April / Wharton Reading: 'Ethan Frome'

[Janine]

I've been torn as to whether the climatic sled crash scene really fit with the novel. That site you posted Janine had an interesting analysis of it:



If Wharton really meant it as symbolic of fate, well I have a problem. Not with the symbol but whether than Ethan had a choice. Yes, he was contrained. But he could have left. He didn't have to commit suicide. He could have put Mattie on the train. He could have brought her back and told Zeena to shut up. He had options. I feel that way and just about everyone discussing here has said similar. I had a problem with the ending from the moment I read it. How is it fatalistic to choose to get into a sled and crash oneself into a tree? It doesn't seem to follow, and yet like that analysis I do believe that's what Wharton intended. And so for me, I have to say, while I thought this was an excellent novel, it doesn't get the ending right.

Wow, glad you read some of the study site. I want to read all of it eventually to better understand the book and Wharton's motives for writing it. You point out some good things here. First off, I like the explanation from the site about the ending. It does seem it was just another botched attempt to escape his unbearable situation --
"The suicide attempt is the final and most terrible failed plan of Ethan Frome. It caps off a long string of aborted plans and frustrated wishes, and this time the consequences are tragic. " interesting.....

I have to admit that when I was in highschool and read this book at the end I said to myself - what? and thought it really pretty lame, at the point of the failed suicide. I still have some bit of trouble myself with the end. But I am trying harder now to understand just why Wharton wrote it this way. Now on several new readings, I see the point and the irony at the very end revealing to me the attempted suicide as making more sense, in context with that final ending. Didn't Ethan bring on all of the misery of his life by his bad choice on the hill that fateful day and is this not the worst of the tragedy? In other words one more act of bad judgement in the suicide attempt condemned him and Matty to a life of hell. So maybe this is what Wharton wanted to say - that snap judgement that is poorly thought out and impulsive can lead to tragedy. Did not Hamlet make rash judgement in slaying Polonius by accident hearing someone behind the aras? This one act of misjudgement progressed the rest of the tragedy, causing all hell to break loose and fate to go in bizzare directions. So for Wharton to end with a tragic and ironic ending - Zeena caring now for Matty and Ethan is appropriate and really the doing of the choice that Nathan made in taking Matty down the hill and into the tree. I think in this way the tree is a symbol of a very bad option. Do now people make bad options everyday of their lives?
So maybe Wharton was trying to illustrate a point and a morale about thinking more clearly about what choices we have and which would have been the lesser of the two evils. Obviously had Ethan fleed with Matty and attempted a new life they would have been better off than they were in the outcome of this story, at least there would have been hope. So to try, is the better option, even if it requires change, hardships and sacrifice. Instead they copped out and went for death, but death was not to accept them. Therefore the greatest irony of all lay at the close of the book - the last scene, and there is the real impact of the story. It could have ended with the suicides as being successful. Then what? Just another tragic tale, but Wharton did something quite unique with her ending, I believe. Had they died, it would have been perhaps glorious in romantic tradedy - they escaped to death together, perhaps to a heavenly place, but instead by living on crippled and broken they were in a far worse place - a living hell. How much more tragic could a story be? I think this is what greatly distrubs most people about the book - let's face it - the ending is quite unsettling. There is no hope for Ethan, Matty or Zeena...no one wins in the end...all are pathetic.

[Virgil]

OK Janine, you do a good job of putting the best perspective to the ending. But I still have qualms. It doesn't seem to be a logical conclusion of the action leading to it. Now on second reading, I noticed Wharton forshadowing that climax in almost every chapter. But still falls short for me. Didn't I see somewhere that this was a real life event (the sled ride into the tree by two lovers) that Wharton came upon? It seems she tried to force that into the novel. Perhaps it could have been done but the theme could not be fate. I just don't see how it is fatlistic to choose to get into a sled and crash into a tree.

[papayahed]

Surprise. I don't have a problem with the ending. It was the easy way out, the tree was right there at the bottom of the hill. All Ethan had to do was aim fot the tree and that wasn't even that hard. It seems to me that Ethan is the type of person that stuff happens too, as oppossed to someone that makes things happen.

[Janine]

Surprise. I don't have a problem with the ending. It was the easy way out, the tree was right there at the bottom of the hill. All Ethan had to do was aim fot the tree and that wasn't even that hard. It seems to me that Ethan is the type of person that stuff happens too, as oppossed to someone that makes things happen.

