In realist novels, the author gives readers a sense of the real world by avoiding the dramatic aspects of other genre of novels. The realist novels are more focused on the character(s) rather than the action and the plot by showing the character’s real complications of nature and motives in society. Therefore, “realist novels typically end in fall or failure, often as an ironic commentary on social values of self-improvement or success. A character may get what he or she desires, but be faced with the unexpected consequences of that desire” [Prompt]. In Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, Lily Bart’s ending is an ironic rise because her meeting with Nettie and paying back her debts gives her the strength and courage to chase after her own happiness, but Lawrence Selden’s ending is an ironic fall because of his failure to overcome his cowardice and tentativeness to propose to Lily. The endings of both Lily and Selden defines the cruelty of the social system that forces women to marry for economic reasons and condemns them with poverty if they fail to do so.
Set in New York City in the 1800’s, Wharton’s The House of Mirth is about the protagonist, Lily Bart’s struggle to enter the upper-class society through marriage, which ultimately leads to the downfall of her fortunes. In the end, Lily is forced to act upon a compromising social situation and is rejected from society. At Bryant Park, Lily meets Nettie, a girl Lily saved when she was participating in a Gerty charity organization. It turns out that Lily saved Nettie, who is now successfully married. Lily holds Nettie’s baby for a little bit and for that single moment, she felt happier and stronger. Then at home, Lily receives a check of ten thousand dollars from Mrs. P...
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...when he had the chance. Selden is a lawyer but did not have much wealth. This lack of wealth prevents Lily from marrying him even though they are in love. Knowing this cruelty of the social system, Selden detaches himself from society and tries to stay as an observer. Unfortunately, his wish to court Lily and then marry her interferes. In the end, Selden finally realizes that if he “had been willing to stake his future on his faith in her—and if the moment had been fated to pass from them before they could seize it, he saw now that, for both, it had been saved whole out of the ruin of their lives” (Wharton 350). Because of his lack of courage, Selden lost his only chance in love and happiness. Ironically, the moment he decides to propose to Lily, he finds her dead and kneels next to her, devastated, and claims that they would have eventually ended up together.
Wharton’s parents raised her in aristocratic society. Her father, George supported the family working in real estate, while her mother Lucerita was a stay at home mom. Her mother was devoted to high society, and was unsupportive of her interests in writing. (Todd and Wetzel) Unlike her mother, Morton Fullerton supported Wharton. While in England, Wharton met Fullerton. As their relationship progressed, she became close friends with Katharine Fullerton. Katharine was Morton’s orphaned sister, that his family took in. (Witkosky) While Wharton was in England her husband was seeking “cures” for his depression. As portrayed in the novel, Ethan Frome’s wife Zeena was constantly seeking cures for her illness. Like Teddy, Zeena was isolated from society and kept to herself. Ethan’s wife was devoted to high society because she came from an aristocratic home. Therefore, Zeena never supported Ethan’s interest in becoming an engineer. Wharton’s mother was alike to Zeena when it came to how her life was lived. Ethan’s lover, Mattie Silver, was taken in by the Frome’s in the novel. She had no family who wanted her just like Katharine Fullerton. Mattie was raised by the Frome’s in a society she did not know how to adapt to because she was never taught how. “Mattie is attempting unsuccessfully to fit in a society she does not understand.”
