Starkfield, Massachusetts (stark meaning, hard, bare, difficult) really is an environment that is supposed to be a place of eternal hardship. The winters are long and spring and summer come short. The author Edith Wharton base Starkfield, Massachusetts on the New England area. In this she quote she says the following “one of the reason [I] wrote the novella was because [I] didn't think other fiction writers had properly captured the New England landscape. [I] wanted to show the harsh and beautiful land as [I] saw it, in all its beauty and all its danger.” In this quote the author the admits she made Starkfield, Massachusetts a very difficult location to live in. The area you are born in can effect you mentally. Being born in a place where majority of the time the season is winter can cause a person to fall under a depression. …show more content…
For Ethan Frome this is a terrible situation since he doesn’t love Zenobia and her cousin Mattie doesn’t love Ethan back. He is basically staying in a house all by himself during the cold nights of the New England weather. In this quote said by Ethan Frome "when winter shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life there—or rather its negation—must have been in Ethan Frome's young manhood." he understands his life has no meaning during the harsh winter season. Until February comes around he nothing to live for. His Mother and Farther are died, his marriage with Zenobia is died and the new love of his life lMattie hasn’t shown any interest in