Ethan Frome (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Edith Wharton
- First Published: 1911
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: Late nineteenth century
- Setting: Starkfield, Massachusetts
- Principal Characters: Ethan Frome, Zenobia “Zeena” Frome, Mattie Silver
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism, Frame story
- Subjects: Love or romance, Suicide, Nineteenth century, Marriage, Villages, New England, Poverty or poor people, Jealousy, envy, or resentment, Farms, farmers, or farming, Adultery, Accidents, Sick persons, Fate or fatalism, Happiness, Sleds or sledding
- Locales: New England, Starkfield, MA
The Story:
Ethan Frome was twenty-one years old when he married Zenobia Pierce, a distant cousin who nursed his sick mother during her last illness. It was a wedding without love. Zenobia, called Zeena, had no home of her own, and Ethan was lonely. So they were married. Zeena’s talkativeness, which had been pleasing to Ethan during his mother’s illness, quickly subsided, and within a year of their marriage, Zeena developed the sickliness that was to plague her husband all her life. Ethan became increasingly dissatisfied with his life. He was an intelligent and ambitious...
[The entire page is 2374 words long]
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