Symbolism In Wharton's Ethan Frome

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Winter and cold Throughout Ethan Frome, the characters and setting mirror each other. Starkfield is besieged by long winters in which everything lies buried under a deep, frozen layer of snow. Similarly, Ethan "seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface." Ethan marries Zeena only because he does not want to spend a winter alone in the silent farmhouse. But soon, Zeena too falls silent, her emotional chill becoming an extension of the external chill whose deadening influence Ethan had feared. Winter is the barren season, when nothing grows, and Ethan and Zeena's marriage is barren, in that they are childless. Zeena lacks the fresh…show more content…
Again, the imagery of the small animal conveys Mattie's fragility and vulnerability, qualities that evoke a protective instinct in Ethan. Zeena is associated with the Frome household cat. While she is away in Bettsbridge, the cat becomes her 'agent,' seating itself in her chair between Ethan and Mattie and setting the rocking chair in motion as if Zeena were there herself. Most important, the cat breaks the pickle dish that Zeena prizes above all else and that Mattie has illicitly got down from the closet to make the table attractive for Ethan. The cat thereby exposes Mattie's gesture and, symbolically, her relationship with Ethan. This episode marks a turning point for Zeena, and she resolutely acts to get rid of Mattie. The fact that Zeena's symbolic animal is the cat reinforces the portrayal of Zeena as a type of wicked witch of fairy tale. Witches kept companion animals, or 'familiars,' and could temporarily take over the bodies of the animals in order to travel about and do their work unseen. By far the most popular 'familiar' animal for a witch was the…show more content…
Before their suicide pact, both view the tree with awe, as they know that Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum were nearly killed by colliding with it when sledding. But they talk of the tree with bravado, each claiming that they are not afraid of it. It is clear that there is a coded message being communicated. Each is feeling the other out as to whether he or she has the courage to pursue the illicit relationship. Thus the tree takes on the symbolism of their passionate (potentially sexual) but illicit (and therefore dangerous)
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