Ethan Frome

Carol J. Singley stated that "Readers seldom associate Edith Wharton either with Calvinism or modernism, but both figure prominently in her 1911 novel Ethan Frome." as her thesis in an essay about the true basis of Ethan Frome. After facing a tragic and depressing situation as a child she immersed herself in evangelistic sermons. Singley uses Whartons interest in Calvinism to prove the use of these ideas in Ethan Frome. Her use of light and dark imagery in Ethan Frome proves that she is not only using aspects of Calvinism but she is using the negative aspects rather than using the positive. This proves her spiritual distrust. It was hard for her to believe that the God of Calvinism was also a loving and forgiving God. Edith Wharton experienced guilt and emptiness and she faced her own redemption after having a midlife affair. In research it is proven that Puritanism included a stern life and "hostility toward self-expression." In Ethan Frome, Wharton used Calvinistic material that provided a sense of alienation on every character. Singley suggests that Ethan Frome is used to prove that Christian faith is no longer reasonable in the early twentieth-century. Which is why the characters in Ethan Frome demonstrated the lack of communication and muteness. She refutes "hallmarks of senitmental culture" that provides a sense of home and rewards self-sacrifice and forgiveness. Edith also uses modernistic techniques in Ethan Frome. The narrator in the beginning and the end is an example. The narrator acts as a distance between the story itself and the telling of it, he asks the reader to fill in the blanks as the story closes. Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant stated that "it was just Mrs. Wharton's own sense of the blankness and emptiness" and lead to a long and dark epilogue. The fact that Wharton decided to end the novel with the three characters suffering and in pain without anything having been resolved "conveys her modernist sense of uncertainty and indeterminacy." Nathaniel Hawthorn also provided a Calvanist point of view but he took the romantic route rather than the dark and serious proving that there is more of Edith Wharton's feelings in Ethan Frome than what meets the eye. I am in agreement with the points made in this article. Singley provides many strong points and convinces her readers of her research through intelligent facts and many examples.