by 
Mackenzie Patel
Mr. Darcy, with all his wealthy suaveness and high-browed pretension, has got absolutely nothing on the heart-wrenching, stormy, and lame-footed character of Ethan Frome, the withering protagonist in the novel of the same name by Edith Wharton. The gushy love story of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy was beautiful and flirtatious, but it was so unrealistic and almost too perfect. The characters were self-centered and contained within their own realms of love and folly that nothing else, not even the events of the outside world, mattered. In short, Pride and Prejudice, while it will always be a favorite of mine, does not align with my realistic and often pessimistic view of romance in general. When two people fall in love, leaving the true world behind for some two-ended reconstruction of fantasy just isn’t rational. That is the precise reason why Ethan Frome might have broken through my carefully guarded paper tower of “literary favorites” to make it to the soaring top. I casually picked up Ethan Frome for $3 at a used bookstore near my house and decided to give Edith another whirl—I attempted to read The Age of Innocence before, but its style was so dull and Victorian to me. However, Mr. Frome bewitched my mind and heart, especially because the emotions were so raw and poignant (as opposed to Pride and Prejudice in which I was in a perpetual state of girly frilliness and needless drama). Read on for specific reasons why Ethan Frome is a beautiful novel that deserves more hype as a tragic literary classic (more than The Awakening at any rate).
The dragging leg that snags on the unpaved road for all the staring villagers to see and hear. The creaking carriage that hasn’t licked a new splinter of wood in fifty years. A secluded farm house harboring a secret that no one in the close-knit town ever knew. A girl, a beautiful girl, ravaged by the gnarled hands of time and suicide. That is basically the annoying cliff-hanger summary of Ethan Frome, a novel penned by Edith Wharton in 1911. However, her style was so prim, classic and formal that it feels more Victorian than early modern. It was jarring to realize that Gertrude Stein was shattering the concept of words and what was considered a merit-worthy publication with Tender Buttons (1914) while Edith was literarily stuck in rural 18th century England. The 180 page story took place in chilly New England, and one line in particular about the elusive Frome set the glum mood: “Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters.” I could write an entire essay on why I find Ethan so fascinating, sexy, and tempestuous that he blows the rich and dainty Mr. Darcy out of the water. To begin, Ethan was a poor farmer that had innumerable burdens and depressing events thrust upon his towering figure as a young man. He had to deal with the death of his father and handle his rather senile mother. Toiling away in his failing fields and lackluster sawmill was essentially his sentence for the rest of his sorry life. However, it wasn’t his “hardiness” or true American grit that transformed him from a self-pitying peasant into an unforgettable and timeless character. For me, it was his overwhelming capacity to love and the way he seemed to live in a permanent state of daydreaming that captured my attention. Ethan Frome, like Pride and Prejudice, IS a love story, but it contains a whole third dimension of emotional heartbreak that Elizabeth and Darcy could never replicate. Darcy was a mere cardboard cutout (albeit a very good-looking one) while Mr. Frome was a full 3D printed reservoir of sorrow and rapturous feeling.
The heliocentric model of Frome’s life was as follows: Mattie Silver, the rosy but poor cousin of his wife was his burning sun while Ethan was the wholesome, musky earth revolving around her core. The dynamics between the duo were so tender, with Ethan as the hesitant married man and Mattie as the invisible but delightful servant that was forced to cater to a tyrannical woman, Ethan’s wife Zeena. Although his feelings of love were inappropriate given the time period and the social stigma of cheating/divorce, the reader didn’t feel “dirty” or like they were intruding upon something secret. Wharton was a master at ripping sympathy from the hearts of her readers and forcing it upon Frome; she depicted Zeena in such a horrid way that I felt myself rooting for Mattie and Ethan to run away to the Wild West together, leaving the crooked old witch behind. One particular scene cemented itself in my memory: Mattie was dancing carefree at some party at the local Starkfield Church and Ethan was longingly glancing at her from the chill of the outside, describing her faintly parted lips, dark swirling hair, and sensually falling scarf with so much detail. Ethan was usually encased in a plaster cast of stolidity, as if he “lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access,” but Mattie seemed to melt all claims of detachment with one look. Their romance deepened, the mutual hatred of Zeena increased, the long walks in the moonlight back to the remote farmhouse become more hushed, more secretive. As in Pride and Prejudice, there was an evil, wizened lady, but Zeena is so much worse than Catherine de Bourgh because of her constant presence, selfishness, and hypochondriasis. Although Mattie Silver lacks depth as a character (as opposed to Elizabeth), Ethan’s thoughts are more than enough to reconstruct her as a charming, headstrong, and loving person in the reader’s mind. The language of their first kiss was stunning, with Wharton writing, “All the while he felt as if he were still kissing her, and yet dying of thirst for her lips.” How gorgeous is that! However, the lovers’ blinding bliss didn’t last forever (which is why this novel is so realistic and jarring). Like a typical Disney fairytale, Zeena, the jealous, malicious wife, sends Mattie Silver away suddenly, finally realizing her husband has been netted in by another woman (a much younger one at that). Frome’s thoughts at this pivotal point became so chaotic and despairing; in this respect, him and the sophisticated Mr. Darcy were so similar and didn’t know how to handle domineering women and disappointing love. As Ethan drove Mattie away from his stone cold home, only lit up by the corners of her lips when she smiled and his reverent glance, the ending unfolded and the characters met their ugly fate. This ending, unexpected and cruel in so many ways, is precisely why Ethan Frome destroyed me to pieces so much. In real life, the pretty Elizabeth doesn’t always end up with her loaded Mr. Darcy. Sometimes your cards just reek of the misfortune and reality of Mr. Ethan Frome from Starkfield.
In conclusion, I would pick up a copy of Ethan Frome and comb through its thick pages for the beautiful language and heartbreaking story. I’m not sure whether this post was a book review, a comparison of Ethan Frome and Pride and Prejudice, or a rant on the realities of life, but either way, Wharton was a talented author who you should read.
Favorite quotes from the book:
“The motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird in the branches.” (pg. 46)
“He was too young, too strong, too full of the sap of living, to submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes. Must he wear out all his years at the side of a bitter querulous woman?” (pg 131)
“Moreover, how much did pride count in the ebullition of passions in his breast?” (pg. 141)