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Ethan Frome
This novel is filled with different types and examples of irony. The most obvious examples are found within the ending of the novel. It is great situational irony that Ethan intends to commit...
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Ethan Frome
"Ethan Frome" is a novel by Edith Wharton about a man, Ethan, his wife, Zeena, and her cousin, Mattie Silver. Ethan is obsessed with Mattie but married to Zeena. The story opens with Ethan...
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Ethan Frome
This is actually a great question because there is no textual answer -- you have to consider what he might be trying to accomplish by being at the front of the sled as they try to run down the hill...
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Ethan Frome
The main example that Wharton uses is when Ethan describes the sledding hill for the first time and tells Mattie about how the tree could really do some damage, should anyone hit it. Chapter 1:...
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Ethan Frome
At the end of Edith Wharton's gothic tale, there is a Poe-like tone to the comment of Mrs. Hale. For, she implies that Ethan is trapped in a living death. The irony of his state is striking:...
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Ethan Frome
Communication is an important theme in Ethan Frome because the story shows how little of it actually takes place in the Frome household. This continuous lack of communication only intensifies the...
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Ethan Frome
Of course, any work of literature contains a number of rhetorical devices, and this excellent novel is no exception. Let us remember that rhetorical devices allow the speaker to try and persuade...
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Ethan Frome
In her essay,"Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome and the Question of Meaning," Elizabeth Ammons examines the novella as an inverted fairy tale modeled after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as Wharton...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan and Mattie's love for each other is not selfish or carnal; it represents instead the deep human longing for spiritual connection with another. When Ethan and Mattie first meet, each lives in...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan's tragedy lies in what his life could have become had he been able to free himself from Starkfield, first as a very young man and then later at the age of 28. When he was very young, Ethan...
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Ethan Frome
Mattie Silver comes from Stamford, and she comes to the Fromes' Starkfield home by train. Ethan goes to meet the train at the Flats and bring Mattie the rest of the way in his wagon, and he is...
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Ethan Frome
Having spent a night together with Mattie without the troubling presence of Zeena in Chapter Five, Ethan wakes up the next morning in Chapter Six with a feeling of happiness and joy. Although, as...
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Ethan Frome
Foreshadowing of the accident begins in Chapter VIII of Wharton's Ethan Frome as Ethan forms a letter to Zeena explaining that he is leaving to start a new life out West. However, Ethan halts his...
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Ethan Frome
Little is known of Ethan Frome's father as he is only mentioned in Chapter I and later in Chapter 4 as having died of an accident, presumably on the farm or in the sawmill, when Ethan was a...
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Ethan Frome
It is in the prologue of Edith Wharton's novel Ethan Frome where we find the description of both Ethan and his place of residence. The prologue serves as a wonderful conduit to help us realize the...
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Ethan Frome
As what has been termed a "study in frustration, loneliness, and moral responsibility," Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome presents several conflicts for Ethan Frome, both internal and external: External...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton uses a good deal of irony to its advantage. In literature, we generally talk about 3 different types of irony— verbal, situational, and dramatic. We define dramatic...
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Ethan Frome
An argument can certainly be made for this moral of warning against the assuming of responsibilities to which a person cannot resign himself. For, in a moment of weakness in his fear of living...
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Ethan Frome
We get more impressions of decay and darkness from the mood of the story than from actual description when learning about the state of the home of Ethan Frome. We know already that he is poor, so...
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Ethan Frome
There are a few different themes that can be seen in Ethan Frome. One of them is the contrast of personal fulfillment as compared to duty to family and society. This is made clear through the...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan does not like Denis Eady as he is jealous of him. Unlike Ethan, who is shy, unhappily married, and struggles to make a living, Eady is a confident, successful young businessman, like his...
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Ethan Frome
The eponymous character Ethan Frome is a tragic hero because he is flawed and because fate is against him. A tragic hero is described as a character with either great traits, or with promising...
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Ethan Frome
In the conclusion of Ethan Frome, the narrator entered Ethan's house as a courtesy from Ethan considering that he had been the man's driver for a while. He had known the story of Ethan as the...
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Ethan Frome
This question relates explicitly to the whole question of point of view and narration, which is particularly interesting in this book. Firstly, because the narrator is an outsider of Starkfield who...
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Ethan Frome
He realized he had no money and even though he had plans and intended to borrow money from Andrew Hale, when he tried and spoke to Hale's wife her words of sympathy made him feel guilty and so he...
