Ethan Frome is memorable and well-written. I have thought about it often in the days since reading it. The story is haunting, and not very happy, to state that mildly, but it is well-worth the time spent on it. This book is so spare and, yet, gripping, in the love story that unfolds. Until the startling ending.
What are the reviews of Ethan Frome?
When Edith Wharton's novel "Ethan Frome" was first published in 1911, reviews were largely negative. Critics called the story cruel and violent and sales of the novel were dismal. Today, Edith Wharton's haunting tale of forbidden romance in a rural New England town is her most widely read novel.
What is the genre of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton?
When Edith Wharton’s novel “Ethan Frome” was first published in 1911, reviews were largely negative. Critics called the story cruel and violent and sales of the novel were dismal. Today, Edith Wharton’s haunting tale of forbidden romance in a rural New England town is her most widely-read novel. This was an unusual novel for Wharton.
What is the plot of Ethan Frome?
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed w More Details...
Where did Ethan Frome go to college?
As a young man, Ethan Frome wanted to become an engineer. He left home, attended a technological college in Worcester, Massachusetts, and spent time in Florida actually working on a small engineering job. His dream was to settle in a metropolitan area where he could take advantage of the opportunities city life offered.
Why is Ethan Frome a classic?
The ongoing tragedy that unveils in the story, the unbelievable depth of characters, the foreshadowing in the book, the ability to illicit empathy for all of the characters and bounce between and understand Ethan's conundrum in life, and so much more definitely qualifies this book as a classic in literature.
How long does it take to read Ethan Frome?
The average reader will spend 1 hours and 8 minutes reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).
What is the message of Ethan Frome?
Society and Morality as Obstacles to the Fulfillment of Desire. The constraint social and moral concerns place on individual desire is perhaps the novel's most prominent theme, since Ethan Frome's plot is concerned with Ethan's desire for a woman who is not his wife.
What was the problem in Ethan Frome?
major conflict Ethan's main fight is with his own conscience, as he decides whether or not to reveal to Mattie his true feelings. His struggles are exacerbated by his surroundings—Zeena, the bleak Starkfield landscape, his home—which often take on an oppressive quality.
What is the irony in Ethan Frome?
One of the ironies was when Ethan repeatedly saw Zeena's face in the rocking chair while coasting; this instance is ironic because of how Ethan is deliberately coasting with Mattie to avoid Zeena, yet her face appears in front of him, demonstrating how he could never leave his stark reality in Starkfield.
What does the cat symbolize in Ethan Frome?
The Cat and the Pickle Dish The animal serves as a symbol of Zeena's tacit invisible presence in the house, as a force that comes between Mattie and Ethan, and reminds them of the wife's existence.
What does the pickle dish seem to symbolize in the novel?
The broken pickle dish that Zeena discovers at the top of the china closet symbolizes the shattered Frome marriage. Mattie is partially responsible for the breaking of both the pickle dish and the marriage, having handled them carelessly, and Ethan cowardly hides the broken state of each.
Is Ethan Frome a tragic hero?
Ethan is our tragic hero, a man of many faces. He lives with two women, his wife and his wife's cousin, with whom he was (and maybe still is) in love.
What does winter symbolize in Ethan Frome?
Winter is also symbolic of the isolation, loneliness, and immobility that Ethan experiences. The name of the town, Starkfield, symbolizes the devastating and isolating effects of the harsh winters on the land and the men who work the land.
Is Ethan Frome a love story?
Ethan Frome is a tragic love story.
What happens at the end of Ethan Frome?
Instead of finding escape in suicide, he and Mattie have ended up in a state of living death, in which all Mattie's vitality has been leeched away, and she has transformed into a carbon copy of her former opposite, Zeena.
How old is Ethan in Ethan Frome?
Ethan Frome is 52 years old when the narrator first meets him in the novel. Ethan's accident had occurred 24 years prior, when he was 28 years old.
What is the plot of Ethan Frome?
by Edith Wharton A ray of hope enters Ethan's life of despair when his wife's cousin Mattie arrives to help. His life is transformed as he falls in love with Mattie, but their fate is doomed by the stifling conventions of the era.
Why did Ethan say he couldn't drive Zeena?
Because he didn't want to drive Zeena to the Junction, he lied to her, saying he needed to pick up money from Andrew Hale but that Jotham Powell would drive her. After Zeena leaves, Ethan leaves the house also to take his load of lumber to Andrew Hale.
What happened in the epilogue of Ethan Frome?
The epilogue is a denouement, or conclusion to the plot of the main story and the frame story as well. Wharton provides the final touch of irony when she reveals that the "querulous drone" heard by The Narrator comes from Mattie and not Zeena. Mattie has lost her sweet temperament and can be mistaken for Zeena.
Is Mattie Zeena's cousin?
Mattie Silver Zeena's cousin, who comes to assist the Fromes with their domestic tasks. Attractive, young, and energetic, Mattie becomes the object of Ethan's affection, and reciprocates his infatuation.
What is the story of Ethan Frome?
The New York Times called Ethan Frome "a compelling and haunting story ." Edith Wharton was able to write an appealing book and separate it from her other works, where her characters in Ethan Frome are not of the elite upper class. However, the problems that the characters endure are still consistently the same, where the protagonist has to decide whether or not to fulfill their duty or follow their heart. She began writing Ethan Frome in the early 1900s when she was still married. The novel was criticized by Lionel Trilling as lacking in moral or ethical significance. Trilling wrote that the ending is "terrible to contemplate," but that "the mind can do nothing with it, can only endure it."
Where is Ethan Frome set?
