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"Ethan Frome," often called a novel but really a novella at less
than 31,000 words, was published in 1911 by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton. "Ethan Frome" has been met
with mixed critical reviews, but has remained a classic of American literature and a favorite of educators, writers,
and readers alike.
Although it appears on its surface to be a story about its main character, Ethan, and his experiences with life,
love, and loss in the fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, "Ethan Frome" is in reality a story about stories.
As seen in the prologue and epilogue, Wharton used her novella to give us an exercise in learning whether and how
to trust narration, and what can be believed and what cannot be in fiction.
Most readers, however, do not relate to "Ethan Frome" for this reason. Many of us are drawn to the story of Ethan,
real or imagined, and his attempts to survive life in the aptly named Starkfield. He is ostensibly trapped in his
marriage to Zeena, and yet cannot allow himself to be with his true love, Mattie. He aspires to understand more
about the world around him, but is unable to escape to see it. Regarding his eventually self-destructive decision to
attempt an escape of sorts, Wharton writes that "[h]e was too young, too strong, too full of the sap of living, to
submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes." This is the "Ethan Frome" to which most readers relate.
The fanlisting is a place for fans of "Ethan Frome" to gather and express their interest in this most beautiful of
novellas about truth and the sorrow of life.
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