In the Prologue of Ethan Frome, the Narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare winter to an invading army and the town of Starkfield to a fortress under siege:
[W]hen the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages[.]
In this passage, Wharton describes banks of snow from February blizzards as “white tents” erected by invading troops, while the image of a “wild cavalry” evokes the relentlessness and noise of March winds. The word “capitulating” carries the connotation of defeat and conjures up the image of someone buckling under immense pressure. As a result of these metaphors and similes, the reader envisions winter as a relentless siege and the inhabitants of Starkfield as exhausted and despondent soldiers.
The Narrator notes that the stakes of this never-ending “war” against the elements must have been much higher 20 years ago, when the novel’s main narrative takes place. The inhabitants of Starkfield had fewer “means of resistance” and even less connection to the outside world. With these facts in mind, the reader is able to feel more sympathy toward Ethan, who longs to escape his oppressive circumstances, as well as Zeena, who has become bitter and withdrawn after "too many winters" spent in Starkfield.
Near the end of the novel’s Prologue, the Narrator of Ethan Frome catches his first glimpse of the Frome farmhouse. The sight distresses and unsettles him, and the eerie atmosphere of the scene is amplified by the fact that the house appears to take on human characteristics:
The black wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
In this passage, Wharton personifies the Frome farmhouse through metaphor, likening it to a human shivering in the winter cold. This comparison implies that the house’s walls do a rather poor job of keeping out the snow and wind—if the house itself is shivering, then the people residing within it must also be at the mercy of the elements.
The Narrator goes on to describe the house as “forlorn and stunted,” a description that imbues it with a sense of human sorrow. The house looks so forlorn and does such a bad job of keeping out the cold because it is missing its “L”—a structure that would ordinarily connect the main house to the wood-shed and the barn. As the Narrator explains, this structure is the “hearth-stone of the New England farm,” and its absence prompts the Narrator to draw a connection between the house and the man who owns it:
Perhaps this connection of ideas, which often occurred to me in my rambles about Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome’s words, and to see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.
Just as the physical form of the farmhouse has become diminished by the removal of the “L,” Ethan’s body has become malformed and weak as a result of his accident. This connection further personifies the house and suggests that Ethan has also lost his “hearth-stone,” that is, his heart or his source of hope and happiness.
At multiple points throughout Ethan Frome, Wharton uses the motif of living death to emphasize the gloomy atmosphere of Starkfield and foreshadow the novel's tragic conclusion.
The motif is first introduced during the Prologue, when the Narrator describes Ethan as a "ruin of a man" who "looks as if he was dead and in hell," implying that although Ethan is physically alive, he is metaphorically dead. The motif recurs later in the Prologue, when the Narrator sees the Frome farmhouse and notices the "black wraith of a deciduous creeper" hanging above the porch. The deciduous vine, which sheds its leaves in the winter, represents the barrenness of the Frome farm and is an ideal symbol for living death—although still alive, the plant appears dead, a concept reinforced by the phrase "black wraith.
The juxtaposition of life and death continues in Chapter 2 when Ethan and Mattie pass by the Frome family graveyard on their way back to the farmhouse, and Ethan is reminded of his mortality:
[W]henever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a shiver: "I shall just go on living here till I join them."
Ethan must pass by the graveyard every time he enters or leaves his house, which means that day of his life carries with it a reminder of his eventual death. This preoccupation with death is amplified by the recurring image of the vine:
A dead cucumber-vine dangled from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it were there for Zeena—"
In this passage, a once-living piece of organic material (the vine) is compared to a man-made symbol of death, and astute readers will deduce that this is the same vine that the Narrator sees more than 20 years later, implying that farmhouse has remained unchanged during that time and reminding them that Ethan's story is destined to end in tragedy.
As the novel continues, Wharton continues to use simile and metaphor and expand the motif of living death. Later in Chapter 2, she likens the interior of Frome farmhouse to tomb by describing the kitchen as having "the deadly chill of a vault." In Chapter 6, the broken pickle-dish is compared to a "dead body," foreshadowing how Ethan and Mattie's bodies will become broken after the accident, dooming them to a state of living death. And in Chapter 9, the darkness and silence of the spruces make it so that Ethan and Mattie seem to be "in their coffins underground." Even though the characters are alive, their surroundings make it seem as though they are already dead and buried, foreshadowing how their fate will be shaped by external circumstances.
In the Epilogue, Mrs. Hale explicitly states that Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena appear to exist in a state of living death:
"[T]he way they are now, I don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard"
Wharton seems to imply that the only thing that separated Ethan from his dead relatives was his ability to actively change his own fate. Since he never exercised this ability, which is only reserved for the living, he has doomed himself to a facsimile of death.