0-486-26690-7. Ethan Frome is a 1911 book by American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel was adapted into a film, Ethan Frome, in 1993.
What chapter does Ethan and Zeena live in?
We then embark on the "first" chapter (Chapter I), which takes place twenty-four years prior. In Chapter I , Ethan is waiting outside a church dance for Mattie, his wife's cousin, who has for a year lived with Ethan and his sickly wife, Zeena (Zenobia), in order to help out around the house and farm.
How does Ethan help Mattie?
Ethan tries to help by setting the dish's pieces neatly in the cupboard, presenting the false impression of wholeness if not examined closely, with plans to purchase some glue and fix it as soon as he can. In the morning Ethan's hopes for more private time with Mattie are foiled by the presence of his hired man.
Where did Ethan and Mattie's sledding accident take place?
Wharton likely based the story of Ethan and Mattie's sledding experience on an accident that she had heard about in 1904 in Lenox, Massachusetts. Five people total were involved in the real-life accident, four girls and one boy. They crashed into a lamppost while sledding down Courthouse Hill in Lenox.
Why does the narrator hire Frome as his driver?
Because people seem not to wish to speak other than in vague and general terms about Frome's past, the narrator's curiosity grows, but he learns little more. Chance circumstances arise that allow the narrator to hire Frome as his driver for a week.
What does Jeffrey Lilburn say about Wharton's suffering?
Jeffrey Lilburn notes that some find "the suffering endured by Wharton's characters is excessive and unjustified, " but others see the difficult moral questions addressed and note that it "provides insightful commentary on the American economic and cultural realities that produced and allowed such suffering.".
When was the book "Ethan Frome" first published?
When Edith Wharton’s novel “Ethan Frome” was first published in 1911, reviews were largely negative. Critics called the story cruel and violent and sales of the novel were dismal. Today, Edith Wharton’s haunting tale of forbidden romance in a rural New England town is her most widely-read novel.
What is the number to call for Ethan Frome?
REHM 800-433-8850. That's the number to call if you'd like to join us as we talk about Edith Wharton's long lasting novel "Ethan Frome" which has been made into two Hollywood productions. The first I saw with Sterling Hayden. I have no idea who played the female leads.
What was Wharton's first novel?
GOLDSMITH It is pretty unusual. Wharton's first few novels like "The House of Mirth," that people might be familiar with, are sort of novels of manners, novels of sort of high New York society. And then, while living in New England, she was observing a lot of New England rural poverty, essentially. And that lead to the novel "The Fruit of the Tree" in 1908, which is about the situation in the mills in rural New England. And then, while living in Lenox, she found this story. And so this is one of three works about New England...
When was the first book of Edith Wharton published?
When Edith Wharton's novel "Ethan Frome" was first published in 1911 , reviews were largely negative. Critics called the story cruel and violent and sales of the novel were dismal. Today, Edith Wharton's haunting tale of forbidden romance in a rural New England town is her most widely read novel.
Was Wharton wealthy?
Wharton’s Wealth. Wharton was very wealthy – one of the wealthiest women in New York in the mid-19th century. Her family came from the family from whom the term “keeping up with the Joneses” was coined, Goldsmith said. “Money is involved in this novel all the time,” Pfordrescher said.
Who is the professor of English at Georgetown University?
REHM Of course. John Pfordrescher, professor of English at Georgetown University, Lisa Page who's president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Meredith Goldsmith, she's professor of English at Ursinus College, vice president of The Edith Wharton Society.
Did Jonathan Franzen write about Edith Wharton?
PAGE Yes, in last week's New Yorker, Jonathan Franzen has done an essay celebrating the 150th anniversary of Edith Wharton. And he talks about sympathy as this Facebook thing just said. But he talks about sympathy around Edith Wharton herself, that she couldn't have sympathy because she was such a wealthy woman, because she wasn't an attractive woman. And he also talks about the sympathy generated around her characters and whether she indeed had sympathy for her own characters, particularly when they were pretty women.
Overview
Reception
The New York Times called Ethan Frome "a compelling and haunting story." Edith Wharton was able to write an appealing book and separate it from her other works, where her characters in Ethan Frome are not of the elite upper class. However, the problems that the characters endure are still consistently the same, where the protagonist has to decide whether or not to fulfill their duty or follow their heart. She began writing Ethan Frome in the early 1900s when she was still …
Plot
The novel is a framed narrative. The framing story concerns an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, who is somehow compelling in his demeanor and carriage. This is Ethan Frome, who is a lifelong resident and a local fixture of the community. Frome is described by the narrator as "the most striking figure in Starkfield", "the ruin of a man" with a "careless powerful look ... in spite of a lam…
Development
The story of Ethan Frome had initially begun as a French-language composition that Wharton had to write while studying the language in Paris, but several years later she took the story up again and transformed it into the novel it now is, basing her sense of New England culture and place on her ten years of living at The Mount, her home in Lenox, Massachusetts. She would read portions of her novel-in-progress each day to her good friend Walter Berry, who was an international lawy…
Adaptations
The book was adapted to the 1993 film of the same name, directed by John Madden, and starring Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette, Joan Allen and Tate Donovan.
Cathy Marston adapted the book to a one-act ballet titled Snowblind for the San Francisco Ballet. The ballet premiered in 2018, with Ulrik Birkkjaer as Ethan, Sarah Van Patten as Zeena and Mathilde Froustey as Mattie.
External links
• Ethan Frome at Standard Ebooks
• Ethan Frome at Project Gutenberg
• Ethan Frome at Faded Page (Canada)
• Ethan Frome public domain audiobook at LibriVox (2 versions)