Ethan Frome: Fantasy Is An Escape From Winter
Beginning of paper
Ethan Frome, the title character of Edith Wharton's tragic novel, lives
in his own world of silence, where he replaces his scarcity of words with
images and fantasies. There is striking symbolism in the imagery,
predominantly that of winter which connotes frigidity, detachment, bleakness
and secl ....
Middle of paper
.... happy, healthy, and beautiful like the summer, Zeena is
seven years older than Ethan, bitter, ugly and sickly cold like the winter"
(Lewis 310). Zeena's strong, dominating personality emasculates Ethan, while
Mattie's feminine, effervescent youth makes Ethan feel like a "real man."
Contrary to his characteristic passiveness, he defies Zeena in Mattie's defence,
"You can't go, Matt! I won't let you! She's [Zeena's] always had her way, but
I mean to have mine now -" (Wharton 123). To Ethan ....
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Word count: 1475
Page count: 6 (approximately 250 words per page)
