Beginning of Essay
The symbolism in the novel Ethan Frome is an aspect of the story that allows the reader to identify with the characters, their feelings, their surroundings, and the conflicts they face both in the outside world and within themselves. This tragic book tells the st ....

Middle of Essay
.... Starkfield was a dreary town, "buried under snow, silent and incommunicative as the characters (Nevius 136)." Even Ethan’s farmhouse was symbolic of himself. The "L" of the farmhouse was like that of his own body, shrunken and weak (Nevius 136). Ethan himself represented Wharton’s idea of a honorable man in the nineteenth century. He has admirable qualities, such as integrity, ambition, and wisdom (Magill 531). It is his sense of morals and responsibility that continuously prevents him from leaving Zeena and joining Mattie to a better life for himself (Nevius 132). He is trapped not only by his morality here, but has been a trapped man ....