ABSTRACT
Edith Wharton reverses her own valuation in Ethan Frome: the life exhibited here is worse than the worst imaginable death. Deciding that Lily shall die, Wharton provides the infallible chloral; deciding that Ethan and Mattie must live, she has them attempt suicide by the most improbable, unrealistic method. Ethan Frome is the proper centre of attention and Edith Wharton, not the engineer, is the true narrator of the tale. The first-time reader of Ethan Frome will readily acknowledge Edith Wharton's success in achieving this; only in retrospect will he recognize the price she had to pay. Struggle in Wordsworth becomes compulsion in Wharton. The problem of Ethan Frome is that it conflates two incompatible narrative conventions, blending old-fashioned story-telling with modernist technique, and so leading to a contradiction: a character who is omniscient. Grim enough if told in the customary straightforward way, it becomes more harrowing still in the dramatically unusual mode selected by Edith Wharton.
