Monseigneur
05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
Having read Ethan Frome in class, and having gone through a very strange test, and a futile discussion that followed, I still have some questions in mind.<br><br>1) Did anyone get the idea that Ethan Frome wanted to teach college before his father's illness? I thought he wanted to be an engineer...that was our dispute over the True or False question "Ethan planned to be a college teacher after he graduated." or something along that line.<br><br>2) Does anyone think that Ethan is the antagonist as well as the protagonist? I thought that Zeena was the protagonist. Yes, Ethan hindered himself. But doesn't almost every protagonist in the history of literature?<br><br>3) About symbols...did the spruce symbolize anything? Is there an argument that they didn't? And as for the sawmill, is it possible that it was a symbol?<br><br>4) If someone asks you "True or False, Ruth Varnum continued to visit Ethan and Mattie Silver regularly and often after the accident", would you think that they're asking you about right after the accident or the time lapse between the accident and the time when the narrator tells the story?