Ethan Frome Literary Criticism Summary

In criticism written by Alfred Kazin in 1987, the novel Ethan Frome is connected to Edith Wharton’s societal class and her moral affairs regarding marriage. Alfred Kazin implies that Edith Wharton’s bitter sense of being trapped in her societal class in wealthy New England created the Starkfield. The criticism gives evident that serves to prove that the chains that Edith Wharton felt in her society allowed her to create a suffocating and “socially hopeless” scene of Starkfield. Her wealthy New England upbringing and they struggle she had to go through to become and educated novelist gave her the frustration and bitterness shown throughout the novel by the character Ethan. The criticism states that Edith Wharton wrote Ethan Frome to symbolize her feelings on resentment of her class through “the dreariness of winter, the bareness of Ethan’s farmhouse, the insufficiency of his sawmill”. Alfred Kazin’s criticism also states that Ethan Frome is a vessel for the subject of illicit love. This criticism states that Edith Wharton was driving the theme “for love to really be love, it must be forbidden, it must fail, it must carry the doomed lovers down with it.” This theme is definitely present throughout Ethan Frome. This theme can be connected to Edith Wharton herself because her marriage to Edward Wharton was an unhappy and unfaithful one. She was known to have a love affair with Morton Fullerton. Her unsuccessful and unhappy marriage can connect to Ethan Frome that the novels obvious bitterness and unhappiness Ethan feels toward Zenna and his need to find escape through Mattie. This is a direct parallel to Edith Wharton’s marriage and affair. The criticism presented the ideas of Edith Wharton’s societal rank and marital affairs had an effect on the novel Ethan Frome. I think that Alfred Kazin made this point through some very clear connections. He used evidence that paralleled Edith Wharton’s life to the inner life of Ethan, Zenna, and Mattie. There is also evidence that connects the wealthy New England society Edith Wharton lived in to the poverty of Starkfield. I agree with the stand that Alfred Kazin takes on the novel Ethan Frome. I thought the connections made between Edith Wharton’s marriage and her affair and Ethan’s marriage and affair add depth to the meaning behind the novel. I think the desperation seen in Ethan’s want for Mattie may have been the way Edith Wharton released her frustration of her world. I agree with the criticism’s take on Ethan Frome being the way Edith Wharton could reveal the bitterness and frustration she felt in the oppression of the society.