Explore the devices used by Wharton to communicate character of Ethan Frome in the opening of the novel

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Danielle Davies

Explore the devices used by Wharton to communicate character of Ethan Frome in the opening of the novel

The opening line of Ethan Frome suggests an unreliable narrator, ‘I had the story, bit by bit, from various people’, thus suggesting that the story of Ethan Frome shouldn’t be taken at face value and that interpretations should be based on the reliability of the narrator. In addition to this, the narrator, who is never named, appears to air a sense of superiority, ‘Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral reach permitted’, the narrator has made a judgement on somebody he barely knew and therefore highlighting a definite sense of judgement and superiority in his persona.

Wharton communicates a sense of failure on Ethan’s part by describing him as, ‘but the ruin of a man.’, the use of the word ‘ruin’ suggests that the foundations were laid for Ethan to become a great man and achieve something life, yet he had let life erode him away to nothing but a ‘ruin’. There is also a suggestion that there has always been something preventing Ethan from completing his ambitions; ‘each step like the jerk of a chain’ is almost as though there is something tied around Ethan averting him from breaking away. The suggestion of failure or incompletion is emphasised with ‘smash-up’, the use of the word smash provokes a sense of utter destruction and of something that isn’t repairable.  In relation to Ethan Frome, this destruction could mean both emotional and physical. This lack of achievement in Ethan’s life is also represented when Harmon Gow says, ‘he’s been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away’. The significance of ‘Starkfield’ is also important in terms of the location, stark suggests bare and nothing there, whilst a field is a place where things grow and flourish in, therefore suggesting Starkfield is a place of stunted growth and traps people in it’s hold and that Ethan Frome is one of the ones who became stuck.

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Wharton uses the surroundings a lot to symbolise something involved with Ethan Frome or his story, for example Starkfield is ‘snow covered’ which suggests that everything is covered up and not everything is quite what it seems, for example holes in the ground are covered up by the snow and it’s only when you step over them that you suddenly fall into it and it is too late. In addition to this, the missing L barn on Ethan’s home is a fundamental part of the building which links the home area to the barn; this could represent Ethan missing ...

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