Ethan Frome
main characters
Narrator, Ethan Frome, Zeena, Mattie
Rip's impressions
Wharton writes so beautifully, the story flows along. One, however, is not prepared for one of the saddest, most depressing ends to a novel one will ever read. She must have finished it while going through a tough breakup with her love and wanted to kill herself. Just sayin'. Definitely a candidate for the Dustbin, not because it is not good, but because it is so depressing.
first line
I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office, you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
last lines
(spoiler alert)
And I say, if she'd ha' died, Ethan might ha' lived; and the way they are now, I don't see 's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; 'cept that down there they're all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues.
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