Ethan Frome Plath Analysis

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comprised of very long paragraphs, with sparse amount of dialogue from the outset which gives the reader a feeling of density and entrapment connoting the feelings of the characters that are trapped in Starkfield or simply within the realms of the domestic. Whilst Plath’s poetry, which are the shortest out of the three texts, give her the chance to rapidly create pathos and ‘a controlled voice for cynicism, plainly delineating the boundaries of hope and reality’ that although hyperbolic has the effect of immediately transfixing the reader with the graphic imagery. However the way in which in ‘Ethan Frome’, despite the presence of the narrator, as readers we are inundated with continuous free indirect discourse from Ethan may suggest the overbearing…show more content…
In both ‘The Fearful’ and ‘The Munich Mannequins’, Plath uses her poems as a means of communication with the woman whom her husband Ted Hughes had been having an affair with. When saying ‘She hates The thought of a baby-- Stealer of cells, stealer of beauty’ in ‘The Fearful’, Plath is referring to Assia who had no children in a spiteful way as though she feels her maternal role makes her superior to her husband’s mistress. Whereas in ‘The Munich Mannequins’ when she writes “Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children” she personifies ‘perfection’ to symbolise Assia who she feels is more perfect than she is. This superiority that Plath felt was crushed when she discovered that Assia was pregnant, which ‘might have offered a further explanation of Sylvia's final ability to face the future’ as she later committed…show more content…
“Wharton employs the Jamesian term “reflector” and recalls his principle that a writer should choose a mind with “the widest possible view” . She may have recalled Henry James’ principle that he embodies through a frame narrative in ‘Turn of the Screw’ and ‘Daisy Miller’ when writing ‘Ethan Frome’. It must be noted though that the narrator of Wharton’s novel does not provide the reader with an abundance of further readings as that of ‘Turn of the Screw’ rather he leaves us with ambiguity and presents further questions for the active reader in a manner not dissimilar to Chekhov’s “interrogative” style. However compared to Wharton’s previous texts the ambiguity is far greater, making ‘Ethan Frome’ by far the most modernist text that she wrote, as is noted by Peel. Modernism is a term used to describe a deliberate rejection of 19th century conventions. Modernist writers such as T.S Elliot explored this idea of modernism by writing in ‘fragmented free verse and offering paradoxical allusions in order to envisage a society in flux.’ Wharton makes use of ellipses, hyphens and narrative breaks to emphasize the gaps in the narrator's story, the inarticulateness of the characters, the lives interrupted and the secrets hidden amongst Starkfield. ‘He wondered if the girl were thinking of it too…’ the use of language has a similar function to the ellipses and hyphens in
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