Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton
I don’t know why I read so fast, but in three days I indeed managed to finish four books. It’s coincidental that two of them concerned similar subjects but end in quite different ways though. In Liza of Lambeth the death of Liza closed any possibility between her and Tim. In Ethan Frome, Ethan, his wife Zeena and Mattie were all alive in the end. But the situation seemed worse than if some of them had died.
Ethan used to be a young chap with dreams of going to city, until his ailing father distained his education in school. The death of his father and consequently
his mother’s illness deteriorated the situation. Zeena, who was eight years senior to Ethan, came over to help Ethan look after his mother. The death of the mother drew a pathetic shadow on Ethan. He dreaded for loneness, and ended in asking Zeena to stay. The marriage hence took place soon afterwards.
But as it was not built upon understanding and love, Zeena went stingy after the
marriage, whilst Ethan buried himself in the farm work. The humdrum life took a
turn when Mattie, a young and lively girl, came to help with the housework. She
was a relative of Zeena and had a bleak family background. But strange enough,
the life didn’t drag her down like it did to other people. Mattie and Frome often talked and shared the bits of life together, while Zeena stayed in the house
moaning and sulking about her poor health.
But as most of triangle relationships went, soon Zeen spotted the attachment between her husband and Mattie. Life hence got troublesomely complicated. Because
Zeen threatened to send Frome away, Ethan and Frome ended in tragedy. The bleakness of the reality seemed to present in front of them that death was the only option. The attachment made them believe nothing could be worse than living each one’s life separated.
But as such is the life, they both didn’t die: Ethan was left with a long-lasting scar, while Mattie was paralyzed in consequence of the accident. The story took a dramatic turn when the story of the narrator, twenty years after the accident, found that Ethan, Mattie, and Zeen lived under the same roof. But instead of
Zeen sitting in her rocky chair complaining and sulking, Mattie was the one doing it. In comparison, Zeen became the runner of the house and the livelier one.
The end of the story is actually the weirdest ending I have ever come across. But then on Wiki, it said that Edith Wharton, the writer, was in a triangle relationship while she wrote the novel. Someone guessed she wrote it to ease off her tension triggered by the extramarital relationship . But whatever the reason is,
I should recommend the book to those who are Edith Wharton’s fans. Unlike her
The Age of Innocence, this novel was largely written in a chronological manner but wasn’t void of vitality. If I wasn’t really impressed by the ending, I was
impressed by the profile of Ethan at the beginning of the book. And I don’t think anyone could easily forget him after reading the book.
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