American Realism v. Naturalism
The Frame of Frome: Neither Hero nor Victim
The construction of the narrator, being entrusted with the overall tone of the piece, is perhaps one of the most overlooked literary techniques in contemporary literature. However, Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome has received repeated criticism for the power the narrator employs onto Ethan. Being the narrator of both the story and the frame story, the narrator in Ethan Frome is often criticized for being unreliable, to the point that nothing is certain in the fictional content outside the fact that a sledding accident has left Ethan and Mattie crippled and in the care of Zeena. “In other words, maybe Ethan and Mattie Silver never loved, and feeling their plight to be hopeless, tried to commit suicide together,” (Hovey 6). In this article, I will focus on the role of the narrator in Ethan Frome with specific references to Johanna Wager’s main argument in “The Slippery Slope of Interpellation: Framing Hero and Victim in Edith Whaton’s Ethan Frome” -that the narrator’s personal goal is to romanticize Ethan as a hero but fails, instead framing Ethan as a victim who is void of any masculinity or heroic qualities. Contradictory to Wager, I will argue that the narrator, though wants the reader to empathize with Ethan, her goal is not to romanticize Ethan but ultimately exists to demonstrate the flaws of Ethan (most notably his unwillingness to act) which allows the reader to retrospectively feel a heightened sense of disgust for Ethan separate from that of the narrator, which could not have been achieved, to this magnitude, any other way.
Wager’s argument is grounded in the idea that the narration is “no more than a fabricated picture framed to defend a manufactured hero, told by a narrator who is at once too invested and removed from the protagonist, and too much of a naive outsider to comprehend the nuances of small-town life,” (Wager 420). Even though this is true, I believe that I must first point out that this article does not pertain to the solipsism of narrators, after all literature is controlled by the narrator often in ways the reader does not realize until after completion. In other words, there is no altruistic story in fiction since the reader only gets one story and one point of view. This does not infer that the narrator is an objective observer who simply tells Ethan’s story exactly as it was, as McGiffert suggests, but alternatively the reader is told of his limitations from the very beginning. The reader knows, from the frame story, that this is not the real Ethan and instead must take the narrator’s story at face value. “I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story,” (Wharton 1). In many ways this makes the narrator the main character in Ethan Frome, and the only character who can be criticized for his individual interpretation of Ethan. I will argue my point in terms of the narrator and his role in construing the other characters. In short, I am more interested in how this influences the reader and to what end than arguing if this is the real fictional Ethan. After all, he is the only Ethan that exists fictionally.
I now will condense Wager’s argument into three sections and articulate my arguments against them. The first half of Wager’s argument - that the narrator desires to frame Ethan as a hero- is upon close examination farfetched. Wager describes a hero as “entangled with a particular idea of masculinity…independent to the point of egocentrism, and should be not be distracted by the concerns of others,” (Wager 422). Wager argues that it is the narrator’s fascination with Ethan that ultimately progresses into him idealizing him to the point of a hero. It could be augmented that Ethan is a sacrificial hero, tending to the needs of his family and then Zeena, however this facet would collapse on itself since Ethan is the one being cared for in the end. But in no way is Ethan even close to egotistical not does he conquer any social or personal obstacles. However, Wager’s argument pertains more to the narrator’s desire to portray him as such. So instead the question becomes as Wager points out: does the narrator desire to frame Ethan as a masculine hero?
It is quite clear that the narrator is fascinated with Ethan at first sight. He is after all described as “the most interesting character in Strakfield,” (Wharton 3). Wager argues that it is this infatuation of Ethan, driven by the narrator’s internal motives, that leads to Ethan being framed as a hero. “His (the narrator’s) desire (is) to romanticize Ethan…to evoke a ‘vitality’ that he finds lacking in the ‘sluggish pulse of Strakfield,’ and specifically in its citizens,” (420). Wager argues that in the frame story the narrator tries to get the reader to empathize with Ethan by imagining the physical nature Ethan has fallen from. The narrator uses language like “lameness checking each step like a jerk of a chain” (Wharton 3) in juxtaposition of how he envisioned Ethan’s physical appearance in his youth with words like “strong shoulders” and “lean brown head” (5). Perhaps the strongest elude to this is when the narrator remarks: “But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?” (7). Again Wager points out how the narrator’s individual internal motives shape the framing of Frome- first by his desire to discover a “symbolic tale” (Wager 420) in Starkfield and secondly to understand Ethan’s physical deterioration. But Wager’s argument is not convincing enough. It is not enough to say that the narrator’s comments on the contrast between Ethan’s physical appearance makes him a romantic hero.
