house-fronts of the long village street, or in the isolates farm-houses on the neighbouring hills…" —From Wharton’s 1934 autobiography, A Backward Glance

These comments, along with the Bjorkman passage cited above, are all reproduced in the Ethan Frome: Sources handout . You may want to print and distribute that handout before beginning the lesson in preparation for the activities below.

Note that the generation of New England fiction that motivated Wharton was a subset of the much broader “local color” or “regionalist” movement in American literature, which flourished during the decades following the Civil War. An overview of the local color movement (its defining characteristics, techniques, and authors) is available on Prof. Donna Campbell’s American Literature site. You may wish to copy and distribute this overview for use with Activity 1 below, or prepare to project it on a screen or otherwise share it with students.

Edith Wharton: A life in pictures and texts , via Internet Public Library, offers a biography of Wharton through pictures, and serves as a nice introduction to her life for students. The excellent exhibit, Edith Wharton’s World , at the EDSITEment-reviewed Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery website highlights Wharton’s associations with various great literary, cultural, and political figures of her era, including: William Dean Howells, Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Theodore Roosevelt. 

• Review the lesson plan and the websites used throughout. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing, including the “Close Reading” worksheet and the Ethan Frome: Sources handout .
• Students can access the primary source materials and some of the activity materials via the EDSITEment LaunchPad .
• An online text of Ethan Frome is available at Project Gutenberg .

Activity 1. Edith Wharton and (New England) Regional Literature

Begin by introducing the class to Edith Wharton’s life, using the resources discussed in the Background section above. Explain that Wharton follows a generation of mainly female authors who wrote about life in New England—authors who placed a heavy emphasis on the significance of the regional landscape, culture, mores, and dialect. Note that these authors belonged to a movement in nineteenth century American literature called “local color” or “regionalist” fiction.

Provide an overview of the local color movement, drawing from Prof. Donna Campbell’s American Literature site (see Background for more information, above). Review the list of “characteristics” and “techniques” associated with regional literature, and have students take note of the specifics for the following:

• Detailed description
• Frame story

As you go through this list, remind students that they will be keeping “reading journals” as they read Ethan Frome , and they should keep the above in mind as possible ways to respond to their reading selections (e.g., for one journal entry, students might focus on the narrator, or a specific theme, or the use of description in a chapter).

Note to students that Edith Wharton was in some ways critiquing some of the New England regionalist writers of the time. Read with the class Edith Wharton’s own comments on her New England regionalist predecessors, which can be found in the Ethan Frome: Sources PDF (a link is also available via the EDSITEment LaunchPad ). Notice that despite the apparent affinities between Wharton and her predecessors, Wharton’s own motivation lay largely in repudiating the idealized portrayals of New England life characteristic of the regionalist genre.

Take note of the two authors whom Wharton explicitly accuses of viewing New England through “rose-coloured spectacles”: Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary Wilkins (Freeman). If students in the class are familiar with the works of either Jewett or Freeman, ask them if Wharton’s complaint against Jewett and Freeman seems justified? Otherwise, encourage students to pay close attention to the qualities of regionalist literature as discussed above. Throughout their reading of Ethan Frome , they should keep in mind this question:

• Based on the criteria discussed in class, to what extent is Ethan Frome consistent with the typical regionalist novel? To what extent does it break from the regionalist mold?

This question is an excellent one to return to at the conclusion of the novel.

Activity 2. Introducing Ethan

Turn to the introductory chapter of Ethan Frome and, if time allows, read it aloud with students (alternatively, have them read it the night before). As the class completes the chapter, help them closely review the chapter with the following questions in mind, pointing to specific passages in order to discern answers. The point of this exercise is both to introduce the novel as well as to demonstrate close reading skills that students show employ as they read the novel and consider ideas in their reading journals.

Review “who” is telling the story and how the narrator is getting his information. Ask students to describe the characters they are introduced to in the opening “frame” of the narrative. Invite the class to discuss the setting of Ethan Frome and its role in the overall construction of the novel.

• Who is the narrator and where is he from?
• Is it significant that the narrator is from out of town? Why or why not?
• How does the narrator differ from those who supply him with information about Ethan Frome?
• How is Starkfield depicted? What does its name suggest?
• How does the narrator describes the town and its inhabitants? Is the tone celebratory, disdainful, or somewhere in between?