Ethan Frome is a novel defined by its setting, with Wharton devoting numerous passages to descriptions of the physical landscape. She also frequently uses a combination of imagery, metaphor, and simile to draw comparisons between characters and their environment. The motif of animals and nature emphasizes the profound impact that environmental factors can have on human emotion and behavior.
In Chapter 1, Wharton sets up Ethan as a person who "more sensitive than the people about him" to the beauty of the natural world. He is also appreciative of Mattie's beauty, and Wharton links these two concepts together by using figurative language to compare Mattie to different aspects of nature. At different points throughout the novel, parts of Mattie's body are likened to a sunset, a field of wheat, and a cloud of mist.
Wharton also frequently compares Mattie to a bird—a delicate creature associated with song, morning, and springtime. Her mind is likened to "the flit of a bird in the branches," and the movement of her hands resembles the flight of birds over a nest. At one point, Ethan is reminded of her laughter when he hears a bird singing. This focus on sound and movement reflects how Mattie, unlike Zeena, is vibrant and physically dynamic. Songbirds are also often used to symbolize devotion, monogamy, and domesticity because they nest in pairs and were historically believed to mate for life. This symbolism is fitting because although Ethan definitely feels romantic and sexual desire for Mattie, what he truly wants is for them to live together as man and wife in idealized domestic bliss.
In Chapter 9, Wharton uses tactile and olfactory imagery to deepen the connection between Mattie and the beauty of the natural world and associate her with warmth and light:
She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair, which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun.
Later on in the same chapter, following the fatal accident, this motif continues, with Ethan mistaking Mattie for a small injured animal:
The stillness was so profound that he heard a little animal twittering somewhere near by under the snow. It made a small frightened cheep like a field mouse, and he wondered languidly if it were hurt.
Earlier in the novel, when Mattie was likened to a bird, these comparisons had a positive connotation. Here, however, Wharton's use of auditory imagery in the phrase "frightened cheep" emphasizes Mattie's helplessness in the face of external circumstances. After the accident, she loses the characteristics—beauty and movement—that connected her to the natural world.
More than 20 years after the accident, Ethan still has a deep connection to the environment, but the nature of this connection has changed. In the Prologue, the Narrator makes note of this connection:
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface.
Ethan has become like a Starkfield winter—harsh and cold on the outside, with any remaining warmth locked deep within himself.
At multiple points throughout Ethan Frome, Wharton uses the motif of living death to emphasize the gloomy atmosphere of Starkfield and foreshadow the novel's tragic conclusion.
The motif is first introduced during the Prologue, when the Narrator describes Ethan as a "ruin of a man" who "looks as if he was dead and in hell," implying that although Ethan is physically alive, he is metaphorically dead. The motif recurs later in the Prologue, when the Narrator sees the Frome farmhouse and notices the "black wraith of a deciduous creeper" hanging above the porch. The deciduous vine, which sheds its leaves in the winter, represents the barrenness of the Frome farm and is an ideal symbol for living death—although still alive, the plant appears dead, a concept reinforced by the phrase "black wraith.
The juxtaposition of life and death continues in Chapter 2 when Ethan and Mattie pass by the Frome family graveyard on their way back to the farmhouse, and Ethan is reminded of his mortality:
[W]henever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a shiver: "I shall just go on living here till I join them."
Ethan must pass by the graveyard every time he enters or leaves his house, which means that day of his life carries with it a reminder of his eventual death. This preoccupation with death is amplified by the recurring image of the vine:
A dead cucumber-vine dangled from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it were there for Zeena—"
In this passage, a once-living piece of organic material (the vine) is compared to a man-made symbol of death, and astute readers will deduce that this is the same vine that the Narrator sees more than 20 years later, implying that farmhouse has remained unchanged during that time and reminding them that Ethan's story is destined to end in tragedy.
As the novel continues, Wharton continues to use simile and metaphor and expand the motif of living death. Later in Chapter 2, she likens the interior of Frome farmhouse to tomb by describing the kitchen as having "the deadly chill of a vault." In Chapter 6, the broken pickle-dish is compared to a "dead body," foreshadowing how Ethan and Mattie's bodies will become broken after the accident, dooming them to a state of living death. And in Chapter 9, the darkness and silence of the spruces make it so that Ethan and Mattie seem to be "in their coffins underground." Even though the characters are alive, their surroundings make it seem as though they are already dead and buried, foreshadowing how their fate will be shaped by external circumstances.
In the Epilogue, Mrs. Hale explicitly states that Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena appear to exist in a state of living death:
"[T]he way they are now, I don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard"
Wharton seems to imply that the only thing that separated Ethan from his dead relatives was his ability to actively change his own fate. Since he never exercised this ability, which is only reserved for the living, he has doomed himself to a facsimile of death.
In Ethan Frome, images of crime, imprisonment, and bondage serve as a motif that reflects the apparent lack of control that Ethan has over his own life.
