Ethan Frome

English 1B, Spring 2020 Essay #1: Ethan Frome Critics generally regard Ethan Frome as a departure from Wharton’s usual subject matter. Wharton herself remarked that “it was frequently criticized as ‘painful,’ and at first had much less success than my previous books.” At the time of the novel’s publication in 1911, a review in TheNation praised the style as “assured and entirely individual.” ‘

In a review titled “Three Lives in Supreme Torture,” the New York Times Book Review reported that “Wharton has… chosen to build of small, crude things and a rude and violent event a structure whose purpose is the infinite refinement of torture.” The Saturday Review called the writing “singularly beautiful,” but asserted that Wharton had gratuitously marred the work by allowing Mattie and Ethan to live. The review also made a point that other critics, particularly Lionel Trilling, would take up:

“The end of Ethan Frome is something at which we cover the eyes. We do not cover the eyes at the spectacle of a really great tragedy.” Later critics found the novel too contrived and its characters unmotivated. Margaret B. McDowell was a dissenting voice, calling the characterization “subtle, strong, and masterful.” Lionel Trilling declared the novel morally bankrupt, and claimed that if it had anything at all to say, it was “this: that moral inertia, the not making of moral decisions, constitutes a very large part of the moral life of humanity.” Gerald Walton agreed: “It is not difficult to criticize Ethan Frome,” he wrote, citing the bleakness of the setting and the grotesqueness of the characters. He called the end “unrelievedly wretched.”’ Marius Bewley, on the other hand, saw moral choices both in Ethan’s plan to ask the Hales for money so he could run away with Mattie, and to die with her rather than to be parted from her. K. R. Shrinivasa Iyengar also saw moral intention in Wharton’s message that “to fail in love… is to set up evil currents.”’ Critic David Eggenschwiler concurred:

“Ethan’s refusal to cheat Andrew Hale is his last decisive act in the novel.”’ Critics have praised the use of symbolism and irony in the novel, the development of characters, and the economy of language. Kenneth Bernard called the use of imagery and symbolism to get around the problem of the characters’ inarticulateness “masterful.” Bernard repeats an early criticism that Ethan lacks a tragic dimension in the Greek sense. “His tragedy is entirely of his own making.” But others disagreed. Edwin Bjoerkman argued that Ethan lives “between those two spectres of his lost hopes: the woman he needed and the woman he loved. All other tragedies that I can think of seem mild and bearable beside this one.”

As you can see from above, critics have had varying positions about certain aspects of Ethan Frome. For this essay, you are going to use at least one of the above observations as a starting point to your essay (see possible topics below). You are to write an argumentative essay in which you either echo and extend the position given by one of the above critics or you are going to dispel the critic’s position with your own evidence from the text. You should not need to do any outside research for this paper.

Possible Topics (based on the above critics)

• Ethan Frome, because of his own actions, designs his miserable fate and is therefore unsympathetic.
• The ending of the novel is nothing more than Wharton torturing her characters out of cruelty.
• The landscape of the novel speaks more about the characters than the characters speak for themselves.
• Ethan’s potential for happiness is strangled by his own inability to act, and when he does finally act, he makes a rash and destructive decision that ruins the lives of three people.
• The moral of the story would have been better served if Ethan and Mattie had died.
• Often, our lives are caught between to points: that which we need and that which we want.
• The novel is ultimately about a man who is morally bankrupt.

Your essay should:

Be 5-6 pages in length.

Use MLA formatting not only for the entire essay but also for in-text citations and use of quotes.

Have at least two quotes per body paragraph with analysis for each quote provided.

Have an introduction that pulls the reader in and provides context for the subject of the paper.

Have a conclusion that summarizes the essay and reminds the reader of the essay’s main points.