bind feet and wings, and dull life to an appalling dinginess.
—from The American Novel (1940)
Questions about Ethan Frome
1. What would you say is the underlying cause of the tragedy in Ethan Frome? Is it poverty? The New England frame of mind? Zeena’s personality? Sexual desire? The cultural and social and material vacuum in which the principal characters live?
2. Does Mattie’s decision that she and Ethan should commit suicide seem plausible? Is it foreshadowed by anything earlier in the novel?
3. What is a just view of Ethan? Is he weak? Repressed? Should he simply have run off with Mattie? Should he have been less indulgent of Zeena’s self-pity and asserted himself?
4. Is this novel too grim to be enjoyed? Or is there a way in which distressing material can be made to give aesthetic pleasure?
FOR FURTHER READING
Biographies and Related Materials
Benstock, Shari. No Gifts from Chance: A Biography of Edith Wharton. New York: Scribner‘s, 1994.
Dwight, Eleanor. Edith Wharton: An Extraordinary Life. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994.
Henry James and Edith Wharton: Letters: 1900-1915. Edited by Lyall H. Powers. New York: Scribner‘s, 1990.
Lewis, R. W. B. Edith Wharton: A Biography. New York: Harper and Row, 1975.
Lubbock, Percy. Portrait of Edith Wharton. New York: Appleton-Century, 1947.
Wharton, Edith. A Backward Glance. New York: Appleton-Century, 1934.
. The Letters of Edith Wharton. Edited by R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis. New York: Scribner‘s, 1988.
Other Resources
Davis, Owen, and Donald Davis. Ethan Frome: A Dramatization of Edith Wharton’s Novel. Foreword by Edith Wharton. New York: Scribner‘s, 1936.
Wharton, Edith. “Life and I.” In Edith Wharton: Novellas and Other Writings. Edited by Cynthia Griffin Wolff. New York: Library of America, 1990, pp. 1,069-1,096.
Selected Critical Studies
Ammons, Elizabeth. Edith Wharton’s Argument with America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.
Nevius, Blake. Edith Wharton: A Study of Her Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953.
—, ed. Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome : The Story, with Sources and Commentary. New York: Scribner‘s, 1968.
Singley, Carol J. Edith Wharton: Matters of Mind and Spirit. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
, ed. A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
White, Barbara A. Edith Wharton: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1991.
, ed. Wharton’s New England: Seven Stories and Ethan Frome. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1995.
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Revised edition: Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995.
a Lamp in which oil is pumped through the wick tube by clockwork; named after French inventor Bertrand Carcel (1750-1812).
b Set of columns surrounding a building or enclosing a court.
c Woman’s head scarf, made of lace or crochet.
d American country dance in which partners face each other in parallel lines.
e Town in southwestern Connecticut with a population of about 11,000 in the 1880s.
f Orion: constellation of stars east of the constellation Taurus on the equator; Alde baran : red star of the first magnitude in Taurus; the Pleiades: cluster of stars in Taurus.
g Small, one-horse sleigh.
h City in western Massachusetts, located in the Connecticut River Valley at the hub of regional routes between New York and Boston.
i Deciduous, thick-stemmed climbing plant (Clematis vitalba) that often grows on hedges, fences, and trellises.
j Bring about an action.
k Star of the constellation Canis Major, also called the Dog Star; the brightest star in the sky.
l Queen’s Counsel; barrister (attorney) who serves as counsel to the queen.
m Eyeglasses clipped to the nose by a spring.
n Misunderstood wife (French).
o Hairstyle (French).
p Codes regulating standards of dress.
q Area of southern England; home to such historic sites as Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral.
r In a style associated with the reign of King James I, who ruled Great Britain from 1603 to 1625.
s Moving a square, flat-bottomed boat, called a punt, with a long pole.
t Bell tower, usually freestanding, near a church.
u Japanese hangings or scrolls made of silk or paper.
v Rococo style of furniture named after English cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779).
w Relating to the river Styx, principal river of the underworld in classical mythology.
x Cone-like shape.
y Style of architecture that prevailed in England during the reign of the royal house of Tudor (1485-1603).
z Description (French).
aa Windows divided by vertical bars.
ab Hilly, treeless uplands.
ac Vantage point.
ad Relating to a style characteristic of the reigns of Kings George I, II, III, and IV of England (1714-1830).
ae Trained to grow flat against a wall or trellis.
af Small house or cottage.
ag Town in southern England.
ah Monastic; relating to the order of Saint Benedict, founded c.530.
ai Very dark or gloomy; the Cimmerians, described by the ancient Greek poet Homer, were a legendary people living in a land of perpetual darkness.
aj Let there be light (Latin).
ak Cassiopeia: northern constellation named for Andromeda’s mother in classical mythology; the Southern Cross: constellation whose four brightest stars form the shape of a cross; visible only from the Southern Hemisphere.
al In Greek mythology, Psyche is a princess loved by Cupid; often represented as a butterfly, she is a symbol of the human soul. (In ancient Greece, the word psyche meant both “butterfly” and “soul.”)
am Out of whole cloth (French).
an Work bv English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903).
ao Karl Marx (1818-1883): German socialist philosopher; Henri-Louis Bergson (1859-1941): French humanistic philosopher; “Confessions of St. Augustine”: spiritual record of the fifth-century Church Father; Mendelism: theory of heredity developed by Austrian scientist Gregor Mendel (1822-1884).
ap William Wordsworth (1770-1850): English Romantic poet; Paul Verlaine (1844-1896): French Symbolist poet.
aq James A. Froude (1818-1894): writer and historian at Oxford University.