Who is ethan frome

The novel was published in , set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, whose naming is a subtle overture to the book's mood. Featured in our collection of 25 Great American Novels. It is likely that the accident in the story is based on a real life incident that occurred in Lenox, Massachusetts in when five children were killed when they crashed into a lamppost while sliding down Courthouse Hill.

Buck The doctor Zeena sees in Bettsbridge. He tells her that she has "complications" and advises her not to do any housework. Aunt Philura Maple Zeena's aunt. The red glass pickle dish was her wedding present to Ethan and Zeena.

Daniel Byrne The Fromes' neighbor. He takes Mattie's trunk to the train station. Previous About Ethan Frome. Next Prologue. Removing book from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title. Are you sure you want to remove bookConfirmation and any corresponding bookmarks? My Preferences My Reading List. Ethan Frome Edith Wharton.

However, he ultimately lacks the inner strength necessary to escape the oppressive forces of convention, climate, and his sickly wife. She is acutely interested in the treatment of her own illness, displaying a degree of hypochondria imagined illness or minor symptoms secretly relished and exaggerated by the patient. That he remains nameless highlights the thinness of his character. Widow of Ned Hale and landlady to the unnamed narrator. The narrator describes Mrs. Hale as more refined and educated than most of her neighbors.

Although she was once intimate with the Fromes, she hesitates to discuss their plight with her inquisitive lodger. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. The classic novel of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual undercurrents set against the austere New England countryside Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena.

But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed w The classic novel of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual undercurrents set against the austere New England countryside Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena.

But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent. In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her most enduring and most widely read book.

Get A Copy. Paperback , Penguin Classics , 99 pages. Published by Penguin Classics first published More Details Original Title. Ethan Frome , Mrs. Ned Hale Frome , Mrs. Homan , Dr. Kidder , Mrs. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Ethan Frome , please sign up.

Is this a clean book could a young teen read this? Xantha Page It seems like every other popular novel on goodreads has someone asking this question about it. These poor kids. When I was a teen I sure as hell didn …more It seems like every other popular novel on goodreads has someone asking this question about it.

When I was a teen I sure as hell didn't let my parents see what I was reading. Do any readers have a good idea of how old Ethan was at the time of Wharton's sledding scene?

Jessica He says he is 28, his wife is 7 years his senior and Matt is See all 4 questions about Ethan Frome…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Ethan Frome. Mar 13, Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing. 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.

He meets Mattie the cousin and Zeena the wife. The situation existing in the House of Frome is an odd one and his natural curiosity spurs him to start an informal investigation into the life of Ethan Frome. After the opening chapter we flash back twenty-four years to a man in the process of waking up from a life he has found himself trapped in. When Ethan meets Mattie an internal conflict begins. Mattie reads and she reminds on a daily basis, just by her presence, the part of himself that vanished like smoke years ago when he made the decision to stay in Starkfield and take care of his momma.

He borrows books from her and starts to remember that other Frome, that other man, who wanted so much more. He is a reed, long bent, that has suddenly found a way to stretch toward the sun once again. Mattie is a lost soul as well. Truth be known, Zeena just wanted someone to take more of the load of her housework.

Mattie tries, but never does come up to the expectations of her cousin. The light, on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of her hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollow and prominences of her high-boned face under the ring of crimping pins….

He felt as if he had never before known what his wife looked like. Then, striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edging her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows. It is not an even contest, Zeena is seven years older than Ethan, but a lifetime spent embracing her own illnesses has made her a hypochondriac. As if to justify her state of mind, lines of disapproval and discomfort have etched themselves into her face and withered the bloom of her youth.

Ethan exchanged a sickly mother for a sickly wife. He is trapped in a loop and watching his own life through a veil in gray scale. After a lifetime of devoting himself to others he is on the verge of taking back control of his own life. There is this poignant moment when Mrs. Hale lets him know that his sacrifice has not went unnoticed. I always tell Mr. Each filled with longing, believing the other feels the same, but unable to tell each other how they really feel until suddenly they are faced with never seeing each other again.

He looked at her hair and longed to touch it again, and to tell her that is smelt of the woods; but he had never learned to say such things. This impulsive act destroys the very best of what they love about each other, and forever leaves those apparitions of themselves suspended on a sled going down a slope. She certainly seemed to feel as ensnared by marriage as her character Ethan Frome, even though she was living on her beautiful Lenox, Massachusetts estate called The Mount at the time.

Even lovely surroundings will lose their luster if you are unhappy with your circumstances. Wharton was nominated for a Nobel Prize in , , and She never did win the Nobel, but in , for Age of Innocence , she did become the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.

This book seems to attract a mixture of positive and negative reviews today much the same way it did when it was first published. Lionel Trilling says it was lacking in moral or ethical significance. The type of criticism that leaves me shaking my head wondering if we read the same book. Most of her books are centered around the elite New York society, but this one was set in rural Starkfield and involved characters of the lower classes.

