Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

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Ethan Fromeby Edith Wharton
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Introduction
What happens if people miss a chance to find
happiness?

• Will they get another chance?

• What if they dont?

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In Ethan Frome,
An unnamed narrator is spending the winter in a
small New England town.
The deep snow keeps people trapped inside and
squashes most signs of life.
There is little to do except watch the other
people in the townand wonder about them.
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One of the people he observes is Ethan Frome, a
tall man with a dramatic limp and a scar on his
face.
Ethan lives on a bleak, poor farm.
He seems to have given up all personal interests
and finds no joy in life.
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He lives with his wife, Zeena, and her cousin,
Mattie Silverwho is paralyzed.
Both women seem unhappy and full of complaints
about their situation in life.
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What has happened to destroy these peoples
lives?
Why are they all trapped in misery?
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• Have you ever made up the life story of someone
  youve observed?
• If yes, why did you want to do so? And what did
  you imagine for/about that person?
• If no, of whom can you think that would be an
  interesting topic? Why?

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Ethan Frome Introduction
The unnamed narrator tries to figure it out and
offers his own version of a story.
Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie form a hopeless love
triangle in which each attempts to find happiness
or to escape, both of which only end in tragedy.
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Background
Ethan Frome is a frame story.
Story One
Story Two
Story One
In a frame story, one story introduces another
then returns to the original story at the
conclusion.
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The narrator begins the story with his own
experiences,
Ethans story
Narrators life
Narrators life
then he describes what he thinks happened to
Ethan Frome,
and finally returns to his own perspective at
the end of the novel.
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Discussion

• Of what other stories do you know that contain a
  frame story?
• Why do you think an author might choose to tell a
  story in this way?

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About the author
Edith Wharton was born into a rich and socially
prominent New York family in 1862.
Whartons grandfather was a general in the
Revolutionary War therefore, she grew up
familiar with all that goes along with
prestigious military families. private
tutors studied in Europe learned language
and literature of French, German, and Italian
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• Whartons first novel, The House of Mirth,
  focused on the same wealthy and sophisticated
  society that she knew so well.

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Despite her wealth, she did experience difficulty
in her life

• Her husband, who suffered from a mental disease,
  did not appreciate her writing, embezzled money
  from her to spend on another woman, and was
  abusive.

• It is said that her parents discovered and
  destroyed a book she had composed and printed
  secretly because they thought it unladylike for a
  young woman to write.

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Eventually, Wharton took bold steps for a woman
of her time and background She left and
eventually divorced her husband. She moved
to Paris, where she had an affair of her
own.She continued writing and won the Pulitzer
Prize in 1921 for her novel The Age of Innocence.
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• When Ethan Frome was published in 1911, some
  reviewers and readers were skeptical that Wharton
  could write realistically about poor farmers.

• Wharton responded that she wanted to show life as
  it really was in the poor villages of New England.

• She felt that many other writers had romanticized
  the poverty and toil that people in these towns
  faced.

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In the 1880s, life for New England farmers was
extremely difficult, filled with backbreaking
labor for little reward.
Life was often worse for their wives, who were
extremely isolated, working at home alone with no
television, radio, or telephone.
Relationships between husbands and wives were
dependent on one another, as the farms success
required the work of both.
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Characteristics of Whartons Writing

1. A moral conflict most often between an individual
   and a social group
2. The appreciation of life through art
3. The symbolism of the supernatural
4. Irony throughout
5. Characters are victims of social pressures and
   norms of society. They are hungry for emotional
   and intellectual experience and end up dying by
   beating their heads against the wall or by
   suffering a living death of resignation.