This exercise is partially to review the novel, but also to show students how to read closely by first beginning with a simple question (e.g., who is speaking?) and then move into a deeper reading of the situation with more in-depth questions. Be sure to point out to students how beginning with straight-forward questions and then “drilling down” with increasingly complex questions in the same line of thought can reveal quite a lot about a novel’s elements, be it narration, setting, or theme. Also note that questions can begin as factual ones (e.g. “What is the name of the town”) to more abstract, argumentative ones (e.g. “Is Wharton’s depiction of Starkfield always ‘stark,’ or does she also note some redeeming qualities of the landscape?”).

As students read through the whole of Ethan Frome , they can focus on any number of issues, while keeping track of their ideas in their reading journals. In addition to following attributes of regionalist literature, students might consider any or all of the following questions:

• Where in the text of Ethan Frome can we detect Wharton’s professed commitment to portraying life in New England “as it really was”?
• Based on Ethan Frome, what are some characteristics of rural New England and the people who live there?
• How do we know that the story is as much about Starkfield—the place—as it is about Ethan, the person? How are the characters and the setting intertwined?

With these in mind, conversations about literary realism, depictions of community and setting, and other such topics can be discussed throughout the class exploration of the novel. To help guide students further in their close-reading efforts, use the following activity as your class is reading the novel.

Activity 3. Reading Ethan Closely

To stimulate close reading of the novel, present the short excerpt from Edwin Bjorkman’s essay, written 2 years after the publication of Wharton’s novel. (Note that the excerpt can be found in the attached Ethan Frome: Close Reading handout .) First, ask students to explain Bjorkman’s central thesis: namely, that Ethan was ruined by staying in Starkfield—not by staying with Zeena. Then discuss:

• Is Bjorkman right to claim that, “in the author’s mind at least, the one thing needed to change Ethan’s life from a hell to a heaven would have been the full and free expression of his love for Matt”? Does the class share Bjorkman’s impression that Wharton concedes too much to “romantic love”?
• Is there any textual evidence to support Bjorkman’s claim that, “Had Zeena died and Matt married Ethan…inside of a few years life on that farm would have been practically what it was before Matt arrived”? Is there any textual evidence against that claim?
• How does Bjorkman’s critique square with Wharton’s own comments on New England regionalist literature?

After a brief discussion of these points, students will be ready to complete the “Close Reading” worksheet . The worksheet contains four pre-selected passages from Ethan Frome , each containing evidence for and/or against Bjorkman’s claims. With his claims in mind, as well as Wharton’s own professed reasons for writing the novel, students should analyze and annotate the passages. Then, in the space provided, students should write 3-4 sentences using each passage to address the following question:

Does the text portray Ethan as a victim of his social and physical environment, or of his own personal choices and temperament?

Once students have analyzed the four assigned passages, they should add additional quotations of their own choosing and repeat the passage analysis exercise for each one. Note that this activity can be assigned in a variety of ways—spread out over several evenings of reading; given as an in-class assignment for individuals or for groups; divided among groups who then must debate one another on either side of the issue; or any number of other options.

Depending on the time available, generate discussion based on quotations students find, questions such as those listed above, ideas students share from their reading journals, or return to the discussion about regionalism. Students will likely bring up issues such as free choice (or lack thereof) and personal agency, peer pressure, public versus private, personal versus social roles and responsibilities, and any number of others. Feel free to contextualize Wharton further as a realist who reflected, in Ethan Frome particularly, a more deterministic flair often seen in the naturalists. As with previous exercises, ask students to use textual evidence to back up their assertions.

As a final activity, consider asking the class to take one side or the other on the central issue of Ethan’s agency and debate the point. Give students at least 5 minutes to find key passages to use as evidence (and more time, if possible, so that the debate is substantive).

There are a number of potential assessment activities for this lesson plan. Student reading journals can be collected for review, as can the close reading worksheets. Teachers might evaluate the students’ group work or individual participation in the final debate in Activity 3. Attention to textual evidence, originality of ideas, and presentation of material all serve well as criteria for evaluation.

For an essay assignment, students who completed the Close Reading Worksheet will be ready to compose a short essay discussing the following claim: Ethan is portrayed as a victim of his social and physical environment . Students should not merely state their agreement or disagreement with the claim; they should try to articulate a more complicated reading of the text, indicating the extent to which the claim is true and the extent to which it must be qualified. They should give reasons for their conclusions, in the form of close analysis of textual passages. The most effective essays will strive to account for the whole body of evidence, noting counter-examples and anticipating counter-arguments along the way. Note that by this point, students have already done all the prep-work necessary to begin this assignment, as they will have already compiled and annotated at least eight passages that bear directly on the essay prompt.

