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Ethan Frome, a poor, downtrodden New England farmer is trapped in a loveless marriage to his invalid wife, Zeena. His ambition and intelligence are oppressed by Zeena's cold, conniving character. When Zeena's young cousin Mattie arrives to help care for her, Ethan is immediately taken by Mattie's warm, vivacious personality. They fall desperately in love as he realizes how much is missing from his life and marriage. Tragically, their love is doomed by Zeena's ever-lurking presence and by the social conventions of the day. Ethan remains torn between his sense of obligation and his urge to satisfy his heart's desire up to the suspenseful and unanticipated conclusion.… (more)
BookshelfMonstrosity: In Remembering Laughter a woman confronts her husband's escalating use of alcohol; in Ethan Frome the title character's wife is difficult and demanding. Both novels elegantly depict a husband obsessed with his wife's sister, resulting in a love triangle with tragic consequences.… (more)
I first read Ethan Frome in high school, and I'll never forget the ending. It's so poignant and destructive and so complete. It's just as haunting the second time around.
Of course, what makes the ending so memorable is the cast of characters. You can feel their dependence on each other and growing entrapment. Zeena, Ethan, and Mattie all need each other but also destroy each other. Reading about them gives me chills, but I love it! Normally, I prefer to read happy books like Jane Austen, but this book sticks around and really warns readers about fearing loneliness and making rash decisions based on that. I think everyone can relate to this book in some way or another.
If you want a haunting tale with unique characters or the tragic equivalent to an Austen book, I highly recommend Edith Wharton. ( )
This is an amazing book, considering it was written by a wealthy urbanite. It proves the falsity of "write what you know", although I think Edith Wharton must be aware of the sensation of overwhelming loneliness, as she writes of it so well. People trapped by a moment's decision, people enclosed by grinding poverty...they are all here, struggling to cope with their isolation and deep pain. New England is the site for this book, but the narrowness of life is something I've seen everywhere. ( )
This was a solid story. I enjoyed the attention to detail and the character's personalities. I found the dynamics between the main 3 to be so different from one another which added interest. This was my first by Edith Wharton and I am looking forward to reading more in the future.
This was romantic, sad, and realistic aside from the cringe-worthy moment when Ethan kisses the fabric. If you have read this, you know what I mean. This story makes me feel fortunate to not be trapped in a loveless marriage.
This is a good short classic novel for those wanting to get into reading 'fine' literature. ( )
This was a solid story. I enjoyed the attention to detail and the character's personalities. I found the dynamics between the main 3 to be so different from one another which added interest. This was my first by Edith Wharton and I am looking forward to reading more in the future.
This was romantic, sad, and realistic aside from the cringe-worthy moment when Ethan kisses the fabric. If you have read this, you know what I mean. This story makes me feel fortunate to not be trapped in a loveless marriage.
This is a good short classic novel for those wanting to get into reading 'fine' literature. ( )
I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. (Author's Introductory Note)
The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners.
Quotations
He never turned his face to mine, or answered, except in monosyllables, the questions I put, or such slight pleasantries as I ventured. He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
...we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writing over a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow like animals pushing out their noses to breathe. Beyond the orchard lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts, and above the fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New England farmhouses that make the landscape lonelier.
Last words
She took off her spectacles again, leaned toward me across the bead-work table-cover, and went on with lowered voice: “There was one day, about a week after the accident, when they all thought Mattie couldn’t live. Well, I say it’s a pity she did. I said it right out to our minister once, and he was shocked at me. Only he wasn’t with me that morning when she first came to… And I say, if she’d ha’ died, Ethan might ha’ lived; and the way they are now, I don’t see’s there’s much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; ’cept that down there they’re all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues.”
Ethan Frome, a poor, downtrodden New England farmer is trapped in a loveless marriage to his invalid wife, Zeena. His ambition and intelligence are oppressed by Zeena's cold, conniving character. When Zeena's young cousin Mattie arrives to help care for her, Ethan is immediately taken by Mattie's warm, vivacious personality. They fall desperately in love as he realizes how much is missing from his life and marriage. Tragically, their love is doomed by Zeena's ever-lurking presence and by the social conventions of the day. Ethan remains torn between his sense of obligation and his urge to satisfy his heart's desire up to the suspenseful and unanticipated conclusion.
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Book description
The setting for this piercing New England novel is the aptly named Starkfield, where, despite violently blue skies, the chill of cold and snow seems also to settle inside the hearts of the people who live there. Tethered to his farm, first by helpless parents, later by his querulous, hypochrondriac wife, Zeena, Ethan Frome ekes out a bare subsistence. Then Zeena's cousin, the impoverished, enchanting Mattie Silver comes to work for them and, in Mattie, Ethan's hopes and dreams are rekindled. Yet theirs is a forbidden love, hemmed in by Zeena's presence. The impossible intensity in which the three exist has devastating consequences...
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10
Of course, what makes the ending so memorable is the cast of characters. You can feel their dependence on each other and growing entrapment. Zeena, Ethan, and Mattie all need each other but also destroy each other. Reading about them gives me chills, but I love it! Normally, I prefer to read happy books like Jane Austen, but this book sticks around and really warns readers about fearing loneliness and making rash decisions based on that. I think everyone can relate to this book in some way or another.
If you want a haunting tale with unique characters or the tragic equivalent to an Austen book, I highly recommend Edith Wharton. (