Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Varteni writes:                                         

            I have just finished my novel Ethan Frome. The ending of my novel seemed to come very fast. Ethan Frome's wife, Zeena got back from her trip to Bettsbridge. Zeena explained to Mattie and Ethan that her doctor recommended her to hire a helper to do all the housework for her, because she needed a long time to rest. Therefore, Zeena decided it was time to finally send Mattie back to Stamford, which she had already recently been planning. Zeena thought Mattie was no help at all while staying with her and Ethan, just a waste of more money. She wanted to hire a new girl in Mattie's place, and she told Mattie to pack her bags immediately to make room for the new girl. Ethan was very devastated, and decides to go against Zeena's order and to take Mattie to the train station himself. This trip was going to be their last hours together. The trip started off with no exchange of words, but they took a short break to stop by the river. There they both expressed their feelings for each other. They completely ignored Zeena's commands to drop off Mattie and to pick up the new girl, when she got off her train. Instead, Ethan and Mattie spent the whole day together. Their final day was full of adventures that were very daring. Ethan and Mattie loved each other more than anything else in the world. However, Zeena had a very different response to their romance. You must read the novel though, to find out yourself how they spend their last day and what happens when they go home to Zeena again that night.

             I really enjoyed reading this novel, and thought it very interesting. The structure and the way the novel was written seemed to catch the reader's interest more. Each chapter was not very long in length just a mere 25 pages. However, the short chapters are well-developed. In my opinion the short chapters Edith Wharton writes are better than lengthy chapters or very short chapters. The lengthy chapters tend to drag the story on more than necessary and the short chapters do not provide enough details or description. Another part of the structure is how the chapters are made up. Each chapter starts off with a brief summary of the previous chapter, then it starts getting into the plot again, and it always ends in a good hook. The hooks helped make the novel more interesting and at the end of each chapter you would never want to stop reading. Another reason why I would recommend this novel is because of Edith Wharton's diction and advanced vocabulary. She relies on figurative language most often and the sensory details. Edith Wharton uses many descriptive adjectives to rely on the senses, when writing about the plot, the setting, the characters and their descriptions. Overall, the structure was well-developed and this novel kept me interested.

            In my opinion I believe this novel is intended for girls, not so much boys. This novel is a love story, explaining the trouble, the jealousy, the drama, and the happiness that love brings to everyone. I recommend this novel to any girls around my age or even older. Even though any one that chooses to may read the novel, the vocabulary is very complex, and might be too difficult for younger people.

            If I had to rate this novel from a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best and 1 the worst, then I would rate it an 8. The novel kept me interested the whole time, however sometimes the complexity of the language was too difficult for me. The words confused me most of the time, so I often had to reread those part over numerous times, or look in a dictionary to find the definitions. Also, I did not like the end all that much. The novel ends in a flashback relating to the beginning of the novel, and some of the plot did not seem to relate to the novel at all. The novel was also confusing, because it goes back and forth between many flashbacks all the lives of each character.