As Wharton began her career, the realist school that had so dominated American fiction since the Civil War was just beginning to give way to the rising stars of literary naturalism. Indeed, in many ways Ethan Frome stands at the confluence of the realist and naturalist periods of American literary history. Wharton was claimed by the older generation of prominent realists (like William Dean Howells) for depicting life “as it really is”; yet her emphasis on the power and hostility of our physical and social environments also marked her as a naturalist. Students will notice that both of Wharton’s literary identities are on full display in Ethan Frome , making the text an ideal segue into the works of naturalists like Stephen Crane and Jack London. To explore the complex relationship between realism and naturalism, this lesson can be taught in conjunction with Crane, London, and Literary Naturalism .

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• Local Color
• Edith Wharton: A life in pictures and texts
• Ethan Frome
• Edith Wharton’s World

Materials & Media

Personal or social tragedy: worksheet 1 - ethan frome sources, personal or social tragedy: worksheet 2 - ethan frome close reading.

Ethan Frome

Edith wharton, everything you need for every book you read..

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Ethan Frome: Introduction

Ethan frome: plot summary, ethan frome: detailed summary & analysis, ethan frome: themes, ethan frome: quotes, ethan frome: characters, ethan frome: symbols, ethan frome: literary devices, ethan frome: theme wheel, brief biography of edith wharton.

Historical Context of Ethan Frome

Other books related to ethan frome.

• Full Title: Ethan Frome
• When Written: 1910-11; French exercise begun in 1907
• Where Written: Rue de Varenne, Paris, France
• When Published: September 1911
• Literary Period: Edwardian Period
• Genre: Novel
• Setting: The fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts
• Climax: The sledding accident
• Antagonist: Zenobia (Zeena) Frome
• Point of View: First-person observer (frame story); third-person omniscient (main narrative)

Extra Credit for Ethan Frome

Views on Marriage: Wharton frequently wrote about unhappy marriages, and herself divorced a mentally-ill husband at a time when divorce was a hot topic (divorce figures doubled between 1880 and 1900, and doubled again by 1920, owing to new laws and changing social mores). Wharton was particularly critical of American marriages in which the husband looked down on the wife because she took no interest in his business affairs, and the wife retaliated by spending enormous amounts of money. Although Ethan Frome is sometimes seen as anomalous among Wharton's novels because it is not about upper-class New York society, it is typical in its concern with how traditional institutions and values perpetuate an imbalance of power between men and women that often destroys their relationships with one another.

Teaching Edith Wharton’s Major Novels and Short Fiction pp 197–206 Cite as

Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and the History of Literary Scholarship

• Karen Weingarten 3  
• First Online: 14 May 2021

177 Accesses

Part of the book series: American Literature Readings in the 21st Century ((ALTC))

This chapter provides resources for teaching Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome in a course on literary methodologies. The course project introduced demystifies for students the work of literary critics by indicating that literary criticism has a history and a changing practice. The primary goal is to teach students what makes a good question when they are beginning their research. The assignment also aims to show students how “good questions” have changed over time. Ethan Frome is the focus of the project because the historical scholarship on this novella reflects changing trends in literary criticism. The assignment asks students to consider to what extent readings of the novel have changed (and stayed the same) from new critical to new historicist, to feminist, and to critical race studies (to name a few examples). Ultimately, the project shows that Wharton’s success as a novelist indicates that she received attention from literary critics at a time when many other women writers were ignored. Thus, the project reveals that the richness and sometimes contradictory politics of her works position many of them, such as Ethan Frome , as excellent sources for tracing the development of literary criticism, and in turn, demonstrates that Wharton’s works have been interpreted differently through the years.

• Edith Wharton
• Ethan Frome
• Literary scholarship
• Methodology
• Women writers

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Ammons, Elizabeth. 2008. “The Myth of Imperiled Whiteness and Ethan Frome .” New England Quarterly: A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters 81 (1): 5–33.

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Bernard, Kenneth. 1961. “Imagery and Symbolism in Ethan Frome. ” College English 23 (3): 178–84.

Farland, Maria Magdalena. 1996. “Ethan Frome and the ‘Springs’ of Masculinity.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 42 (4) (Winter): 707–29.

Geriguis, Lina. 2017. “‘Rich in Pathological Instances’: Disability in the Early Reception Theory of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome .” Edith Wharton Review 33 (1): 57–72.

