ethan frome motif essay
English 11 AT set 1 B/D
Ethan Frome Essay
Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome: Connections to Motifs Motifs are interesting literary devices, treasured by many authors, to make up or help support the plotline of each story written. In the novella Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, she uses the motif of parallelism of the setting of Starkfield, Massachusetts, and other characters such as Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver, to help describe the way that Starkfield and other factors entangle each character mentally, emotionally, and physically. The importance of this is evident, as it shows during key periods in the story. The parallelism all begins with the snowy, New England town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The small community is a place where everyone knows each other on a first name basis. Word spreads quickly, especially when something as severe as a failed double suicide occurs. Mattie and Ethan both suffered deeper entrapment because of this. Starkfield is also trapped, as stated by the narrator, “The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners. In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires (Ethan Frome, pg. 13).” This shows the parallelism of Mattie and Ethan with Starkfield; their entrapment by their surroundings. Physical entrapment is something Mattie and Ethan suffer, similar to the entrapment of Starkfield. Ethan is trapped by his marriage with Zeena. Ethan and Zeena have a very poor relationship with one another, lacking trust and intimacy. The only reason that Ethan and Zeena were married was because Ethan was afraid to be alone when his mother passed away, as stated on page 37 in Ethan Frome: “There, the silence had deepened about him year by year. Left alone, after his father’s accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill, he had no time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when his mother fell Ill, the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that of
Ethan Frome Essay
Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome: Connections to Motifs Motifs are interesting literary devices, treasured by many authors, to make up or help support the plotline of each story written. In the novella Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, she uses the motif of parallelism of the setting of Starkfield, Massachusetts, and other characters such as Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver, to help describe the way that Starkfield and other factors entangle each character mentally, emotionally, and physically. The importance of this is evident, as it shows during key periods in the story. The parallelism all begins with the snowy, New England town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The small community is a place where everyone knows each other on a first name basis. Word spreads quickly, especially when something as severe as a failed double suicide occurs. Mattie and Ethan both suffered deeper entrapment because of this. Starkfield is also trapped, as stated by the narrator, “The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners. In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires (Ethan Frome, pg. 13).” This shows the parallelism of Mattie and Ethan with Starkfield; their entrapment by their surroundings. Physical entrapment is something Mattie and Ethan suffer, similar to the entrapment of Starkfield. Ethan is trapped by his marriage with Zeena. Ethan and Zeena have a very poor relationship with one another, lacking trust and intimacy. The only reason that Ethan and Zeena were married was because Ethan was afraid to be alone when his mother passed away, as stated on page 37 in Ethan Frome: “There, the silence had deepened about him year by year. Left alone, after his father’s accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill, he had no time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when his mother fell Ill, the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that of