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Essay about literature
Essay about literature
Essay about literature
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My written task is based on English A literature language syllabus and it caters under literature, part3.The text I have chosen is Ethan Frome which is a novella published in 1911 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Edith Wharton. It is a romantic tragedy and is set in a fictitious town of starkfield and the story revolves around the lives of Ethan, Zeena and Mattie. Ethan Frome from the very beginning aroused my curiosity and attention as it is a story with a lot of suspense and this is a story of human predicament. I chose to write a sequel because I wanted to bring out the parallelism between the story of Ethan Frome and the new anonymous and omniscient narrator. I wanted to create parallelism and show that the same
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This is also a big plot twist in the story. The sequel follows the same plot structure of Ethan from with a prologue, chapter and an epilogue. In this sequel, I have introduced a new anonymous narrator who gives a glimpse into the life of the engineer of Corbury junction who is the anonymous narrator in Ethan Frome. I named engineer of Corbury junction as Zeen to create further parallelism with him and Zeena as both are characters who tend to trouble their lovers and augment predicaments in their partner’s lives. Harmon Gow has a daughter who Zeen falls in love with and her name is Etha as she has a parallelism with Ethan Frome as both are characters who had the potential for success but were held back due to social and martial obligations. The narrative interspersed with dialogues. This written task consists of parallelism between the original text of Ethan Frome and the creative sequel. The climax scenes show contrast between the original text and the creative sequel as the sequel has a …show more content…
The moment he reached he went to the studios but it was closed. Alas! He had stayed in Millennium Biltmore hotel for the night. He found her in paramount pictures, his heart skipped a beat in the fraction of a second that he saw her and couldn’t believe what his eyes have seen. She was the most beautiful women, the ideal creation of God which only exists in the utopian world. As a Corbury junction engineer he felt that she had the right chemicals to make him fall in love with her. After looking at her in a peculiar manner he came back to his senses and told her while in grieve “ I don’t know how to say this to you and I am so sorry but but uhm someone who was really close to you is no longer here.”. The only thought that was going in her mind was not to be her father but deep down she knew it and started mourning. They went to starkfield together and Zeen provided her with more than adequate comfort and support. It was late at night when they had arrived and Zeen had offered her to stay in house and she accepted as she didn’t have anywhere else to go. Together they did all the arrangements and had conducted the funeral very well. As days passed the soreness had slowly started to decrease for
“For the first time in his life he sees her in a new light: he sees her as no longer the listless creature who had lived at his side in a state of self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence an evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding…” (Wharton 117) Edith Wharton is best known for her books Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth. Wharton was often compared to another writer in her time, Henry James. Even though this occurred, she considered her books one of a kind. She was pleased with her work, but the critics were not. Often, she received poor reviews, but this did not stop her; in fact, she then went on to be the first woman to win The Legion of Honor Medal. Wharton also won the Pulitzer Prize and a gold
The writing in the novel, Ethan Frome is fantastic. The love of Ethan Frome is crystal clear. Ethan and Mattie are both believably in love and Ethan's desperation grips the reader. Zeena, I think, is the most well described of them all. She is reality itself--beyond love, beyond fate, and it is she who outlasts them all. Although I think I fell in love with both Mattie and Ethan in this story and was feeling that intense love and pain of impending separation in their last moments together, the realist in me loved the ending! Zeena, the old witch, the nagging and cunning negative hag, is the one who is the rock in the moving stream. It's so 20th century. There is something black about the ending that you have to like.
Throughout “Ethan Frome,” Edith Wharton renders the idea that freedom is just out of reach from the protagonist, Ethan Frome. The presence of a doomed love affair and an unforgiving love triangle forces Ethan to choose between his duty and his personal desire. Wharton’s use of archetypes in the novella emphasizes how Ethan will make choices that will ultimately lead to his downfall. In Edith Wharton’s, “Ethan Frome.” Ethan is wedged between his duty as a husband and his desire for happiness; however, rather than choosing one or the other, Ethan’s indecisiveness makes not only himself, but Mattie and Zeena miserable.
In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the protagonist Ethan Frome has an unusual personality. Along with this, Ethan’s motivations seem hidden. Ethan mainly associates with his wife Zeena and his young lover Mattie. The reason his social circle is limited is because the town has shunned him. The people have isolated him due to the decisions he has made. The story begins with the new town Reverend who forms a special interest in Ethan. Furthermore, the story goes back in time to explain why the town treats Ethan the way they do.
Ethan Frome is the main character of Edith Wharton’s tragic novel. Ethan lives the bitterness of his youth’s lost opportunities, and dissatisfaction with his joyless life and empty marriage. Throughout the story Ethan is trapped by social limits and obligations to his wife. He lives an unhappy life with many responsibilities and little freedom. Ethan Frome studied science in college for a year and probably would have succeeded as an engineer or physicist had he not been summoned home to run the family farm and mill. Ethan quickly ended his schooling and went to run the family farm and mill because he feels it is his responsibility. He marries Zeena after the death of his mother, in an unsuccessful attempt to escape silence, isolation, and loneliness. Ethan also feels the responsibility to marry Zeena as a way to compensate her for giving up part of her life to nurse his mother. After marring Zeena he forgets his hope of every continuing his education and he is now forced to remain married to someone he does not truly love.
