1126 Wharton, Edith
As a result, she calls into question assumptions
Newland and the rest of New York society have
regarding social class.
Sherah Wells
wHarToN, EDiTH Ethan Frome
(1911)
In Edith Wharton’s introduction to Ethan Frome,
she explains her thematic intentions: “It must be
treated as starkly and summarily as life had always
presented itself to my protagonists, any attempt to
elaborate and complicate their sentiments would
necessarily have falsified the whole.” Wharton,
through characters who emerge from the frozen
earth, sets up various themes for the reader, includ-
ing isolation, community, and the individual
and society.
In the novel, Ethan Frome is trapped in a loveless
marriage with Zeena, whose young, attractive cousin
Mattie has come to live with the couple as a kind
of housekeeper. Mattie and Ethan eventually fall
in love, but both feel far too guilty to express their
feelings. Just after Ethan has overcome his guilt and
kissed Mattie, Zeena, who has grown suspicious,
decides to replace Mattie with another girl. On the
day Ethan reluctantly takes Mattie to the train sta-
tion, they take a sled ride. Mattie suggests that they
kill themselves, sledding directly into a tree so that
they might be together forever. They hit the tree, but
do not die, with Mattie being forever disabled and
requiring constant care from, ironically, Zeena.
Whether physically alone or not, Wharton’s
characters experience isolation. As a young man car-
ing for his parents and the farm, Ethan must forget
about his desires and focus on others’ needs. His
isolation solidifies when his loneliness compels him
to marry Zeena, and his obligations to her force him
to stay in the unfulfilling marriage. When Zeena’s
cousin Mattie arrives, the three characters living
under the same roof are physically together but
emotionally detached.
The setting that Wharton creates provides a
perfect backdrop for the physical and mental isola-
tion the characters experience. The stark, wintry
atmosphere resembles the coldness of the inhabit-
ants. Though a small town, Starkfield feels more like
a cold, uncaring city than a warm, hospitable place.
Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie’s home is a microcosm of
the town’s loss of community and, to a greater extent,
American society. For inside the Frome household
and in the Starkfield community, people are not in
communion with one another and are not free to
do as they please, though they live in a free society.
Tracy HoffmancommunIty in Ethan Frome
Edith Wharton’s first-person narrator enters a small
New England town and finds it difficult to break
into the tight-knit community during his winter
respite, but the yarn unravels as his curiosity about
Ethan Frome drives him to obtain more informa-
tion. The first lines of the novel get to the heart of
his predicament: “I had the story, bit by bit, from
various people, and, as generally happens in such
cases, each time it was a different story.” The busi-
nessman narrator obtains morsels from Harmon
Gow, who suggests that Ethan’s age “was not more
than fifty-two,” and he tries to glean more informa-
tion from his landlady, Mrs. Ned Hale, but she is
tight-lipped since she and her husband were close
to Mattie when they were dating.
People know of Frome’s hard times, but many
in town, such as Harmon Gow and Mrs. Hale,
have seen their own share of problems. Wharton
writes: “All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more
notable communities, had had troubles enough of
their own to make them comparatively indifferent
to those of their neighbours.” Years after the tragic
accident, people still have no clue as to why Mattie
and Ethan were on the sled together. They have
sympathy for his predicament, but nobody empa-
thizes with him. Wharton explains Ethan’s place in
the community: “Every one in Starkfield knew him
and gave him a greeting tempered to his own grave
mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was
only on rare occasions that one of the older men
of the place detained him for a word.” As the name
of the town suggests, the town is stark—bare, bor-
ing, lacking. While living a brief time in Worcester,
Ethan was “warmed to the marrow by friendly
human intercourse,” but in Starkfield, Ethan picks
up his mail, goes about daily tasks, and sometimes
escorts Mattie to and from dances, but he himself