Edith Wharton

A detailed Summary of Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a story about a man named Ethan and his life story. Edith Wharton helps create a very vivid picture of the events that go on in the book. She helped create this picture through irony, characterization, and the attitude of man versus himself.

Edith Wharton wrote Ethan Frome in 1911. Wharton was an American author who wrote in the early 20th century. Her most popular work was Ethan Frome. She was brought up in a wealthy family and had the perspective of an upper class person. Many of her stories show the contrasts of traditional values and the degeneration of these values from generation to generation. Edith Wharton was a very talented author and had an excellent perspective on life.

Ethan Frome is from Starkfield, Massachusetts, a small New England village. In the beginning, Ethan meets up with a man whose work has brought him to Starkfield. This man had previously seen Ethan and thought a lot of him. “Even then he was the most striking character in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man”(Wharton 1). The people in the village see Ethan as awkward or strange but they also are somewhat amazed by him. There is a certain quality about him that interests people.

When Ethan and Mattie are out on the hill, Ethan was trying to fight his true feelings and just leave but he could not. Mattie and he decided to try and commit suicide so they could be together forever. He won the battle of man versus himself because he went with his heart but in reality he lost. As he and Mattie attempted suicide, they both failed. The irony was that Mattie became paralyzed and completely disabled and Ethan was crippled. Ethan took away everything Mattie had when he agreed to try and commit suicide. If he had listened to his wife and let Jotham take Mattie, this would not have happened. Jotham would have taken her to the station and she would have more than likely got there safely. Because of what they both chose to do, only Mattie was really hurt by the situation. Things did not turn out as planned. Mattie continued to live with the Frome’s but she and Ethan were no longer in love. Ethan stayed married to Zeena and continued on with the rest !

In the flashback, Zeena was always very sick. She was visiting doctors and people always felt sorry for her. She had everyone’s pity. Mattie was there to help take care of her and help with the household chores. Once the flashback is over and it is back in the present, the irony comes out. After Ethan and Mattie crashed, Zeena is no longer sick. She has overcome her illness and is once again caring for the sick.

of his life. I think Ethan was still fighting the battle of man versus himself at the end of the story. I don’t think he was still in love with Mattie and I know he doesn’t love Zeena. I think he wants to leave both of them but knows he doesn’t have the money or the strength to do it. He is once again doing what he feels he is obligated to do and not what he wants to do.

When the book started, Ethan met Zeena and she was taking care of his ill mother. After his mother died, Zeena and Ethan were married. I think Ethan felt obligated to marry Zeena. He never loved her, but because she had stayed with his mother for so long he felt he had too. I believe that this was a case of man versus his conscience and the conscience won. He went with what he thought he had to do, not what he wanted to do.

Although Zeena claimed to be ill, in reality she was just making herself ill. “ Zeena had always been what Starkfield called ‘sickly,’ and Frome had to admit that, if she were as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm than the one which lay so lightly in his during the night walks to the farm” (Wharton 35). The arm he was referring to was Mattie Silver’s. Mattie came to take care of Zeena. Zeena was constantly complaining and never satisfied with an

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Approximate Word count = 1845
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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