Essay on "Ethan Frome" a novel by Edith Wharton

Essay on "Ethan Frome" a novel, from Edith Wharton
Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace orone of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as awhole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
The novel “Ethan Frome” takes place entirely in Starkfield, Massachusetts. From the beginning, we can already assume the defining characteristics of thevillage with Edith Wharton having to tell us too much about it: the word “stark” means, according to www.dictionary.com, “harsh, grim, or desolate, as a view, place, etc.”. So it does not come as asurprise to us that the place actually IS like that, in some aspects, at least. The village is far away from any major city, so innovations and the like do are not as likely to make it to the village as,say, Boston (if you want an extreme example). The quick, hurried pace of the city life has no control over Starkfield, and therefore, the characters in the book lead slow, relaxed, uneventful lives.For that reason, the actions that Ethan and Mattie decide to take at the end of the book seem so extreme. Even by modern standards, a man and a young lady trying to slam themselves into a tree todeath is not considered normal, so one can only imagine what it must be like experiencing it in early 20th century rural New England.
It must have seemed exceptionally, catastrophically radical.
Thesetting does not only take part in setting the pace and life-styles of the characters, but the morals and values as well. Obviously, honesty is a big part of the rural tradition, since people do notgain much from being liars in a setting like Starkfield, since mutual honesty is economically better for all (unlike metropolises, in which not revealing the whole truth, or even making it up,...