I agree with you papaya, it seems that our iert Nathan was not all that creative in his thinking about the suicide. This form of commiting suicide sure seems quite brutal and not very sure, doen't it? I think that given the circumstances and his feeling of desperation - Zeena had pretty much backed he and Matty into a corner - they went up and down the hill a few times and then suddenly it presented itself as an out, the only out there could be at that given moment. I don't think at this point it was a rational decision at all. Is suicide ever rational to begin with? They say "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem". So if he made the sudden decision it was in a moment of passion; and being as iert as Nathan seemed to be, perhaps he only needed a little prodding to be forced forward to act. Remember, too, that the hills in New England were really like small steep mountain slopes and so it is feasible one could run into a tree and not survive. Also, early in the story it is indicated that a couple did, in fact, get hurt or killed this in this very way - by hitting that same tree while sledding. Wharton prewarns us of the great danger of that big tree, even saying some of the town's folk wanted to have it cut down.
V and P, The sledding tragedy was based on an actual newspaper (1904) report, this being mentioned in the forward of my book. The exact details of that accident were not stated. However, Wharton, no doubt took the idea for the ending of her book from this sad event, perhaps changing it to suit her characters and situation.
Virgil, for years this ending did not set well with me, either. Not until recently have I begun to see the sense in it and the reason Wharton had her strange ending become a botched suicide attempt. I now feel the ending is appropriate to the rest of the book, in fact I see it quite as a stroke of brilliance.

[Virgil]

But Ethan never contemplates suicide until that scene. It comes up so sudden, a pure whim. And that sled just happened to be there?

Well, perhaps years from now the climax may sit well with me.

[Janine]

Yes, I am saying in essense it was on a whim he reacted and acted on it. Now you are getting picky. I don't know maybe in New England they keep sleds hidden in trees and share them for sledding.
I don't know - do you ever plan to read the book again? Wasn't twice enough? I don't think I shall read it any more, 3 was enough. I need to go onto something new like maybe another of her novels 'House of Mirth" or "Age of Innocence" - I liked both of those film adaptations so I should read the novels as well...eventually.

[Scheherazade]

I think it was Mattie's idea that they should drive the sled into the tree; it was not Ethan's decision. He, yet once again, went along with the idea but at the last moment, he did not have the guts to see it through (surprise, surprise). He tries to avoid the tree, with horrible consequeces.

I think the final scene is very befitting; it sums up Ethan's whole life and personality. Unfortunately, this time it is not only himself but also two women suffer in his hands, thanks to his inability to take action.

[Virgil]

I think it was Mattie's idea that they should drive the sled into the tree; it was not Ethan's decision. He, yet once again, went along with the idea but at the last moment, he did not have the guts to see it through (surprise, surprise). He tries to avoid the tree, with horrible consequeces.

I think the final scene is very befitting; it sums up Ethan's whole life and personality. Unfortunately, this time it is not only himself but also two women suffer in his hands, thanks to his inability to take action.

Do you think the climax (deciding to crash into the tree) suggests fate? Was it the culmination of a fatalistic series of events? I would like your opinion, and others too. I'm curious.

[papayahed]

Do you mean strictly duriing the ending? The idea that the sled was there? I don't see it as fate at all, they had always planned on sledding the hill, and it wasn't like it was a sheer coincidence a sled was sitting there.

I would be more inclined to call it fate if it had been a true accident rather then a half-butted suicide attempt.

[Scheherazade]

Agree with pretty much everything Papaya says in her post.

I don't think it was fate. True that they coincidentally discover the sled there but Ethan tries to change the course of the sled in the last moment (and I cannot help wondering if he planned this from the beginning as he insisted that he should sit in the front during that last ride).

[papayahed]

I think it was Mattie's idea that they should drive the sled into the tree; it was not Ethan's decision. He, yet once again, went along with the idea but at the last moment, he did not have the guts to see it through (surprise, surprise). He tries to avoid the tree, with horrible consequeces.

I think the final scene is very befitting; it sums up Ethan's whole life and personality. Unfortunately, this time it is not only himself but also two women suffer in his hands, thanks to his inability to take action.

Well put Scher, exactly what I was thinking.

[caspian]

Couldn't find EF. went on reading "the age of innocence". Wharton is comletely new for me. Quite good writer.

[bouquin]

I've had those exact same thoughts. I assume that Ethan took a liking to the engineer and spilled his guts. But he does seem tactiturn.

I agree than Ethan is of the uncommunicative type. But he seems to have developed a certain affinity to the narrator so it is not hard for me to imagine that he would tell him his story, part of it anyway (for I could not imagine him making a tell-all confession). And then there's Zeena and Mattie, they could have also delivered disgruntled remarks here and there that served as additional information for the narrator. The rest of the story would have been inference on the part of the narrator; he does specify on the last line of the frame chapter that he "put together this vision of [Ethan's] story..."

[Janine]

I agree with you. Perhaps Ethan finally had a person he trusted to relay some of the story to, but I doubt all. He did feel a certain affinity to the narrator, which might present itself as a rare opportunity for communication in some form.
I think basically the entire story is a sort of 'patchwork quilt' of Ethan's life pieced together from various contributing parties, to form this complete tale. Told in a 'patchwork' or piece-meal sort of way are the events of those years that determined Ethan's present life and ironic situation.

[Scheherazade]

In my opinion, the Narrator is what Ethan could be... He started to study engineering but couldn't finish and ended up leading the miserable life of his. So, Ethan is naturally drawn to him.