Critical Analysis Of Ethan Frome

One of the ways to turn a critical lens onto Edith Wharton’s writing would be to approach texts through various modes of reading. Through this approach, critical discourse often assumes that the text offers readings that work in spite of the text itself and that authorial intention does not matter. The premise of these tenets, of course, is that so much of textual analysis is rooted in a separation of text and author and also between text and reader. These distinctions provide a space in which Wharton thrives, particularly in Ethan Frome, whose narratives are multiple and fluid. Indeed, as a story fixed in rural Masachusetts, a town entirely of its own character and yet anonymous enough to serve as any town, Ethan Frome emblematizes an

However, if read under the scope of capitalist rule, “struggle” here evokes tension or conflict between multiple forces. Travis is right in calling Ethan’s pain a “condition,” but it is not one inherent to his being; rather, it is a condition that hinges upon his position within the town. Outcasted by what might be termed his social illiteracy, Ethan Frome suffers because he has not attempted to turn reading into an economic device. This failure to comply with a seemingly-omnipotent system thus defaults all other economic opportunities for Frome, including marriage. Frome’s position in a matrimonial contract, particularly in one with sickly Zeena, calls upon him to assume caretaking duties – responsibilities which, with a preoccupation with Mattie, are never fulfilled. Thus, when “the one pleasure” Zeena finds is “to inflict pain on him” (Wharton 78), Zeena, then, as not only wife but as proponent of capitalist normativity, avenges her economic loss through Frome’s pain. Frome’s marriage fails not simply because he is, in any moral or respectable way, a terrible husband or lover to

The escape is obvious; the “smash-up” should have meant certain death or irrevocable damage for both Mattie and Frome. But the most significant part to consider is systemic absorption that Frome seeks to avoid but to which he inevitably returns. That it, to return to the beginning of the story, twenty years after the incident, Ethan becomes that in which he refused to participate; he becomes spectacle, an object of projection, reading material for others to consume. Although he and Mattie literally move themselves via sleigh to get away from a broken model, they overlook the true reality of their world: globalization has engulfed every facet of public and private lives: even the town itself has become subject to the materialist elements of capitalist normativity. No matter where Frome goes, capitalist gain has taken over; there is no real way to escape the system. Perhaps Mrs. Hale evaluates the escape attempt best when she says that ‘“Ethan’s face’d break your heart…When I see that, I think it’s him that suffers most”’ (Wharton 92). Ethan’s physical scars are the tangible marks of the escape gone wrong, not simply in the sense that he is injured irreparably, but also in the way that his body will continue without his consent: his skin will repair and return – perhaps not in the same way as it existed before, but certainly in a way that suggests permanency. Ethan