Ethan Frome Hidden Meanings :: essays papers

Ethan Frome Hidden MeaningsEthan Frome Hidden Meanings Ethan Frome is the story of a family caught in a deep-rooted domestic struggle. Ethan Frome is get hitched with to his commencement exercise love Zeena, who becomes chronically ill over their long marriage. Due to his wifes condition, they took the services of Zeenas cousin, Mattie Silver. Mattie seems to be everything that Zeena is not, youthful, energetic, and healthy. Over time Ethan believes that he loves Mattie and wants to leave his wife for her. He struggles with his obligations toward Zeena and his growing love for Mattie. After Zeena discovers their feelings toward each other, she tries to send Mattie away. In an effort to stay together, Ethan and Mattie try to kill themselves by crashing into the elm tree that they talked about so many times. Instead, Mattie becomes severely inju carmine and paralyzed. The woman that was everything that Zeena was not became the exactly the same as her. In Ethan Frome, the auth or communicates meanings in this story by means of various attributes. One of the most significant symbols used in this story is the very setting itself. A symbol is a person, object, or event that suggests much than its literal meaning. Symbols can be very useful in shedding light on a story, clarifying meaning that cant be expressed with words. It may be hard to notice symbols at first, but while reflecting on the story or reading it a second time, the symbol is like a key that fits perfectly into a lock. The reason that symbols work so well is that we can associate something with a particular object. For example, a red rose symbolizes love and passion, and if there were red roses in a story we may associate that part of the story with love. Although many symbols can have simple-minded meanings, such as a red rose, many have more complex meanings and require a careful reading to figure out its meaning. The first symbol that I noticed in Ethan Frome is the setting. It pl ays an important role in this story. The author spends much of the first few chapters describing the scene in a bare-ass England town Starkfield. When I think of a town called Starkfield, a gloomy, barren place with nothing that can grow comes to mind. As the author continues to describe this town, it good reinforces what I had originally thought.