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Ethan Frome
The pickle dish is significant for several reasons. The first is that it is a fancy dish that was very special to Zeena. She treasured it, because it was a wedding gift, and she only brought it...
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Ethan Frome
Money is a very important element in this story, because it drives a lot of the frustrations and unhappiness of the characters. Ethan's mill never makes very much money, so he doesn't have the...
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Ethan Frome
This is one of the most significant lines in the whole book. Mrs. Hale is referring to the recovery of Mattie after the misguided suicide attempt by Ethan and Mattie. Ethan becomes the weak,...
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Ethan Frome
This passage describes a scene of snowy desolation. The narrator is riding in a wagon with Ethan Frome; they reach a fork in the road by the schoolhouse, and go to the left down a lane where...
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Ethan Frome
This is novel is rich in imagery, and sometimes personfication adds to the picture that is created for the reader. Personficaiton is the assigning of human qualites or abilities to non-human...
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Ethan Frome
Chapter Five of this short novel is the pivotal chapter in which Mattie and Ethan share their solitary dinner together and seem to pretend what life would be like if the two of them were the...
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Ethan Frome
The connection between Ethan and Mattie as it is presented in the novel surpasses the physical. They are drawn to each other as soul mates, finding in each other their own deepest emotions. When...
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Ethan Frome
Similes are where you compare two different things, using the words like or as. So, for example, "my love is like a red rose," or "my love is as constant as the sunshine." When you are looking...
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Ethan Frome
Simply put, the sled in Edith Wharton's novel Ethan Frome represents freedom in more ways than one. However, it will later become a symbol of oppression and despair. The story takes place in the...
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Ethan Frome
With a sickliness that has "made her notable, Zeena Frome announces to Ethan that in the morning she will stay at her aunt's and then consult her doctor. Relieved that she would trust him so...
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Ethan Frome
Of course there will be differences between a novel and a movie made from that novel; the question for readers is always what the director will choose to omit, add, or change. In the case of Ethan...
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Ethan Frome
The setting of Ethan Frome is New England, specifically the town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. While the town is fictional, the description that accompanies it very much resembles a traditional...
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Ethan Frome
At the beginning of the book, the narrator describes Ethan Frome as "the ruin of a man." Ethan is very tall, and stands out in contrast to the majority of the other denizens of the area, who tend...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan doesn't want to face the bleakness of a New England winter by himself, so he impulsively proposes to Zeena to avoid that fate. Winter is traditionaly a season of cold isolation due to the...
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Ethan Frome
In Chapter IV after Zeena rather unexpectedly informs Ethan that she needs to see some new doctors in Springfield about her "shooting pains," Ethan is relieved to know that Jotham Powell will drive...
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Ethan Frome
From the very first reference to Ethan Frome's damaged physique the narrator, and we as readers, are increasingly interested in the precise details of how Ethan Frome had his "smash up." Harmon...
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Ethan Frome
Three specific literary devices are used in the movie version of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, and all three of them are also used in the novel. The use of a framed story, of flashback, and of...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan Frome’s house is very bare and stark, old and run-down, and missing the “L.” Described as a lonely New England farmhouse, the “Frome farm was always ’bout as bare's a milkpan when the cat's...
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Ethan Frome
Let us remind ourselves that similes and metaphors are both examples of figurative language when one thing is compared to something else that is normally not associated with the first object. The...
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Ethan Frome
With this alliteration, the author Edith Wharton is telling the reader something about Ethan's character. On the surface he appears to be "grave and inarticulate", especially in the isolated...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan, who is not very practiced at lying or deceiving people, doesn't want to take his wife to the station, because he wants to be at home where he can spend more time with Mattie during her...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan and Zeena had been married for seven years when Mattie came to keep house for them. Zeena had "fallen silent" after the first year of their marriage, and during the remainder of those seven...
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Ethan Frome
After Zeena returns earlier than anticipated from her distant visit to the doctor in Bettsbridge, Ethan misses his opportunity to repair the broken pickle dish. Still, he hopes to detain Jotham who...
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Ethan Frome
Ethan Frome certainly is a very disillusioned man with a frustrating set of circumstances that have prevented him to live his life to the fullest, but I do not see any correlation between his...
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Ethan Frome
In American history--specifically that of New England where Wharton's narrative is also set--the elm tree holds much significance. For, in Boston there was a large, tall elm tree which came to be...