Many people oppose society due to the surroundings that they face and the obstacles that they encounter. Set in the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is the story of a poor, lonely man, his wife Zeena, and her cousin Mattie Silver. Ethan the protagonist in this novel, faces many challenges and fights to be with the one he really loves. Frome was trapped from the beginning ever since Mattie Silver came to live with him and his wife. He soon came to fall in love with her, and out of love with his own wife. He was basically trapped in the instances of his life, society’s affect on the relationship, love, poverty, illness, disability, and life.
Perhaps Edith Wharton's reason for writing Ethan Frome, was that it so vividly reflected her own dreary life. Abandoned of any love as a child from her mother and trapped in a marriage similar to that of Zeena and Ethan, Wharton found herself relying on illicit love. This illicit love was also her favorite topic of writing, which helped her to escape her own tragedies. She spent many nights in the arms of other men searching desperately for the love she believed existed, but had never felt, which is evident in all of her writings.
Ethan Frome is a popular novel written in 1911 by Edith Wharton. The plot of the novel consists of an unnamed narrator who tells the tragic tale of a poor farmer in the New England area. Ethan Frome is married to a cranky old lady, but falls in love with his wife’s cousin who helps out around the house. In the climax of the story the two in love attempt suicide to free themselves from Zeena’s control but end up handicapped for the rest of their life. Even though he isn’t the protagonist of the story the character that needs to be analyzed is the narrator. Edith Wharton uses the narrator to retell his interpretations of the story of Ethan Frome and in turn reveals his inner thoughts.
Edith Wharton, originally named “Edith Newbold Jones”(Cliff Notes), was born on “January 24, 1862 in New York City to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander Jones and died on August 11, 1937”(Cliff Notes). She was born into a wealthy family and was a “designer, short story writer and American novelist”(Cliff Notes). Wharton descended from the English and Dutch cultures. She had two siblings, one known as “Frederic Rhinelander Jones” (Cliff Notes) who was sixteen years older than her, and “Henry Edward Jones eleven years older”(Cliff Notes). While her brothers attended boarding school, Wharton became “raised as an only child in a brownstone mansion on West Twenty-third Street in New York City”(Cliff
Edith Wharton, a famous author of many outstanding books, wrote a chaotic love story entitled Ethan Frome. The story took place in the wintery town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Wharton was a sophisticated young woman who found love in sitting down and holding people’s attention by way of a pen. Wharton wrote yet another thriller that told the tale of two love stricken people that barely found it possible to be together; which later forced them to fall into the temptation of love that cannot be controlled. Wharton had many different writing styles but for different books meant different needs. In Edith Wharton’s novel, Ethan Frome, frustration and loneliness play roles in disappointment while imagery, symbolism, and individual responsibility provide the novel with a tortuous plot.
Ethan Frome the main character from the book entitled Ethan Frome has many signs of weakness throughout the story. His family died, and his wife is sick. His only source of light is Mattie one of Zeena’s, his wife, cousin. In this case, Ethan suffers from the tragic flaw that he lacks strength. He doesn’t take control and shows great weaknesses by surrendering to his loneliness, not standing up to his wife to fix his past mistakes, and his inability to live without Mattie.
The isolation of the farm and the cold winter illustrates how Ethan feels throughout his life: alone and isolated from his true feelings (Knights 76). His feelings of love for Mattie are unable to be shown, so he awaits his fate, frozen in the trap of love (Bernard 179). The bleak landscape helps set the tone for the readers. This desolate environment shows how much Ethan is suffering as he goes through his daily life (McDowell 30). There is a type of emotional starvation in the once thriving, but now pathetic life of Ethan Frome (Wolff 232).
In the book “Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton, Ethan, the main character in the book, experiences many episodes of isolation persuading him to escape from and cope with them with outlets of hope, only leading to a life of permanent isolation. The story depicts a classic ironic switch of roles and a triangle of unusual “love.” With many people coming and going, Ethan looks to rely on someone to relieve his isolation and communicate with, only setting him up for trouble.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
The characters in the novel get caught up in a frenzy of hate, scandal, and love. Newland Archer is a wealthy societal man who views his wife, May, as the reason for his unhappiness. In addition, Newland Archer get swept into the scandal and falls in love with Ellen, who he sees as a route to independence. Ellen Olenska, the cousin of May, brings a tornado of scandal to New York and becomes the center of criticism in society. In The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Archer and Ellen describe the desire for freedom in order to portray society as an oppressor.