Ethan Frome Key Passage Analysis Essay Edith Wharton quite deliberately brings together human emotion and the environment in her novella Ethan Frome. The characters are circumscribed by the environment in which they exist and the impossibility of escape from the environmental forces of nature, heredity and place shape the characters of the text. A moment of hope arises as Mattie and Ethan walk home together from the dance and a more romantic sense of possibility emerges. The reader is drawn to the love of Ethan and Mattie quite subtly – it grows almost organically from innocent moments shared and this is perhaps why the reader does not see their ‘affair’ as adulterous. We share the hope that glimmers in the bleak cold that is Starkfield and its characters. Ethan’s sensitivity reflects an important aspect of his character that is shown to us in this section. His intelligence and the study in Worcester has exacerbated his isolation within the Starkfield community.
