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= Ethan_Frome =
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Introduction
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'Ethan Frome' is a 1911 novella by American author Edith Wharton. It
details the story of a man who falls in love with his wife's cousin
and the tragedies that result from the ensuing love triangle. The
novel has been adapted into a film of the same name.
Plot
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An unnamed male narrator is working for a power plant, and due to a
carpenter's strike finds himself forced to spend a winter in the
nearby small town of (fictional) Starkfield, Massachusetts. The man
who daily chauffeurs him to work is a limping, quiet man named Ethan
Frome, a lifelong resident and local fixture of the community. The
narrator learns that Frome's limp arose from being injured in an
accident. The story then flashes back 24 years to detail Frome's past.
The young Frome is married to a sickly woman named Zeena (Zenobia),
who appears older than her age, is unkind to Ethan, and whose life
revolves around seeking expensive treatments for her varied illnesses.
Although the Fromes have limited means themselves, they have
charitably taken in Zeena's cousin Mattie, whose family is poor. Ethan
falls in love with Mattie, and it becomes increasingly clear that
Mattie also loves him. While it remains ambiguous if Zeena suspects
Ethan's unfaithfulness, she makes plans to send Mattie away. Zeena
claims that, because of her failing health, her physician has
recommended she hire a maid who will relieve her of housework. Zeena
has already arranged for the hired girl to arrive by train soon, and
Mattie must vacate her room immediately. Ethan, miserable at the
thought of losing Mattie, considers running away with her, but he
lacks the money to do so, and will feel guilty about leaving Zeena
with the farm.
The next morning, Ethan rushes into town to try to get a cash advance
from a customer for a load of lumber in order to have the money with
which to elope with Mattie. His plan is unhinged by guilt, however,
when the customer's wife expresses honest compassion for Ethan. He
realizes that he cannot cheat this kindly woman and her husband out of
their money.
Ethan comes back to the farm and picks up Mattie to take her to the
train station. They stop at a hill upon which they had once planned to
go sledding and decide to sled together as a way of delaying their sad
parting. After their first run, Mattie suggests a suicide pact: that
they go down again, and steer the sled directly into a big elm tree,
so they will never be parted and so that they may spend their last
moments together. The resulting crash leaves both of them alive, Ethan
with a permanent limp and Mattie paralyzed from a spinal injury.
Returning to the present, the narrator tells of being forced by a
blizzard to stay the night at the Frome house, the first stranger to
enter the house in 20 years. He witnesses an unhappy scene with
Mattie and the Fromes living together, with Zeena as Mattie's
caregiver. Ethan and Mattie have gotten their wish to stay together,
but in mutual unhappiness and discontent, and ironically Mattie has
now developed an irritable disposition, and the sickly Zeena is rising
to the challenge of becoming a caretaker. Zeena is a constant
presence between the two of them, although it remains ambiguous as to
whether she knew of their dalliance.
Development
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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 lawyer. Wharton likely based the story of Ethan and
Mattie's sledding experience on an accident that she had heard about
in 1904 in Lenox. 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. A girl named Emily Hazel
Crosby was killed in the accident. Wharton learned of the accident
from one of the girls who survived, Kate Spencer, when the two became
friends while both worked at the Lenox Library. Kate Spencer suffered
from a hip injury in the accident and also had facial injuries. It is
among the few works by Wharton with a rural setting. Wharton found the
notion of the tragic sledding crash to be irresistible as a potential
extended metaphor for the wrongdoings of a secret love affair.
Lenox is also where Wharton had traveled extensively and had come into
contact with at least one of the victims of the accident; victims of
the accident are buried in graves nearby Wharton family members. In
her introduction to the novel, Wharton talks of the "outcropping
granite" of New England, the austerity of its land and the stoicism of
its people. There are frequent references to larch, elm, pine, and
hemlock trees. The connection between land and people is very much a
part of naturalism; the environment is a powerful shaper of man's
fate, and the novel dwells insistently on the cruelty of Starkfield's
winters.
Reception
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'The New York Times' called 'Ethan Frome' "a compelling and haunting
story." 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."
Jeffrey Lilburn notes that some find "the suffering endured by
Wharton's characters is quite bleak and makes for a dull read," 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." Wharton was
always careful to label 'Ethan Frome' as a brief reminiscence rather
than a novel. Critics did take note of this when reviewing the book,
some in more candor than others. Elizabeth Ammons reflected that
reading Wharton's novel compelled her to reminisce upon when
literature was more enthralling. She found a story that functions as a
"realistic social criticism," a reminder that some are willing to
indulge in dull prose based solely upon the name of the author.
Despite her obvious quarrels with the work, Ammons proceeded to
analyze the text. The moral concepts, as described by Ammons, are
revealed with all of the brutality of Starkfield's winters. Comparing
Mattie Silver and Zeena Frome, Ammons suggests that Mattie would grow
as frigid and crippled as Zeena, so long as such women remain isolated
and dependent. Wharton cripples Mattie, says Lilburn, but has her
survive in order to demonstrate the cruelty of the culture surrounding
women in that period.
Adaptations
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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
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* (2 versions)
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[
https://archive.org/download/BestPlays/BestPlays53-09-1351EthanFrome.mp3
1953 'Best Plays' radio adaptation] at Internet Archive
License
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Frome