In Chapter 6, when Zeena unexpectedly returns home early from her visit to the doctor, Wharton uses a simile to compare Ethan and Mattie to criminals:
They stood and stared at each other, pale as culprits.
The word "culprit" carries the connotation of crime and guilt. Although Ethan and Mattie haven't committed a crime in the legal sense, their adulterous desire is socially taboo. As a result, their being interrupted in the middle of their transgression feels similar to two thieves being caught red-handed in the middle of a heist.
This motif recurs in Chapter 8, when Ethan realizes his plan to run away with Mattie is unfeasible:
The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a convict. There was no way out—none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished.
The similes in this passage emphasize the theme of determinism and inescapable fate that runs through much of the novel. Ethan views himself as a "prisoner" of his circumstances, which he envisions as a pair of handcuffs being shackled around his wrists. This passage also implies that Ethan feels a sense of guilt regarding his desire for Mattie. He sees himself as a "convict"—someone who has already been convicted of a crime—rather than an innocent prisoner.
The motif of bondage and imprisonment resurfaces in Chapter 9, when the time comes for Mattie to leave Starkfield:
It seemed to Ethan that his heart was bound with cords which an unseen hand was tightening with every tick of the clock.
In this passage, fate is personified as an "unseen hand." Ethan once again fails to take an active role in his own life, instead viewing himself as a passive victim of fate. Wharton frequently implies, however, that Ethan does in fact have the power to change his circumstances but chooses not to. His tragic destiny is not just the result of external factors, but also the consequence of his failure to take an active role in his own life.
In Ethan Frome, images of crime, imprisonment, and bondage serve as a motif that reflects the apparent lack of control that Ethan has over his own life.
In Chapter 6, when Zeena unexpectedly returns home early from her visit to the doctor, Wharton uses a simile to compare Ethan and Mattie to criminals:
They stood and stared at each other, pale as culprits.
The word "culprit" carries the connotation of crime and guilt. Although Ethan and Mattie haven't committed a crime in the legal sense, their adulterous desire is socially taboo. As a result, their being interrupted in the middle of their transgression feels similar to two thieves being caught red-handed in the middle of a heist.
This motif recurs in Chapter 8, when Ethan realizes his plan to run away with Mattie is unfeasible:
The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a convict. There was no way out—none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished.
The similes in this passage emphasize the theme of determinism and inescapable fate that runs through much of the novel. Ethan views himself as a "prisoner" of his circumstances, which he envisions as a pair of handcuffs being shackled around his wrists. This passage also implies that Ethan feels a sense of guilt regarding his desire for Mattie. He sees himself as a "convict"—someone who has already been convicted of a crime—rather than an innocent prisoner.
The motif of bondage and imprisonment resurfaces in Chapter 9, when the time comes for Mattie to leave Starkfield:
It seemed to Ethan that his heart was bound with cords which an unseen hand was tightening with every tick of the clock.
In this passage, fate is personified as an "unseen hand." Ethan once again fails to take an active role in his own life, instead viewing himself as a passive victim of fate. Wharton frequently implies, however, that Ethan does in fact have the power to change his circumstances but chooses not to. His tragic destiny is not just the result of external factors, but also the consequence of his failure to take an active role in his own life.
Ethan Frome is a novel defined by its setting, with Wharton devoting numerous passages to descriptions of the physical landscape. She also frequently uses a combination of imagery, metaphor, and simile to draw comparisons between characters and their environment. The motif of animals and nature emphasizes the profound impact that environmental factors can have on human emotion and behavior.
In Chapter 1, Wharton sets up Ethan as a person who "more sensitive than the people about him" to the beauty of the natural world. He is also appreciative of Mattie's beauty, and Wharton links these two concepts together by using figurative language to compare Mattie to different aspects of nature. At different points throughout the novel, parts of Mattie's body are likened to a sunset, a field of wheat, and a cloud of mist.
Wharton also frequently compares Mattie to a bird—a delicate creature associated with song, morning, and springtime. Her mind is likened to "the flit of a bird in the branches," and the movement of her hands resembles the flight of birds over a nest. At one point, Ethan is reminded of her laughter when he hears a bird singing. This focus on sound and movement reflects how Mattie, unlike Zeena, is vibrant and physically dynamic. Songbirds are also often used to symbolize devotion, monogamy, and domesticity because they nest in pairs and were historically believed to mate for life. This symbolism is fitting because although Ethan definitely feels romantic and sexual desire for Mattie, what he truly wants is for them to live together as man and wife in idealized domestic bliss.
In Chapter 9, Wharton uses tactile and olfactory imagery to deepen the connection between Mattie and the beauty of the natural world and associate her with warmth and light:
She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair, which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun.
Later on in the same chapter, following the fatal accident, this motif continues, with Ethan mistaking Mattie for a small injured animal:
The stillness was so profound that he heard a little animal twittering somewhere near by under the snow. It made a small frightened cheep like a field mouse, and he wondered languidly if it were hurt.