We have all felt trapped by our circumstances, maybe a stale relationship or an unfulfilling job or a long stint caring for a sick relative. View all 79 comments. This is a romantic tragedy that culminates in a sledding accident. I will just say a few brief words about that. First, there is probably a reason that sledding accidents don't figure more prominently in tragedies.

Shakespeare wrote like 13 tragedies and to the best of my knowledge none featured a sledding accident I have not read Titus Andronicus, so I can't be sure. If Shakespeare doesn't need to include a sled wreck, then neither do you. I will also say that I found Ethan and Mattie's attempted double suicide by sledding a little hard to take seriously. I mean, there are probably dozens of reasons that serious people don't rank sled-tree collisions on their Top 5 List of preferred suicide methods, but certainly the fact that adult doubles sledding is inherently ridiculous is one.

Another that springs to mind is the unreliability of trying to kill yourself by sledding into a tree. Ethan ends up breaking his legs and paralyzing Mattie, which is pretty much the best you can realistically hope to do if you sled into a tree. Really, I find it remarkable that Edith Wharton's reputation survived Ethan Frome and his sled antics. Teachers getting all worked up about the symbolism of the New England winter and failing to understand why year-olds don't respond to the tragedy of star-crossed lovers doubling each other into a tree on a sled.

View all 51 comments. It's by far and away her best. Age of innocence was as inane and childish as this one I was forced to read this book in school and hated it. The attempted sleduicide will always be in my mind for its terribleness Mar 24, Brina rated it really liked it Shelves: classics , novella. Because March is women's history month, I made it a point to only read women authors over the course of the month.

As the month winds to a close, I have visited many places and cultures, learning about historical events from a female perspective. Yet, to observe women's history month, it would not be complete with paying homage to classic authors. Ethan Frome of Starkfield, Massachusetts has known much tragedy in his Because March is women's history month, I made it a point to only read women authors over the course of the month.

Ethan Frome of Starkfield, Massachusetts has known much tragedy in his life. First his father grew ill, leaving young Frome to move back to care for the family farm. Then his mother grew sick, and a young relation named Zenobia Silver came to live with the Fromes to care for her. Without much of a future besides the farm in his possession, Frome falls for Zenobia, and they marry. Yet, Zenobia is not a country girl, and Frome hopes to sell the farm so that he can move his wife into town.

Tragedy strikes again as now Zenobia grows ill. Frome is unable to sell the farm and is isolated in the country. Zenobia'a relations suggest that a young cousin Mattie Silver come and care for her in the manner that Zenobia had cared for Frome's mother.

While Zenobia is ailing and supposedly on her deathbed, Frome starts showing feelings toward Mattie. What ensues for the rest of the novella is his conflicted feelings toward both women, as he considers his future.

Wharton paints a picture of a grim reality for Frome. That the story occurs in winter in a town named Starkfield is no coincidence. Her witticism as she debates whether Frome should honor his wife's feelings or leave her and elope with Mattie are uncanny. Even though Starkfield appears as a depressing town to life in, Wharton's use of language and plot development had me reading to discover the denouement of Frome's sad tale.

The fact that she included her usual twist toward the end enhanced the story. I have only discovered Edith Wharton over this March's women's history month reads, but I find it remarkable that her writing can go from comedy in one story to tragedy in another and still contain a high level of wit.

She wrote at a time when the novel was dominated by the middle class, and was one of few upper crust society women to write. That she entered a male profession and eventually won a Pulitzer for her writing, makes her career all the more impressive.

Although Ethan Frome is a tragedy, I found the story interesting enough to hold my attention, especially as Wharton inserted her mark at the end. A four star read, I look to read more of Wharton's work in the future. View all 35 comments. View all 99 comments. In the bleak setting of 's Starkfield, appropriately named, Lenox, western Massachusetts where it always seems like perpetual winter, and its cold, dark, gloomy, ambiance, a poor, uneasy farmer, Ethan Frome, 28, is all alone, his mother has just died, the woman who took good care of her, Zenobia Zeena Pierce, is about to leave, though seven years junior to the lady, he purposes, she accepts gladly and the biggest mistake he believes, of his life, occurs.

Zeena, not a beauty, likes nursin In the bleak setting of 's Starkfield, appropriately named, Lenox, western Massachusetts where it always seems like perpetual winter, and its cold, dark, gloomy, ambiance, a poor, uneasy farmer, Ethan Frome, 28, is all alone, his mother has just died, the woman who took good care of her, Zenobia Zeena Pierce, is about to leave, though seven years junior to the lady, he purposes, she accepts gladly and the biggest mistake he believes, of his life, occurs.

Zeena, not a beauty, likes nursing sick people, the capable woman knows what to do, unlike the hapless Frome, but soon develops a strange illness herself, while idle, seeing many doctors, they tell her what she wants to hear, given some pills, advice and then off to another one.