Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

 
Junior English
When taught, this novel is taught in with the unit of "Living Within Society's Norms and Breaking Out of Society's Norms."  The novel is taught in conjunction with The Scarlet Letter, by Nathanial Hathowrne. Ethan Frome is set in the early 1900's while The Scarlet Letter is set in the early 1700's, however both novels deal with the same issues of what is deemed correct or acceptable by society and how people deal with society's rules.  The counterpart, "Breaking Out of Society's Norms" are excerpts from Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and novels such as Harold and Maude, and Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  On the completion of Ethan Frome, there will either be a test over the novel or a combined essay with The Scarlet Letter.  Below is a description of the story of Ethan Frome.
 American Studies
At this time, we do not study "Ethan Frome" in the American Studies class.  If we did, it would be done in conjunction with WWI.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
ETHAN FROME
 
 
 


The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature , April 1, 1995

Tragic novel by Edith Wharton, published in 1911. Wharton's original style and her use of hard-edged irony and the flashback technique set Ethan Frome apart from the work of her contemporaries. The main characters are Ethan Frome, his wife Zenobia, called Zeena, and her young cousin Mattie Silver. Frome and Zeena marry after she nurses his mother in her last illness. Although Frome seems ambitious and intelligent, Zeena holds him back. When her young cousin Mattie comes to stay on their New England farm, Frome falls in love with her. But the social conventions of the day doom their love and their hopes. The story forcefully conveys Wharton's abhorrence of society's unbending standards of loyalty. Written while Wharton lived in France but before her divorce (1913), Ethan Frome became one of the best known and most
popular of her works.
 

 
The Scarlet Letter The Crucible Harold and Maude
Ethan Frome The Great Gatsby Of Mice and Men
The Moon is Down Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edgar Allan Poe Walt Whitman Tim O'Brien
Pudd'nhead Wilson Jonathan Livingston Seagull Fahrenheit 451
Stephen King Inherit The Wind

 
 

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Last Updated May 2001

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