Ethan Frome

Rating:
Summary: Of wintry hearts...
Review: This is the tale of a withdrawn man caught in a loveless marriage, who breaks down when his harridan wife unknowingly ends his love affair with a young servant girl.

"Ethan Frome" is sunk into the morass of Victorian values and standards, and, as such, is clearly targeting a subtler and more impressionable audience than the one available today. Several scenes which were doubtlessly touching and gentle back when the book was written are now hopelessly quaint and devoid of meaning. Wharton wonderfully communicates the innate reticence of the local people, but she does so in a way that fails to engage. The book carries an air of utmost restraint. The writing itself is quite sophisticated, beautifully descriptive, but the author's choice of words is a bit odd ("groping" is hardly the word I would use to describe a parting kiss). The vast majority of characters fail to interest, partially because they are hardly fleshed out. Zenobia, Ethan's overbearing wife, is perhaps the only one who is sufficiently detailed and participates in most of the action. In essence, all of the book revolves around her, since she is the cause of Ethan's captivity and suffering. The book drags hopelessly until the climax in the last twenty or so pages. The convention of a narrator who is abandoned after the first few pages does nothing to ease the ennui. The book is severely overwritten: though a novel, it should clearly be a short story.

A potentially interesting tragic romance marred by excessive length.

Rating:
Summary: American Classic!
Review: Edith Wharton's masterpiece is a dramatic story that takes us into the most private recesses of a remote New England village. Astonishing for its beauty and simplicity, this novel of great love shadowed by tragedy is a genuine American classic.--Diana Dell, compiler, "Memorable Quotations: American Women Writers of the Past."

Rating:
Summary: Another sappy love affair...
Review: I hated this book and everything about it. His wife was annoying, her cousin was a ditz, and he was a loser. The plot was predictable and the only suspense was if Zeena would kill Mattie over the Pickle Dish. This whole book was one terribly acted out soap oprah that had really no plot twists at all, no action of any kind, or any really flavor. Ethan and the gang were in a story that was little more than mushed up pasty muck. The only real unpredicatable part was the end, which actually livened the book a little...but that's at the end of course. I'd tell you the ending, but I don't want to ruin it, you'll have to waste your own time to find out.

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Summary: Simply moody, atmospheric, and wonderful!
Review: I am in High School and between having to read such junk, yes junk, as Great Expectations and To Kill a Mockingbird, I squeeze in as much of my own reading as I can(I have been reading a lot of Hubert Selby Jr. lately, he is simply one of the best authors to ever live.) I chose this over some other old book and to my surprise I loved Ethan Frome. Classic usually means crack-pot author griping about humans in a boring way to me, but Ethan Frome is not your average "classic."

The best thing Frome is comparable to is the atmospheric and moody inde films of today. Films such as Panic, with William H Macy, who would make a good Ethan From by the way, since Frome is imploding the entire time...anyhoo, this book has a mood, an atmosphere, a set tone, that is very odd in classics. If you are a fan of moody films, atmospheric and ironic sad films, Ethan Frome might be for you. It is one of the only books that I can actually say I love having been forced to read.

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Summary: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Review: In the snowy town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, live Ethan Frome and his wife, Zeena. While Zeena is ill-stricken, Ethan finds comfort and friendship in their housekeeper, young Mattie Silver. The book portrays poverty and dull routine, the claustophobia of village life, lack of communication, and illicit love as its major themes. Edith Wharton uses the sense of fatality as the major case of symbolism. She writes of winter dreariness, the bareness of the Frome farmhouse, and the insufficiency of Ethan's sawmill to properly portray her thoughts. If you enjoy reading about forbidden love, such as Romeo and Juliet, then Ethan Frome is for you. However, be careful, because the use of British language can make it tough to read if you don't have an open mind, or if you're looking for something not-so-serious.

Rating:
Summary: It's a Classic, so it's gotta be good, right?
Review: Who defines a classic? I hate this book. There's no passion for an affair, there's no excitement, and there's no suspense. There's also no content; the entire book is talking and nothingness. Who thought forbidden Puritan love affairs could be so boring?

Rating:
Summary: Hardly high school fare; a chilling portrait of a marriage
Review: Why, oh why do they assign this book to students in high school? What can a teenager possible grasp of the souring of two mature people locked into a cold, loveless marriage?

This novel, set in the frigid winter of rocky, harsh New England, is the perfect background for Zeena and Ethan's hideous marriage. She is an invalid (or a hypochondriac? or depressed?) he is a bondsman to her passive tyranny. When a young cousin, Mattie, shows up to assist with the nursing, the outcome is predictable. What isn't predictable is the cataclysmic ending.

