Thursday, March 22, 2012

Resolution?

At the end of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, the reader learns that Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie have all lived together in that house for over twenty years.  Wharton does not provide much of a glimpse into what that live has been like, but I would imagine that it would be rather awkward.  There’s essentially no resolution to the love triangle.  Zeena continues to live with her husband and the woman he loved and possibly still loves.  Twenty-two years earlier, Zeena could not stand that prospect, so she sent Mattie away.  Perhaps, taking care of Mattie gave her a sense of purpose and relief from the boredom of living on the farm.  Perhaps, she believed Ethan had been drawn to Mattie’s youth and vitality, which the accident had taken from the girl; as an invalid, Mattie may no longer have been threatening to Zeena. 

What are the relationships between three after the accident living in that house?  Wharton does not give us much insight, other than that the two woman do not get along.  Do they go along and pretend that Ethan and Mattie were not ever in love?  Is Zeena merely a caretaker or is she still Ethan’s wife?  Do they each have their own bedroom and live as three very uncomfortable, miserable people without speaking of the past?  Does Ethan still love Mattie?  Did his guilt over her accident affect his feelings for her?  Does he feel guilty?  I imagine that he does since his conscience seems to give him trouble earlier in the story: guilt prevents him from asking the Hales for money under false pretenses and Zeena’s face continually flashes before him.  Has the change in Mattie’s personality affected his feelings for her?  As Mattie whines that the fire went out, but Zeena was asleep, so Mattie was worried that she would freeze before it was restarted.  This one line of hers reminds me of Zeena earlier in the story.  Zeena had always been whining about her health and the lack of care she received from Mattie and Ethan.  As Ethan had not seemed to care for this quality in his wife, I feel that perhaps it dampened his feelings for Mattie.  I’d imagine that Ethan feels guilty toward both women – he betrayed one and physically injured the other.  I presume he feels responsible for the accident, but again, the reader is not given an answer.  As for the accident, does Zeena know that it was a suicide attempt?

All of the unanswered questions leave the story without a clear sense of resolution.  I suppose the narrator probably was not privy to the specifics as I doubt Ethan opened up about his story.  But, then again, this was the narrator’s “vision” of Ethan’s past (19).  It is presented in third person as though it actually occurred, but it is really just the narrator’s thoughts on what happened.  Major events are probably true since those are the anecdotes that the narrator picks up from people around town, but the interactions between Zeena, Ethan, and Mattie are only known to them – and I doubt any of them told the entire story to the narrator, who is an essential stranger, even to Ethan.  Thus, if the narrator is presenting a “vision” of the story, why can’t he wrap up his vision a little more completely? 


Works Cited

Wharton, Edith.  Ethan Frome & Summer.  New York: The Modern Library, 2001.

2 comments:

  1. That's a good point, Jessica; it really is just his conjecture. Your questions conjured up a sense of what life in that house must be like: no comforts, no music, just silence and illness.

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  2. Hahaha, right?! If only the story could have been ten pages longer!
    I definitely imagined their cold existence of life, and agree that he surely felt guilt about both things. But to make his guilt worse I imagine that his feelings for both women have diminished but he must continue to live with them... forever.

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