To what extent do you agree/ disagree with the

following statements? Be prepared to defend your

answer

▪ It is better to have loved and lost than never to have

loved at all.
▪ People have control over the circumstances in their lives;
in other words, no one is “trapped” into living a life he/she
does not desire.
▪ A person’s environment is a bigger influence on his/her
decisions and life choices than that person’s character
and genetics.
▪ One mistake can determine the rest of a person’s life.
▪ It is far better to endure unhappiness than to commit an
action that brings public condemnation.
Introduction to
Ethan Frome:
A Novel by Edith Wharton
“Summer afternoon -- Summer afternoon; to me those
have always been the two most beautiful words in the
English language.” -- Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton Biographical Information

▪ Born in 1862 in New York City to an aristocratic family

dating back 300 years
▪ As a “daughter of society,” she was expected to learn
the manners and rituals expected of a “well-bred”
young woman in those days
▪ Married Teddy Wharton in 1885 at age 23
▪ She and Teddy were not well-matched, and she knew
early on that it was a mistake
▪ However, divorce was not possible at that time, so they
were not divorced until 1912
▪ Moved to France after her divorce and earned a
comfortable living by writing
▪ Buried in the American Cemetery at Versailles (1937)
 Historical Events: Wharton’s Life & Times
Wharton gave extensive
assistance to refugees in Paris
during World War I

Civil War 1862-1865

Alexander Graham Bell The Wright Brothers fly First transcontinental
•Abraham Lincoln Assassinated World War I (1917-1918)
(1865)
invents telephone (1876) (1903) telephone call (1915)
Wharton’s Literary Career

▪ Wharton’s novels were very popular during her life

▪ Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence in
1920 (the first woman to win a Pulitzer for fiction)
▪ Teddy Roosevelt, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest
Hemingway each visited her at some time to discuss and
share ideas
▪ Wharton published Ethan Frome in 1911
▪ It was originally written in French—as an exercise for
improving her French
▪ Although the French version was much shorter and the ending
was completely different, this first version established the
framework for the novella
The Mount
▪ Edith Wharton designed this house in Lenox, MA. Today, it is one of
very few National Historic Landmarks dedicated to women.
▪ The Mount is the only US monument
to Edith
Wharton
 Edith Wharton
1885-1937
The House

The Gardens
Ethan Frome:
Published in 1911
Introduction to Ethan Frome

▪ One of Wharton’s few novels that does not focus on urban,

upper-class characters
▪ Based on an actual sledding accident that she knew about
near her home in Lenox, Massachusetts
▪ A bitter and ironic tragedy of three people trapped in a
setting they cannot escape
▪ Ethan is a farmer and sawmill operator, 28 years old at the
time of the main story, who is unhappily living with a
hypochondriac of a wife and a young woman who comes to
live with them
▪ In Wharton’s autobiography, she comments that her husband
had health problems and complained a great deal, verbally
abusing her when he was sick; the parallels between
Wharton’s life and Ethan Frome’s are clear.
 Stark: severe or
Starkfield, Massachusetts Setting bare in
appearance or
outline; harsh

▪ Small village in New England

▪ Village populations in NE were declining at the end of the
1800s
▪ Several reasons accounted for declining populations:
▪ Farming in NE has always been difficult: the landscape is hilly
and rocky, the soil is infertile, and the growing season is short
▪ Many people who wanted to farm moved west, where conditions
were better
▪ Factories were also springing up all over NE

▪ Factories became especially common in Massachusetts: By the

end of the century, 1/3 of the nation’s woolen goods and ½ of
its shoes were produced there.
▪ The geography of MA lent itself to industrialization—with its
many rivers whose energy could be harnessed to power
factories.
 Role of Setting in Ethan Frome

▪ A typical New England farm had to serve many purposes: it

had to grow crops, shelter family and animals, and store
food and tools.
▪ A New England farmstead often included many connected
buildings: a main house, a barn or two, an icehouse, a
stable or carriage shed, a chicken shed, a sheep barn or a
pigsty, an apple barn, and a silo or corn crib to store food for
the animals.
▪ The construction and maintenance of these buildings added
to the farmer’s work. Families who could not perform this
work were not likely to thrive.
▪ Many families were happy to take in distant relatives or
other live-in helpers in order to get the work done.
▪ Ethan Frome is in this very situation—a hard life in a bleak
setting with a hypochondriac wife and a live-in cousin.
Ethan Frome: Genre & Style

▪ This is a frame story (or framework narrative): a story that

surrounds another story; the “frame” is the outer story, which
usually precedes and follows the inner, more important story
Outer Frame: 1st person point of view

Outsider clues about Ethan Frome

“Introduction” is the outer frame

In chapter 1, the POV shifts to

3rd person limited and the
thoughts and feelings of one
character—Ethan, referred to
as he, because the reader is
seeing the events through his
eyes.

Visitor to Starkfield: Engineer on

a job assignment
 Ethan Frome: Genre & Style

▪ A tragedy is a work in which a tragic hero meets his or her

doom as a result of a tragic flaw or error in judgement
▪ Traits of tragic heroes:
▪ They experience suffering
▪ They are doomed from the start, their decline
inevitable
▪ They are basically noble in nature
▪ They have free choice to some degree
▪ Their downfall or inevitable fate must result
from a character flaw or error in judgment
▪ Their story arouses fear and pity