Besides being fascinated with Ethan, there is no real reason to believe why the narrator has picked Ethan as his protagonist. Perhaps he feels sorry for him. Perhaps he is more interested in the ‘smashup’ than Ethan himself. Or perhaps he is bored, being forced to stay in Strakfield through the dead of winter. In any case, I do not believe that the narrator seeks to frame Ethan as a hero. Instead his idealization of Ethan seems to stop at empathy. In any case, Wager’s argument is weak in that there is no real reason to frame Ethan as a hero since there is no inclination of past or present masculinity. Ethan’s compassion to care for his mother, Zeena and eventually Mattie create a sense of empathy in the narrator, however do not align with Wager’s definition of a hero. Following this logic, the narrator would be creating a fallacy, one similar in magnitude to Ethan’s suicidal fate.
Secondly, Wager point’s out how this fascination with Ethan, juxtaposed against his physical demeanor, leaves the narrator at cross roads. “Since the narrator has chosen Ethan as his protagonist and has empathetically placed himself into his shoes, it is the narrator who dreads finding out what he fears most: that Ethan’s poverty and physical appearance translates into Ethan’s ow failures as a man,” (Wager 422). Ethan cannot be a hero in the mind of the narrator if he is physically disabled and powerless void of any inclinations. This leads to Wager’s second argument- that the narrator realizes Ethan’s short comings as a maculated hero and thus must now frame Zeena as the main obstacle in Ethan’s heroic attempt to leave Starkfiled like “most of the smart ones” (Wharton 7). Since Ethan never leaves, there must be someone who stops him, victimizing him in the process.
However according to Wager, the narrator is than forced down a slippery slope in describing Ethan as a victim, since innately this would demasculinize him. Wager argues that vocality is the main form of power Zeena employs over Ethan. “There is nothing in the text, or from the neighbor’s comments, that suggest Ethan has any command over his house, least of all over the woman who runs it,” (Wager 430). Ethan is victimized by Zeena through her use of language or lack thereof. Zeena’s silence is seen as imposing while Ethan’s silence takes away from his ability to self-empower himself. Zeena “demonstrates that, unlike Ethan, her verbal restraint is productive. While the narrator fills Ethan’s head with dream notions of romance, Zeena is left to herself to argue the stark realities of her life,” (432). Zeena takes Ethan’s very own distaste for silence, being the silent one between him and Mattie and uses it against him. It is Zeena who plagues Ethan’s thoughts when he tries to commit suicide and it is Zeena who commands the language of the narrator, even with her simple presence. “Both bowed to the inexorable truth: they knew that Zeena never changed her mind, and that in her case a resolve once taken was equivalent to an act performed (Wharton 90). Wager points out that “if Ethan were in command, he certainly would not allow Zeena to patent medicines that double his burden financially…he might also curtail or refuse her trips to new doctors,” (Wager 430). Moreover, Ethan’s ambiguity towards Zeena, upsets him but he resolves to do nothing about it. Even in her absence, Ethan is unable to give into not only Mattie’s desire of polygamy but also his own subconscious. He cannot transcend Zeena’s ideals of marriage, he is forced to remain in Starkfield and cannot escape with Mattie who he cherishes at least to some Freudian extent. All these contribute to his victimization and ultimately escapism.
It is true, Ethan has no power over his household. He has no power at all. Perhaps he is strongest when he tries to commit suicide or when he conceives a plan to glue Zeena’s dish he has broken back together. But even in these instances his authority is limited by first Mattie prompting him and in the second since he never fully carries through with his plan of deceiving Zeena. This is seen in Ethan’s dialogue: “I want to ride in front…Because I-I want to hold you,” (Wharton 28) which alludes to his desire for forfeit any control he has over his own fate. Ethan is ultimately hopeless. He doesn’t commit an affair with Mattie, he doesn’t run away with her (due to sociological pressure) and he cannot even entirely go through in gluing a broken dish together (a trivial mode of defiance). Victimhood plagues Ethan to the very end until his mental inability corresponds to his physical incompetence. Instead, as Wager points out, Zeena becomes the more traditional masculine archetype that the narrator fails to employ in Ethan.