Earlier in the novel, when Mattie was likened to a bird, these comparisons had a positive connotation. Here, however, Wharton's use of auditory imagery in the phrase "frightened cheep" emphasizes Mattie's helplessness in the face of external circumstances. After the accident, she loses the characteristics—beauty and movement—that connected her to the natural world.
More than 20 years after the accident, Ethan still has a deep connection to the environment, but the nature of this connection has changed. In the Prologue, the Narrator makes note of this connection:
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface.
Ethan has become like a Starkfield winter—harsh and cold on the outside, with any remaining warmth locked deep within himself.
In Ethan Frome, images of crime, imprisonment, and bondage serve as a motif that reflects the apparent lack of control that Ethan has over his own life.
In Chapter 6, when Zeena unexpectedly returns home early from her visit to the doctor, Wharton uses a simile to compare Ethan and Mattie to criminals:
They stood and stared at each other, pale as culprits.
The word "culprit" carries the connotation of crime and guilt. Although Ethan and Mattie haven't committed a crime in the legal sense, their adulterous desire is socially taboo. As a result, their being interrupted in the middle of their transgression feels similar to two thieves being caught red-handed in the middle of a heist.
This motif recurs in Chapter 8, when Ethan realizes his plan to run away with Mattie is unfeasible:
The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a convict. There was no way out—none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished.
The similes in this passage emphasize the theme of determinism and inescapable fate that runs through much of the novel. Ethan views himself as a "prisoner" of his circumstances, which he envisions as a pair of handcuffs being shackled around his wrists. This passage also implies that Ethan feels a sense of guilt regarding his desire for Mattie. He sees himself as a "convict"—someone who has already been convicted of a crime—rather than an innocent prisoner.
The motif of bondage and imprisonment resurfaces in Chapter 9, when the time comes for Mattie to leave Starkfield:
It seemed to Ethan that his heart was bound with cords which an unseen hand was tightening with every tick of the clock.
In this passage, fate is personified as an "unseen hand." Ethan once again fails to take an active role in his own life, instead viewing himself as a passive victim of fate. Wharton frequently implies, however, that Ethan does in fact have the power to change his circumstances but chooses not to. His tragic destiny is not just the result of external factors, but also the consequence of his failure to take an active role in his own life.
At multiple points throughout Ethan Frome, Wharton uses the motif of living death to emphasize the gloomy atmosphere of Starkfield and foreshadow the novel's tragic conclusion.
The motif is first introduced during the Prologue, when the Narrator describes Ethan as a "ruin of a man" who "looks as if he was dead and in hell," implying that although Ethan is physically alive, he is metaphorically dead. The motif recurs later in the Prologue, when the Narrator sees the Frome farmhouse and notices the "black wraith of a deciduous creeper" hanging above the porch. The deciduous vine, which sheds its leaves in the winter, represents the barrenness of the Frome farm and is an ideal symbol for living death—although still alive, the plant appears dead, a concept reinforced by the phrase "black wraith.
The juxtaposition of life and death continues in Chapter 2 when Ethan and Mattie pass by the Frome family graveyard on their way back to the farmhouse, and Ethan is reminded of his mortality:
[W]henever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a shiver: "I shall just go on living here till I join them."
Ethan must pass by the graveyard every time he enters or leaves his house, which means that day of his life carries with it a reminder of his eventual death. This preoccupation with death is amplified by the recurring image of the vine:
A dead cucumber-vine dangled from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it were there for Zeena—"
In this passage, a once-living piece of organic material (the vine) is compared to a man-made symbol of death, and astute readers will deduce that this is the same vine that the Narrator sees more than 20 years later, implying that farmhouse has remained unchanged during that time and reminding them that Ethan's story is destined to end in tragedy.
As the novel continues, Wharton continues to use simile and metaphor and expand the motif of living death. Later in Chapter 2, she likens the interior of Frome farmhouse to tomb by describing the kitchen as having "the deadly chill of a vault." In Chapter 6, the broken pickle-dish is compared to a "dead body," foreshadowing how Ethan and Mattie's bodies will become broken after the accident, dooming them to a state of living death. And in Chapter 9, the darkness and silence of the spruces make it so that Ethan and Mattie seem to be "in their coffins underground." Even though the characters are alive, their surroundings make it seem as though they are already dead and buried, foreshadowing how their fate will be shaped by external circumstances.
In the Epilogue, Mrs. Hale explicitly states that Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena appear to exist in a state of living death:
"[T]he way they are now, I don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard"
Wharton seems to imply that the only thing that separated Ethan from his dead relatives was his ability to actively change his own fate. Since he never exercised this ability, which is only reserved for the living, he has doomed himself to a facsimile of death.
