Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

The author of this book is Edith Wharton. A woman was born in 1862 in New York. She did not go to school but she spent many hours reading in her father`s library. She was married with Edward Wharton but they divorced in 1913.

She wrote more than forty books and in 1920 became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence.

The tittle of books I have read is Ethan Frome. It was written by Edith Wharton while living in France, but she had learnt about New England farming life when she lived in Massachusetts for a few years after her marriage.

The novels describes the hard, hopeless lives of the very poor, the Frome`s family.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, in Starkfield ( Massachusetts ), the winters are hard, with snow, and ice cover the fields for months and the nights are long and cold.

Ethan is a slow, quiet man but he feels things strongly. He works long hours every day, but his farm makes very little money. He has had melancholy in his face all his life.

His wife Zeena is a cold, silent woman and only interested in her health.

Then Mattie Silver, a young cousin of Zeena, comes to live with the Fromes, to help Zeena and do the housework. Her bright smile and laughing voice bring light and hope into the Frome`s house.

Mattie wasw with Frome`s one year approximately. Little by little he felt something very strong for Ethan, and Mattie, with the time, too felt things very profound for Ethan.

Meanwhile, Zeena perceived these emotions behind both and she thought that Mattie was a dangerous for her husband.

When Zeena was with another doctor for her illness, in a nearly village, Ethan and Mattie were together a lot of time to talk, know, saw, touch and kiss each other.

After, the new doctor of Zeena said to her that she couldn`t work in the house, she thought about contracting the new girl and sacking a Mattie. When she said to Ethan this new`s, the melancholy invaded Ethan.

Therefore he known that he had to do something, but what?

He thought about getting money for somebody in the village to pay the new girl; too he thought about going out with Mattie, but finally he didn`t do anything.

A few months after, Mattie suffered an strange accident and she couldn`t survive. Ethan had broken her heart all her life when he left with Zeena.