Wager’s conclusion is that the narrator fails to frame Ethan as a hero ironically by trying to frame him as a victim. “Ethan is not seen a heroic figure; he is not the romantic male protagonist who saves any damsels; he cannot even save himself. His reticence is his most masculine feature, yet the narrator mitigates this feature by demonstrating that Zeena’s reticence is just as stubborn as Ethan,” (Wager 434). If Ethan is a victim of Zeena he cannot be the physically imposing hero that the narrator tries to construct. Instead it is Zeena that possesses these ‘heroic’ qualities. Wager’s conclusion- that the framing of Ethan as a victim is plausible, however his argumentation that the narrator desires to frame Ethan as a hero is problematic. While the narrator clearly tries to victimize Ethan, it is more in regards to that of empathy than heroic. Instead I will argue that the narrator, empathetically, frames Ethan as a victim. That without a doubt, the narrator feels sympathy towards Ethan, which causes a feeling of regret and sadness onto the reader. However, I will secondly argue that the narrator serves as a vehicle for the reader to transcend this fictional tale and realize that Ethan, and only Ethan, is to blame for his short comings.
The narrator’s fascination with Ethan cannot be ignore, after all it is the driving force of the novel. Wager is correct in that the narrator empathizes with Ethan however this leads to more of a desire to understand Ethan and the smashup than of heroism. This is evident in the very construction of the frame story. “If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade; and you must have asked who he was. It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man,” (Wharton 2-3). Throughout the novel, the narrator victimizes Ethan, blaming his short comings on the harsh winter of Starkfield and most notably Zeena. The reader cannot help but feel a sense of sorry for a man who is disabled, unhappy yet at the same time willing to care for his parents, Zeena, and Mattie. Furthermore, it is the love story that the narrator so carefully unfolds for the reader that cements Ethan as a victim in the narrator’s mind. The reader cannot help but long for Ethan to leave Strakfield and pursuit his love for Mattie, or at the very least to die having ‘fetched it’. In these two short words, the narrator sums up Ethan as a man unable to fetch the life he should be living. “Her breath in his neck set him shuddering again, and he almost sprang from his seat. But in a flash he remembered the alternative. She was right: this was better than parting. He leaned back and drew her mouth to his,” (Wharton 58). Although it is easy to say that Ethan does not deserve his fate, in this Romeo and Juliet fairytale, Wharton skillfully creates an unreliable narrator in order to masquerade that Ethan is a hopeless romantic who rather escape in fairytales about his love with Mattie than take responsibility for his lack of action.
By constructing the narrator in both the story and the frame story, the reader is able to step back and realize the flaws in the narrator’s construction of Ethan. It must be asked: What is the difference between a victim and a coward? Ethan seems unwilling to take responsibility for his fate. There are repeated opportunities for him to ‘fetch it’ however each time it is his unwillingness not his inability to take action that prevents him from ever leaving Starkfield. Ethan could have easily plotted, with or without Mattie, his escape from Zeena and the farm since he was going to be paid for the lumber delivered to Mr. Hale within three months. It would have not been impossible to make a plan for the future. But Ethan is more accustomed to making do with choices made for him in the present and ultimately by others.
At times it even seems as if Ethan enjoys being under Zeena’s control and embraces the lack of responsibility this gives. His lack of power stems not only from Zeena’s control but in him allowing her to have control over him, to the point that he doesn’t care what the future holds for him. “He used to think that fifty years sounded like a long time to live together; but now it seemed to him that they might pass in a flash. Then, with a sudden dart of irony, he wondered if, when their turn came, the same epitaph would be written over him and Zeena,” (Wharton 28). His unwillingness to act is without a doubt the reason he stays in Starkfiled. He doesn’t divorce Zeena like he desires to, he doesn’t have an affair with Mattie, he doesn’t leave Starkfield, he can’t even decide to commit suicide on his own or not. Instead he realizes on the actions of others, which allows him to feel as if he is not to blame for his short comings.
Though the narrator empathizes with Ethan, the reader is not meant to. Instead the narrator serves as a vehicle for the reader to realize the flaws of Ethan Frome in a disgust and contempt that could not have been achieved any other way. The unreliability of the narrator and his infatuation with the disabled Ethan allow the reader to step back and realize that Ethan is neither a hero nor victim- instead a product of Starkfield just like everyone else- with no one to blame but himself.