Hayot, Eric. 2014. The Elements of Academic Style: Writing for the Humanities . New York: Columbia University Press.

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Hemblen, Abigail Ann. 1965. “Edith Wharton in New England.” New England Quarterly: A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters 38 (2): 239–44.

Morrison, Toni. 1992. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Murad, Orlene. 1983. “Edith Wharton and Ethan Frome.” Modern Language Studies 13 (3): 90–103.

Nevius, Blake. 1951. “‘Ethan Frome’ and the Theme of Edith Wharton’s Fiction.” New England Quarterly: A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters 24 (2): 197–207.

Rose, Alan Henry. 1977. “‘Such Depths of Sad Initiation’: Edith Wharton and New England.” New England Quarterly: A Historical Review of New England Life and Letters 50 (3): 423–39.

Wharton, Edith. (1911) 2013. Ethan Frome. Edited by Carol Singley. Broadview Press.

Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. 1987. “Cold Ethan and ‘Hot Ethan’.” College Literature 14 (3): 230–45.

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Paper 1 Prompt

In a four-to-five-page paper, discuss how scholarship on Ethan Frome has changed in the last fifty years.

Try to be as specific as possible when considering what change you will trace in the scholarship. Ideally, you should focus on one or two elements that have changed and that can be traced easily in a short paper.

Note: Use Chicago or MLA style when quoting from the text. You can focus on any component of the assigned articles. Please make sure to have a thesis statement in the first paragraph that summarizes your argument about the change in scholarship. You do not have to do additional research for this essay.

Reading and Assignment Schedule (This material is excerpted from my syllabus.)

Unit 1: History of the Field/Posing Critical Questions

The first unit will focus on how the questions that shape scholarship in literary studies have changed through reading one short work in American literature and some of the criticism produced about it. We will read scholarship from journals and books that reflects changes in the discipline. At the end of this unit, students will submit a four-to-five-page paper that compares several critical articles to reflect on how scholarship on Ethan Frome has evolved.

Day 1. Read:

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton and the following: Geriguis, Lina. “‘Rich in Pathological Instances’: Disability in the Early Reception Theory of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome ” Ammons, Elizabeth. “The Myth of Imperiled Whiteness and Ethan Frome ” Handout: prompt for paper 1

Day 2. Read:

Bernard, Kenneth. “Imagery and Symbolism in Ethan Frome ” Contemporary Reviews and Commentaries (in the Broadview edition of Ethan Frome ) and skim the other appendices. Murad, Orlene. “Edith Wharton and Ethan Frome”

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Weingarten, K. (2021). Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and the History of Literary Scholarship. In: Asya, F. (eds) Teaching Edith Wharton’s Major Novels and Short Fiction. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52742-6_13

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Analysis Of Ethan Frome

Ethan Frome is a story of ill-fated love, set during the winter in the rural New England town of Starkfield. Ethan is a farmer who is married to a sickly woman named Zeena. The two live in trapped, unspoken resentment on Ethan’s isolated and failing farm. Ethan has been caring for his wife for six years now. Due to Zeena’s numerous ailments they employ her cousin, the animated Mattie Silver, to help in the house. With Mattie’s youthful presence and attitude in the house, Ethans bitterness of his youth’s lost opportunities and the dissatisfaction with his life and empty marriage are reawaken.

This resentment leads to Ethan and Mattie in turn, falling in love. However, they never follow their love due to Ethan’s morals and the respect he has for his marriage to Zeena. Ethan eagerly awaits the nights when he is able to walk Mattie home from the town dances. He cherishes the ground she walks on and would do anything for her. After a visit to the doctor, Zeena is told that she needs more appreciable hired help. Thus, she decides to send her incompetent cousin away and hire a new one. Ethan and Mattie are desperate to stay together.

However, Ethan’s lack of financial means and Zeenas health are the deciding factors that will never allow him to leave Starkfield to be with his love. When the two are unable to find any plausible solutions to this issue, Ethan and Mattie decide to commit suicide by sledding into a tree. They figure it is the only way they can be together. The attempt fails, and the two are left paralyzed. Now Ethan’s wife must care for the two for the rest of their lives. There were many themes found in Ethan Frome, but the greatest of them all is loneliness and isolation.

