The Reading Den: Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome

I appreciate the simplicity of Ethan Frome. There
aren’t any convoluted subplots to deter you from the core of the storyline. In
this tragic romance novel, Edith Wharton delivers a straight forward plot, focusing
solely on the love triangle between Frome, his ailing yet spiteful wife Zeena
and Mattie, the youthful, spirited girl who is the representation of everything
Frome desires in his monotonous life.

I thoroughly enjoy seeing the many stages of the
human experience through Ethan Frome’s sorrowful eyes. His unfulfilled affection
for Mattie, the resentment he feels towards his wife, his inability to grasp
the kind of life he’s always wanted, is just heart-wrenching.

Frome is so ensnared by societal expectations.
Although he has thoughts of being unfaithful to his wife, as a reader, you know
the idea will remain just that, an idea, never to be realized. Towards the end
of the novel, It would have been so easy for him to declare his love for
Mattie, instead he drives his sled into an elm tree (Mattie’s frivolous
idea) rather than risk disappointing society.

The saddest part of the novel for me is going
forward twenty years and finding that Frome still resides in Starkfield, the tiny fictional Massachusetts town. He is seen with two feeble
women, his wife Zeena and a crippled, Mattie. As it turns out, poor Ethan Frome is just destined
to play the role of the dutiful husband.