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Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome

Name: Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome
Author: Edith Wharton
ISBN: 9781451571165

by Edith Wharton

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Overview

'I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.' Who is this strange man Ethan Frome? What is his dreadful secret? . . . Amidst a bleak New England winter landscape, powerful emotions lead to far-reaching consequences, when Ethan Frome struggles to break free from a loveless marriage. . . Cambridge Literature is a series of study texts which presents writing in the English-speaking world from the 16th century up to the present day. The series includes novels, drama, short stories, poetry, essays and other types of non-fiction. Each edition has the complete text with an appropriate glossary. The student will find in each volume a helpful introduction and a full section of resource notes encouraging active and imaginative study methods.

Synopsis

"Ethan Frome," a classic novel, was published in 1911 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Edith Wharton. It is set in turn-of-the-century New England in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, and adapted into a film (which starred Liam Neeson) in 1993. Edith Wharton set "Ethan Frome" in a fictional, wintry New England town named Starkfield. There an unnamed narrator tells the story of his encounter with Ethan Frome, a man with dreams and desires that end in an ironic turn of events. The narrator tells the story based on an account from observations at Ethan Frome's house when he had to stay there during a winter storm. Ethan's character is one that comes full circle, moving from silent desire to action to quiet submission, ordered by life's circumstances. "Ethan Frome" is all the more remarkable for its forbidden impressions of rural working-class in New England, especially given that its author was a woman of leisure. The name of the small Massachusetts town represents a bleak, cold and dismal environment. Lenox is also where Edith Wharton had traveled extensively and had come into contact with one of the victims of the accident. Ethan and Mattie cannot escape their dreary life in Starkfield. The connection between the land and the people is a recurring theme of the novel. The narrator is amazed by the harshness of the Starkfield winters and through his experience of the winter he comes to understand the character of the people. In her introduction to the novel, Edith Wharton talks of the "outcropping granite" of New England, the powerful severity of its land and people. This connection between land and people is very much a part of naturalism; the environment is a powerful shaper of man's fate, and the novel represents this relationship by constantly describing the power and cruelty of Starkfield's winter.

About the Author, Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton

One of America's most important novelists, Edith Wharton was a refined, relentless chronicler of the Gilded Age and its social mores. Along with close friend Henry James, she helped define literature at the turn of the 20th century, even as she wrote classic nonfiction on travel, decorating and her own life.

Biography

Edith Newbold Jones was born January 24, 1862, into such wealth and privilege that her family inspired the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." The youngest of three children, Edith spent her early years touring Europe with her parents and, upon the family's return to the United States, enjoyed a privileged childhood in New York and Newport, Rhode Island. Edith's creativity and talent soon became obvious: By the age of eighteen she had written a novella, (as well as witty reviews of it) and published poetry in the Atlantic Monthly.

After a failed engagement, Edith married a wealthy sportsman, Edward Wharton. Despite similar backgrounds and a shared taste for travel, the marriage was not a success. Many of Wharton's novels chronicle unhappy marriages, in which the demands of love and vocation often conflict with the expectations of society. Wharton's first major novel, The House of Mirth, published in 1905, enjoyed considerable Literary Success. Ethan Frome appeared six years later, solidifying Wharton's reputation as an important novelist. Often in the company of her close friend, Henry James, Wharton mingled with some of the most famous writers and artists of the day, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, André Gide, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, and Jack London.

In 1913 Edith divorced Edward. She lived mostly in France for the remainder of her life. When World War I broke out, she organized hostels for refugees, worked as a fund-raiser, and wrote for American publications from battlefield frontlines. She was awarded the French Legion of Honor for her courage and distinguished work.

The Age of Innocence, a novel about New York in the 1870s, earned Wharton the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921 -- the first time the award had been bestowed upon a woman. Wharton traveled throughout Europe to encourage young authors. She also continued to write, lying in her bed every morning, as she had always done, dropping each newly penned page on the floor to be collected and arranged when she was finished. Wharton suffered a stroke and died on August 11, 1937. She is buried in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France.

Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of The Age of Innocence.

Good To Know

Upon the publication of The House of Mirth in 1905, Wharton became an instant celebrity, and the the book was an instant bestseller, with 80,000 copies ordered from Scribner's six weeks after its release.

Wharton had a great fondness for dogs, and owned several throughout her life.

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Editorials

Observer

Her novels… ensure her place amongst the greatest writers of English in the twentieth century.

From Barnes & Noble

Set in the harsh New England farmlands and told in flashback by a narrator, here is the story of the inexorable fall of a decent, rough-hewn man, ironically drawn by his most pure and beautiful feelings--his love for his wife's cousin, the gentle and sweet young Mattie.