This novel has some relationship to Age of Innocence, Wharton's other masterpiece. A young man locked in a suitable but sterile marriage is drawn to a cousin (this time older) of his wife. Both reflect the imprisonment and punishment of Wharton in her own terrible marriage. Both are worth reading. Don't let the bad memory of a high school assignment prevent you from sitting down and experiencing the chillingly sad Ethan Frome.

Rating:
Summary: Passion
Review: I am fascinated by the way the author portrays Ethan Frome. She begins the novel from the view of a visitor to the little town of Starkfield. This visitor is intrigued by the solemn, crippled man and gradually learns more of his life story. Ethan had previosuly married Zeena out of pure desperation for a human companion. Their marriage quickly turns stale. When Mattie comes to work as a housemaid, Ethan grows to love her upbeat spirit and cheerful attitude. He is then torn between loyalty to his wife and his love for Mattie. Zeena banishes Mattie from their home, causing Ethan to struggle with the decision whether to run away with her or not. This book clearly shows the importance of love. It was a fairly easy read, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: A hopeful romance that ends in tragedy.
Review: "Ethan Frome" kept me in the dark the entire time I was reading until the very last page. The narrator, who remains nameless throughout the novel, introduces the reader to Ethan Frome, the main character, and tells the reader of his "smash-up." He describes the scars on his face and how Ethan's right leg is shorter than the left, and I was compelled to read the entire book to find out what the "smash-up" was and why it happened. After the introduction from the narrator's point of view, chapter one takes you twenty years back in time and begins to tell the story of Ethan's poor, miserable life, which is the main portion of the book. You learn about his wife Zeena, whom he quickly married when his mother died because he couldn't imagine being alone. Mattie Silver, Zeena's cousin, comes to the home to care for Zeena when she becomes weak with prolonged illness. Ethan quickly falls in love with the younger, more beautiful Mattie, and is surprised to find she loves him too. But he is unable to pursue a relationship due to his marriage and his poverty. At the end of the novel, Ethan and Mattie make a desperate attempt to avoid having to separate forever. The outcome of this final attempt results in Ethan's "smash-up" and ends up binding them both to Zeena for the rest of their pitiful lives. I will not tell you what happened because it was the great suspense that drove me to read and made the ending so powerful.

Rating:
Summary: Makes all women look bad
Review: I absolutly hated every character in Ethan Frome!

Mattie is stupid and weak, and that is what Ethan loves about her. Zeena is in constant want of sympathy, and drives everyone away.

Mattie Silver is weak and helpless, and in this story, she is the ideal woman. Mattie is young and pretty. She is left on her own with no useful skills, and cannot physically handle any sort of job, "When she tried to extend the field of her activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of a department store did not tend to restore it" (Wharton 59). Ethan is often helping her, and even sneaks down to the kitchen in the night to re-clean the kitchen floor. Mattie's cooking is not much better than her cleaning.

Despite Mattie's lack of domestic abilities, Ethan Frome is in love with her. He is enchanted by her weakness, which he interprets as femininity. Ethan has a traditional desire to be the dominant role in a loving relationship. He enjoys the feeling of supporting the girl, and is glad that she looks up to him. He holds her as vision of femininity. Ethan feels he is lucky, "at his side, living under his roof and eating his bread was a creature ...whom he could hold entranced" (Wharton 34). Ethan Frome believes women are meant to follow men. When Ethan carries out his wife's wishes, he feels less masculine. Wharton explains, "His manhood was humbled by the part he was compelled to play" (Wharton 139). He feels that he should have power over the women in his life, and when Zeena Frome exerts her power over her husband he hates her. Wharton describes Ethan's opinion of his wife, "there had never been anything in her that one could appeal to; but as long as he could ignore and command he had remained indifferent. Now she had mastered him and he abhorred her" (Wharton 118). Rather than be mastered by his wife, Ethan wishes for Mattie, who "yielded to the power of his voice" (Wharton 168). Mattie consistently obeys and trusts Ethan. Ethan is happy that Mattie is not educated or particularly intelligent. He enjoys knowing that she regards him as smart. Wharton explains "The fact that admiration for his learning mingled with Mattie's wonder at what he taught was not the least part of his pleasure" (Wharton 34). Ethan Frome chooses Mattie over his own wife who he does not hold so entranced.

This book give the impression that perfect women are pretty and stupid. Not exactly what I would suggest reading.