The Effect of the Setting On t
The Effect of the Setting On the Characters A bright and sunny day or a dark, cold cave; the setting of a story gives the reader an idea of where the story takes place, but it also shows the affects it has on the characters. Ethan Frome, a novel by Edith Wharton, is a prime example in the usage of setting to affect the characters. The setting for Ethan Frome symbolizes the emotional and the physical isolation, cold, and death that surround Ethan. The cold, harshness of his surroundings affects Ethan in several ways. One of his surroundings is a winter wasteland. He associates winter with many of the woes that are in his life now. For example in the novel it says that with each passing winter Ethan became more elderly looking. The oppressiveness of winter takes its toll on Ethan. The winter is also used to describe those that he feels a hatred for, that being Zeena, who is bitter, ugly and sickly cold just like the winter. He says that if it had been spring and not winter he would never had married Zeena. Mattie is the complete opposite of Zeena, she is associated with spring and summer and a new life. Ethan seeks the warmth of the summer (Mattie) an
Being married to Zeena even in death would feel like hell to Ethan. Alone in their own world in the shade of the spruces, Ethan believes that this is what death is going to be like when they kill themselves. He used to imagine that the spirits of his deceased relatives would call out to him, "We never got away- why should you?" When what life has to offer becomes scarce, Ethan slowly begins to accept death as, ironically, a possible solution to his struggles. The overall story of Ethan Frome and his life are strongly affected by his surroundings. "The snow had ceased, and a flash of watery sunlight exposed the house on the slope above us in all its plaintive ugliness. The black wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin wooden walls, under their worn coats of paint, seemed to shiver in the wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow" (Wharton 20). Seemingly he is unable to do this, just as he is unable to escape winter. The elm tree, he believes, will end these struggles. This simple act of Zeena leaving and returning changes the house's setting and therefore changes how the characters feel. The town that the Fromes live by is small and isolated and his worn down and shabby house affect Ethan as well. The description of the weather is once again used to foreshadow events and set the mood for the characters. The coolness of the house was a constant reminder to Ethan of the elements that lurked just outside his door. In the word of the narrator, "I had a sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it the profound accumulated cold of many winters" (Wharton 15). Not only are the Fromes isolated from town because of distance, but also they are isolated from people in general, rarely receiving mail or visitors. The ground is not productive, the buildings are falling down, there is barely enough timber to build with let alone be used as fuel, and pleasantries are hard to come by.
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Acceptance Essays
