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In Edith Wharton's novella, Ethan Frome and his family, are poor in spirit and physically, the setting, symbolism, and tone provide a before and after glance at their multi-dimensional poverty. There is an unpleasant shift in temperament from an austere civility shared by Ethan and Zeena, to a bitter triangle of hatred, also involving Miss Mattie Silver. Ethan, Zeena and Mattie struggle with their emotions and their continual, omnipresent unhappiness that has pervaded their lives, and will continue until they day one of their misfortunate number dies.
The setting for Ethan Frome is winter in the aptly named Starkfield, Massachusetts. The name Starkfield conjures an image of a desolate land filled with desolate people. Starkfield is a small community where even the locals believe that Ethan "[has] been in Starkfield too many winters" (Wharton ). The countryside is bleak and unpromising in the bitter cold winter days and nights. "The landscape is buried under snow, silent, incommunicative and unhappy as the characters" (Nevius 16). The landscape serves as a metaphor for the tragic family that is brought together only by injury and jealousy. The landscape is also used to foreshadow events in the novella. The day that Zeena leaves for Bettsbridge, and Mattie and Ethan can be with one another, the morning scenery "was as clear as crystal. The sunrise burned red in a pure sky…" (Wharton 4). The day is bright and beautiful, and signals optimism for the remainder of the day. The eve of Zeena's return, however, there was a terrible sleety rain that symbolized the dread Zeena's return impacted.On Mattie's last day, for example, the scenery is described,
The slopes bathed in luster, the silver-edged darkness of the woods, the spectral purple of the hills against the sky, and it seemed as though all the beauty of the night had been poured out to mock his wretchedness… (Wharton 57).
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The beautiful early morning scene invokes images of a winter morning that for Ethan is a day marred by resentment and fury. That February was commonplace in setting to the people of Starkfield, but for the Fromes and Mattie Silver the setting exemplified a month of change from civilities, to thick tension and fury.
The symbolism in Ethan Frome is frequent, and often used to describe characters. Ethan Frome's farm and house are described as "forlorn and stunted…the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body" (Wharton 8). This description depicts not only the dreadful physical abode that Ethan and his family inhabit, but Ethan's physically dilapidated frame after his "smash up." The "smash-up" occurred at a large elm tree. The elm appears to represent temptation and draws to it those whose resistance is weak. Ethan and Mattie, though their love has not transgressed these mores in any physical sense, cannot long resist their physical natures to violate the established Puritanical codes, generally adhered to in New England (Shuman 8). Zeena Frome is symbolized by a cat, that when Zeena leaves Mattie and Ethan alone for a few days, assumes her role as a sneaky nag. The image of the cat directly conflicts with the characterization of Mattie as a small field mouse. "The eternal but elusive war between the cat and mouse is quite symbolic of Zeena's eventual triumph over Mattie" (Bernard 56). Zeena, indeed, was able to triumph over Mattie in that Ethan no longer pursued Mattie, and Zeena was able to retain her post as the town's talking point. Zeena, however, still has to live with the knowledge that her husband would rather die than go on living with her. In this familial "war," everyone loses, and everyone is left with scars, be they physical or emotional.
The tone in Ethan Frome is anguish, the ultimate distress that only those who fall in love experience. Heinrich Staumann refers to the matter of fact way the story is delivered as "the cruelty of social conventions" (Staumann 51). Ethan is held back by these "cruel" practices as well as his compassion for Zeena, another aspect of the anguish of lovers. He has no physical attraction to her, an emotional commitment or even the casual rapport of lovers. His compassion for her, however, is his undoing. The social practices at the time and place held divorce or leaving one's wife as complete scandal. Ethan's options for happiness are quashed in his compassion for Zeena. Ethan and Mattie's attempted suicide is another example of the "cruelty" and Ethan's compassion. Ethan insists on bearing the brunt of the blow into the tree and after the fact still keeps Mattie at his house, where she lives as an invalid. The sorrow and anguish felt by lovers alone is the vivid tone in the novella. Wharton, through simple language and tragic circumstance, perfectly intertwines the elements of pain and passion into a searing misfortune in the lives of three people.
Ethan is the proprietor of a dismal farm and earns little if any wages, struggles through a loveless marriage, and is deprived of his only pleasure in life, Mattie Silver. Zeena, although seeming the victor in the battle for Ethan's affections, has to live with the fact that her husband would rather die than be with her. Mattie, once beautiful and vivacious lives as a crippled, complaining shrew. Ethan, Zeena and Mattie live, physically, in near filth but spiritually and emotionally the tensions and unpleasantness of the perverse little family override the squalor that they inhabit.
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