In college Ethan acquired the nickname “Old Stiff” because he rarely went out with the boys. Once he returned to the farm to care for his parents, he couldn’t go out with them even if he wanted to. Whatever he’s done has kept him apart from others: tending to the farm and mill, nursing his sick mother and caring for Zeena. Ethan’s isolation is intensified, because he is often tongue-tied. He would like to make contact with others but can’t. For example, when he wants to impress Mattie with beautiful words of love, he mutters, “Come along. ”

In their own ways, Zeena and Mattie are solitary figures, too. For years, Zeena rarely leaves the house. She’s consumed by her illness. Mattie, on the other hand, seeks refuge from loneliness at the Fromes’ farm. A year later she chooses to die rather than return to a world of solitude. Edith Wharton uses characters such as Mattie, to express the theme of loneliness and isolation. Mattie Silver is unlike any of the other characters in Ethan Frome. The town of Starkfield is very colorless and dull. When Mattie enters she is wearing bright clothing and ribbons tied in her hair.

From her first appearance, the reader becomes aware that Mattie is very different from Ethan’s wife. Of all the characters in this novel, Mattie is the most tragic. She was so energetic and full of life that she wanted to free Ethan from this terrible society he lived in. She suggested suicide as a means of escape for the two of them. When the attempt failed, she became paralyzed. She is now stuck in the cold, colorless, world of Starkfield which unto itself is extremely tragic and ironic. The setting of Ethan Frome also expresses the isolation.

Around the turn of the century, in Ethan Frome’s time, the town of Starkfield was a cold and lifeless place. Life is dreary and cheerless in Starkfield. People stay indoors and keep to themselves. Weeks pass between visits with friends or neighbors. Wharton calls Starkfield a small farming community, and the town does live up to its name. It’s barren and it’s people are poor. Ethan can barely scrape a living off the land. The town Starkfield afflicts Ethan and helps to shape his destiny. Like the town, he is sullen and run-down.

Starkfield sits alone in its valley, isolated from the world around it. Ethan is also isolated. He left the lonely valley to go to college, but since returning he has gone scarcely more than few miles from his remote farm. Physically, and therefore, emotionally, he is trapped by his wife, his farm, and his poverty. Ethan is in some ways, a piece of the scenery, or as the narrator says, “a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of frozen woe. ” He lacks the strength to shake himself loose before it’s too late.

The author is able to clearly portray the themes of isolation and loneliness through the characters and the setting. In conclusion, I feel that Ethan Frome should be included in a list of works of high literary merit, because it is a classic. The book is about society in general and this attracts many readers. I think that the magnificence of Ethan himself attracts many readers. His character was so carefully thought out and brilliantly painted in the readers mind. Although Ethan Frome was not a commercial success when it was first written, many critics praised the novel.

Dr Kinnicuttt said that Ethan Frome was “a classic that will be read an re-read with pleasure and instruction. ” Henry James told Edith Wharton that the novel “contained a beautiful art and tone and truth — a beautiful artful kept downness. ” Many critics also disliked the book. People said that it was too pessimistic to be recommended to the general reader. A critic in The Bookman could not forgive Wharton for her cruelty toward both her characters and her readers. The novel shows how one will not follow their heart due to what society may think.

It shows how much society’s beliefs in the 1900’s were valued. Despite low sales when this book first became published and unfavorable remarks about Ethan Frome, the novel is still read and loved by many people , in many countries and languages, today. All of these factors attribute to wonderful teachers, just like Mrs. Verrastro, assigning it as a required report and analysis to help our young and budding minds and persons develop into well educated and productive members of society.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Ethan Frome — Fate And Determination In Ethan Frome

Fate and Determination in Ethan Frome

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Typically one of the subtler parts of a novel, setting usually serves as a frame that supports the plot and characters. In Ethan Frome, however, Edith Wharton reinvents the use of setting as an integral element of the story. She [...]

Within Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome there is one consistent ideal that stands out, the ideal of human suffering. Ethan Frome is chained to his horrible, nagging wife Zeena and has to take care of her constantly. Frome had [...]

The fear of a dystopian future that is explored in both Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis and George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four is reflective of the values of the societies at the time and the context of the authors. As [...]

In order for one to exist in a totalitarian society whose government is successful in its control, one must deal on a day-to-day basis with strong persuasion and propaganda. These totalitarian societies have an iron grip on [...]

Problems faced by characters in literature often repeat themselves, and when these characters decide to solve these standard problems, their actions are often more similar than they first appear. This idea is evident when [...]

The power of words is enough to control an entire nation. Although many would consider physical power and brute force to be absolute power, George Orwell’s 1984 demonstrates a dystopian society where language is the ultimate [...]

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Ethan Frome Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Ethan Frome.

