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Essay Archive - Ethan Frome: Fantasy is an Escape From Winter
Ethan Frome: Fantasy is an Escape From Winter
Ethan Frome, the title character of Edith Wharton's tragic novel, lives
in his own world of silence, where he replaces his scarcity of words with
images and fantasies. There is striking symbolism in the imagery,
predominantly that of winter which connotes frigidity, detachment, bleakness
and seclusion.
Twenty-eight year old Ethan feels trapped in his hometown of Starkfield,
Massachusetts. He marries thirty-four year old Zeena after the death of his
mother, "in an unsuccessful attempt to escape the silence, isolation, and
lonelin....
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