No Subject

[Brian L]

I agree entirely with you. The book isn't about true love, but about the image that the characters are in love. For instance; (I can't remember if this was in the book, or in the play that i saw) in the prologue one of the characters the narrator talks to tells the narrator that Ethan's marriage wouldn't have happened if it wasn't winter. Ethan was too scared to be alone in the lonly winter time, so he asked Zeena to marry him. If it was spring, he wouldn't have felt alone, and thus, probably never married Zeena. Also, Ethan and Mattie's "love" was just another escape for Ethan. They live away from the town, and dont come into contact with it very often. Ethan doesn't get much love or affection from Zeena, so he looked for other places to get it. Every human has the need for some sort of sexual fuffilment. Since he was in contact with Mattie every day, he found fufillment in fantisizing about her. She was so much more appealing than Zeena, that he convinced himself he was in love. I guess it was kind of the same way with Mattie.

[Ian]

Is this the saddest story? Ethan Frome was born into a life of poverty. That is unfortunate, but those are the circumstances of most people in the world. He was also born into a bleak environment – a place where “most of the smart ones get away” - which made a very hard life to eke out a living from his farm/sawmill – although I never thought of Massachusetts in that way. Ethan Frome’s father died prematurely following a kick from a horse while hay-making, but not before he had depleted the family savings by losing/giving a lot of money away. This brought an end to Ethan’s studies in a technical college – an avenue for escape. It had also made him aware of another life, fired his ambition, the fulfillment of which was to be frustrated. These are all events of misfortune and have elements of tragedy. Ethan’s mother appears to have fallen into depression and eventually became ill. She was nursed by Zeena, a relative of his mother, and her presence broke the severe loneliness that he was beginning to feel. When his mother died, Ethan made his great mistake. “After the funeral, when he saw Zeena preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter…” Although Ethan’s actions are understandable, he just wasn’t big enough to respond to his situation; in fact, he had been given the golden opportunity, shed of all responsibilities, to ‘become one of the smart ones’ and sell the farm to make a new life in a more promising place. But this step was beyond him, and his decision tied him to his desolate life. Although Ethan planned to execute these plans with his new wife, Zeena was hard to please and, it seems, the lonely existence got to her as, like Ethan’s mother, “she too fell silent”. Zeena responded also by developing into a hypochondriac. This resulted in Mattie, a relative of Zeena’s who had been left destitute when her parents died, being brought into the house to assist with the chores. This occurred six years into the marriage, which had turned out to be loveless. At the time of the story, one year later, Mattie would be age 21, Ethan 28, and Zeena 35. Ethan develops a crush for Mattie and eventually his feelings are expressed and reciprocated. Zeena is a bitter, joyless woman; but it is not clear how she became that way. Was it the bleak, lonely life? Was she aware of Ethan’s infatuations during the year that Mattie lived under the same roof as them? Anyway, she arranges for a hired help to replace Mattie, who she was always finding fault with. Ethan’s hand is forced and he contemplates elopement, only deterred by his conscience at raising funds by deceiving friends, and abandoning Zeena to her own devices. The day of departure arrives and leads to the ‘accident’ – a desperate suicidal act of despair. Was this a better choice than elopement, whatever the consequences of running away? The story ends with the crippled Mattie housebound with Zeena in Ethan’s farm. She has become a sour, embittered woman – we are left to presume that this has come about as a result of her confinement/imprisonment in the company of the equally constrained Zeena. These are tragic lives; Ethan had it within his grasp to avoid this but made bad choices – to marry Zeena, not to elope, to allow the accident to happen choosing harm/death to Mattie rather than to let her go.

[amber]

I was also very intrigued by this book.. but for different reasons. I found that this book had absolutely nothing to do with love. In class discussions and in these responses i find that this is the primary focus. In my opinion, Ethan was never in love with Zeena. She was to him, an escape from the sadness adn isolation of the winter after his mother died. She looked to him as an adventure.. a chance to have a good life. This failed. As the isolation crept up on them, Ethan and Zeena began to notice not the loss of their love, for they never had love, but the realism of their fates. Neither were where they wanted to be in life and their previous dreams.. were wrecked. This is what brought the sadness into the home, only to strengthen as winters passed. Mattie, too was not a love but rather an attempt to find something in his life to make him happy. She represented everything that he wanted in himself, youth, happiness, chance. In himself he thought that she might offer some sort of temporary escape from his own gloom. Mattie and Ethan were never in love. It was no more than a failing shot at life. This is how i conclude that the focus of this book is not a tragic love story but rather, a story of broken dreams, false hopes, and the realism of the brutality of human fates.