Author Archives: susan

Despite my trepidation at seeming less than enthusiastic about what has been listed as classic literature, I’ve got some issues with Edith Wharton’s novel. One thing that I’ve mentioned here already is the inability to rouse my sympathies for Ethan … Continue reading → Continue reading →

With the introduction prior to chapter one we are being told by a first person narrator about a man named Ethan Frome.  In Chapter one, we are into third person (removed?) because the first person narrator from the intro has … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Sometimes our writerly approach to reading can cause some confusion with the author’s intent.  In starting Ethan’s story, he was described as a young man.  Yet his wife seemed awfully crabby and sickly for that age.  I suspected she was … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It’s impossible for me to point to particular selections or passages from this novel to illustrate my point, but I’m losing a bit of empathy for the main character, Ethan Frome.  Intrigued by him in the narrator’s introduction as a … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Wharton has employed the technique of changing first person pov to third immediately after an "Introduction" by the narrator and switching to the basic "here’s the story I found out…" to begin Chapter one with a younger Ethan Frome, the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Edith Wharton’s novel begins with the first person narrator describing the protagonist, Ethan Frome, whom she sees at the post office of this small New England town.  Since she is not a native, Wharton has the narrator speaking with other … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Just in the mood for a shorter piece, and one further back in time.  Coming off A Clockwork Orange seems to call for a love story, something that focuses on depth of character instead of the the depths of society … Continue reading → Continue reading →