Ethan Frome Material

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Ethan Frome Essays

Restraints on desire in ethan frome and the age of innocence anonymous, ethan frome.

Human nature has always been tempted by the irresistible emotion of desire, and as perfectly said by Benedict de Spinoza, "Desire is the very essence of man". Although various degrees of desire can be achieved in our society, there are still many...

Ethan and Mattie: Victim and Victor Kerri McNicholas

It is under the most repressive limitations that the strength of one's character and one's ability to defy and transcend such limits can truly be measured. This idea is confirmed in Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, the story of a young man...

Use of Setting in Ethan Frome Anonymous

Typically one of the subtler parts of a novel, setting usually serves as a frame that supports the plot and characters. In Ethan Frome, however, Edith Wharton reinvents the use of setting as an integral element of the story. She weaves the...

A Natural[Ethan]istic Story Becky Ditullio 11th Grade

Although by definition, a classic tragedy takes place when a character’s downfall is the direct consequence of a personality flaw, Edith Wharton’s novella Ethan Frome rejects this concept. As a story written by an author schooled in naturalistic...

Unavoidable Manipulators Paul Mburu College

In order for a successful society and government, true emotions and feelings must be expressed at the essential times. Manipulation is constantly used worldwide in areas such as advertisements to movies. They act as unfair persuaders to make a...

The Importance of Setting in Ethan Frome and Things Fall Apart Anonymous College

Ethan Frome and Things Fall Apart are found in two dramatically different settings, with each plot relying heavily on the setting of the novel to tell its story. The setting of a story is a broad term and can contain many layers. While each story...

Framing, Perspective, and the Reader's Immersion: Structural Analysis of Ethan Frome Anonymous 10th Grade

Since its first publication in 1995, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien is, arguably, the greatest epic fantasy to ever be written. Encapsulating the classic theme of “good against evil,” along with its various subplots and well-developed...

Choices and Limitations: Understanding the Mentality of Ethan Frome Himself Carissa Bolles 10th Grade

Is the cause of fate an attitude toward life, or is it the people or places one has known? Edith Wharton shows within her book, Ethan Frome , how choices determine one’s fate. Ethan Frome is a story about a man who marries a woman whom he does not...

A Feminist Literary Analysis of 'Ethan Frome': Zeena's Problematic Portrayal Anonymous College

Feminism is a movement about value and respect. It is a movement that is still evolving in our modern age to be ever more inclusive and aware of the experiences of all women. According to Robert Dale Parker’s book, Interpreting Literature:...

Zeena Frome's Complexity Puja Harikumar College

Many feminist scholars have lauded Edith Wharton for her refusal to shy away from portraying the misery of married women. A common interpretation of Wharton’s intentions were that this misery stems from the dissatisfaction her characters suffer at...

A Winding Language: Double Meanings in 'Ethan Frome' Anonymous 11th Grade

Language comes in many forms. The forms can be actual different languages, or the forms can be found within a language. There are many forms of languages in writing alone. One can be straight forward, like a business letter, and another then be...

Red, White, and Love at First Sight: Color Imagery and Ethan’s Desperate Attempts at Love Anonymous 10th Grade

Those in poverty often find themselves frustrated by the lack of opportunity in their lives. In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, a failing farmer named Ethan and his sick, estranged wife Zeena navigate personal and moral boundaries as life throws many...

• Ethan Frome

Edith Wharton

• Literature Notes
• Essay Questions
• Book Summary
• About Ethan Frome
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Chapters 1-2
• Chapters 3-5
• Chapters 6-7
• Chapters 8-9
• Character Analysis
• Zenobia (Zeena) Frome
• Mattie Silver
• Character Map
• Edith Wharton Biography
• Critical Essays
• Wharton's Style
• Use of Literary Tools in Ethan Frome
• Themes in Ethan Frome
• Full Glossary for Ethan Frome
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Study Help Essay Questions

1. The frame narrative is introduced in the Prologue. Why did Wharton utilize this technique?

2. Repetitive patterns of imagery are an important part of Ethan Frome . Identify several repetitive patterns or sequences. How do these repetitive patterns help the reader interpret character and action?

3. Explain how the setting of Ethan Frome contributes to the telling of the story.

4. Compare Zeena and Mattie both physically and psychologically at the beginning of the story. Compare them again at the end of the story. What ironic twist does Wharton provide?

5. Why does Wharton attempt to reproduce the New England dialect of some of the characters? What is the effect on the reader of the difference between the standard English diction of the narration and the dialect of the characters?

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