“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen” (“Brainy Quotes” 1). In Edith Wharton’s framed novel, Ethan Frome, the main protagonist encounters “lost opportunity, failed romance, and disappointed dreams” with a regretful ending (Lilburn 1). Ethan Frome lives in the isolated fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts with his irritable spouse, Zenobia Frome. Ever since marriage, Zenobia, also referred to as Zeena, revolves around her illness. Furthermore, she is prone to silence, rage, and querulously shouting. Ethan has dreams of leaving Starkfield and selling his plantation, however he views caring for his wife as a duty and main priority. One day, Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver, comes to assist the Frome’s with their daily tasks. Immediately, Mattie’s attractive and youthful energy resuscitates Ethan’s outlook on life. She brings a light to Starkfield and instantaneously steals Ethan’s heart; although, Ethan’s quiet demeanor and lack of expression causing his affection to be surreptitious. As Zeena’s health worsens, she becomes fearful and wishes to seek advice from a doctor in a town called Bettsbridge giving Ethan and Mattie privacy for one night. Unfortunately, the night turns out to be a disastrous and uncomfortable evening. Neither Ethan nor Mattie speaks a word regarding their love for one another. Additionally, during their dinner, the pet cat leaps on the table and sends a pickle dish straight to the floor crashing into pieces. To make matters worse, the pickle dish is a favored wedding gift that is cherished by Zeena. Later, Zeena discovers it is broken and it sends her anger over the edge. Furious, Zeena demands for a more efficient “hired girl” to complete the tasks ar...
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 small, desolate town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan Frome lives a life of poverty. Not only does he live hopelessly, but “he was a prisoner for life” to the economy (Ammons 2). A young engineer from outside of town narrates the beginning of the story. He develops a curiosity towards Ethan Frome and the smash-up that he hears about in bits and pieces. Later, due to a terrible winter storm that caused the snow itself to seem like “a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on us layer by layer” (Wharton 20), the narrator is forced to stay the night at Frome’s. As he enters the unfamiliar house, the story flashes back twenty-four years to Ethan Frome’s young life. Living out his life with Zenobia Frome, his hypochondriac of a wife whom he does not love, Ethan has nowhere to turn for a glance at happiness. But when Zenobia’s, or Zeena’s, young cousin, Mattie Silver, comes to care for her, Ethan falls in love with the young aid. Mattie is Ethan’s sole light in life and “she is in contrast to everything in Starkfield; her feelings bubble near the surface” (Bernard 2). All through the novella, the two young lovers hide their feelings towards each other. When they finally let out their true emotions to each other in the end, the consequence is an unforeseen one. Throughout Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton portrays a twisted fairy tale similar to the story of Snow White with the traditional characters, but without a happy ending to show that in a bleak and stark reality, the beautiful and enchanting maiden could become the witch.
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.
Edith Wharton’s brief, yet tragic novella, Ethan Frome, presents a crippled and lonely man – Ethan Frome – who is trapped in a loveless marriage with a hypochondriacal wife, Zenobia “Zeena” Frome. Set during a harsh, “sluggish” winter in Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan and his sickly wife live in a dilapidated and “unusually forlorn and stunted” New-England farmhouse (Wharton 18). Due to Zeena’s numerous complications, they employ her cousin to help around the house, a vivacious young girl – Mattie Silver. With Mattie’s presence, Starkfield seems to emerge from its desolateness, and Ethan’s vacant world seems to be awoken from his discontented life and empty marriage. And so begins Ethan’s love adventure – a desperate desire to have Mattie as his own; however, his morals along with his duty to Zeena and his natural streak of honesty hinder him in his ability to realize his own dreams. Throughout this suspenseful and disastrous novella, Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton effectively employs situational irony enabling readers to experience a sudden shock and an unexpected twist of events that ultimately lead to a final tragedy in a living nightmare.
In Edith Wharton’s powerful work Ethan Frome, she introduces two leading female characters and instantly creates a comparison of the two within the reader’s eyes. This, not coincidentally, is the same comparison the protagonist Ethan constantly faces and struggles with throughout the novel. On one hand, Zenobia, commonly called Zeena, Frome has been a long-standing part of Ethan’s life. Years of marriage, although not always happy, combined with her always declining health, cause Ethan to feel indebted and sympathetic towards her. While, on the other, Mattie Silver, a relative of Zeena walks into the life of the Frome’s, and with her brings a new feeling of life and vitality to which Ethan has never experienced before. Her appearance in his life sparks feeling of passion, which in turn leads to an awkward tension created in the household where Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie all reside. The foiling actions and characteristics of these two women underlie the main struggle within Ethan throughout the novel.
The novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton tells the story of Ethan Frome and the tragedy he faces in his life. The story mainly focuses on the relationships between and among Ethan, his wife, and his wife’s cousin, with whom he is in love. Wharton uses different literary devices to develop the plot, including irony as one of the most effective. The use of irony in the novel, especially in the climatic sledding scene, greatly adds to the development of the tragedy.
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
Although when we are young, we commonly find ourselves gravitating to books with predictable endings that leave the protagonist and us with what we want, as we mature we develop a hunger for different, more thoughtful or realistic solutions. This is not to say, however, that we can be satisfied solely through the reading of any story that concludes with mere tragedy. The reason why the book Ethan Frome is so widely read is because there is a great deal of technique behind the element of mere tragedy. Edith Wharton is able to distinguish her novel through the use of irony. Irony has been the defining element of many great pieces of literature throughout time. The use of irony dates back all the way to ancient Greece when it was used by Sophocles in the play Oedipus Rex. Irony was also a key element in many of Shakespeare's works and appears in many famous short stories. In Ethan Frome, Ethan ends up falling in love with Mattie who at the time seems young and effervescent in comparison to his sickly, deteriorating wife. In attempting to free himself and Mattie from his commitment to Zeena, Ethan ends up causing Mattie to become paralyzed, taking with it her previous, lively characteristics. All the household responsibilities then fall into the hands of Zeena who is ultimately the most vivacious of the three.
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.
... lavishness now seemed to beckon her with open arms to a life a where she could live expensively. Despite she sadness she was facing Lily knew she could not return to the realm of elites, “it was happiness she still wanted and the glimpse she had caught of it made everything else of no account” (449). At this stage of the novel, the demise of the Lily whose most ardent desire was money, power and prestige was complete. Lily’s loneliness and lack in what Lawrence show Lily that there is a fate that will cause greater pain than lack of wealth. Near her tragic end, Lily finds herself without both of her competing desires. It is then she finally understand that a life without love, happiness and freedom causes greater misfortune that a life without wealth.
Newland loathes the monotonous conversations with May and repetitiveness of his job. Newland respects and loves May with all his heart, but when she begins to call him original, Newland realizes she was always “going to say the right thing” (Age of Innocence 22) because she was simply giving the replies “instinct and tradition” have taught her (Age of Innocence 72). Cynthia Griffin Wolff, in her article entitled “Edith Wharton”, declares that the small world of New York was “suffocating” and “stifled spontaneous expressions of emotion” (3). Also, Newland lived in a kind of “hieroglyphic world” where what someone actually wanted to say was never said or thought, but just “represented by a set of arbitrary signs” (Age of Innocence 40).
Set in 1881 Starkfield, Massachusetts, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome reveals a recurring theme in literature: “the classic war between a passion and responsibility.” In this novel, protagonist Ethan Frome confronts the demands of two private passions: his desire to become an engineer that conflicts with his moral duty to his family and his love for Mattie Silver that conflicts with his obligations to his wife Zeena. Inevitably placing the desires and well-being of his family before his own, Ethan experiences only “‘[s]ickness and trouble’” and “‘that’s what [he’s] had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping’” (12). The reader understands Ethan’s struggles when he abandons his studies at Worcester, when he considers running
In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, there is a prevalent conflict of class struggles. Ethan Frome, his wife Zeena, and their maid Mattie all live in extreme poverty. Wharton portrays them as miserable beings, seemingly always encompassed in misfortune. Wharton herself, however, lived a near opposite life compared to that of her characters. She was born into fortune; money was rarely a concern for her (Lee). Through a Marxist lens, one could argue that Edith Wharton, a woman of extreme wealth and privilege, would characterize lower, working class people such as the ones in Ethan Frome in an inaccurately dismal light. The consistent image of winter and coldness, typically associated with misery, in Ethan Frome foreshadows an unhappy ending for the