This novel was written by Edith Wharton in the late nineteenth century where she herself had spent some time living in New England prior to writing her novel, and finding out that the events to her novel were actually based on an accident in which she witness in Lenox, Ma. Although she originally wrote the novel while abroad studying in Paris. Throughout the novel the main focal point is on how Ethan Frome has been dealt a so called unfortunate hand in life due to his being trapped in a marriage to Zeena a woman he feels obligated to and his quest to leave a town which he knows is too small for him, then theirs Mattie someone he feels has given him new life in his situation. Starkfield is somewhat a living hell for Ethan, yet he continues …show more content…
This ill-fated love triangle must soon come to a halt within himself as he fights demons of love over responsibility to his farm and wife. Even living in the small isolated town adds more despair to the situation for Ethan as he longs for a way out of a deem future.
The novel takes place in a small town in Starkfield, Massachusetts where Ethan Frome seems to be a ruin man to the town by his deformity, streak of bad luck, and a wife which he feels he owes here for the sake of being married to love her. He was once a college student with hopes of leaving the small town, but his father died and his mother fell ill leaving him to care for her until her death.
He meets his wife “Zenna” through the nurse who cared for his mother, he has dreams of moving away yet his wife wants to stay in Starkfield. Frome, feel even more trapped by the small town which he longed to get away from and now with a wife who’s a hypochondriac he feels it as his duty to support her in every way possible. It seems as if all hope is lost for Ethan and his situation of no hope until Zenna’s cousin Mattie comes to stay with them and help around the small farm as Zenna illnesses prevent her from helping