Acclaimed author and Pulitzer Prize winner Edith Wharton obviously knows what it takes to write a good novel. Several times this week I have heard my fellow classmates talking about how good the book was or how they were looking forward to reading more. I also found this to be true for myself when I was reading this weekend. After reading through chapter 8 on Sunday, I stopped to think about why this book is able to capture everyone’s attention so easily. It is not the main character, as the story is told through the perspective of a very boring, unanimated Ethan Frome who scarcely communicates in more than a two word grunt. I found that Edith Wharton uses the settings around the characters and unusual details to keep capturing our attention throughout the novel.
When the narrator introduces a character in Ethan Frome, she describes the lighting and its effect on unique details in their appearance to shape the reader’s attitude toward them. She portrays Zeena as a sick, constantly complaining character that Ethan is stuck with and obliged to take care of. When Zeena is first described standing in the doorway, she is put up against a dark background being “tall and angular” while the light “drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.” These descriptions of Zeena along with several others throughout the story make the reader feel negatively towards Zeena.
The descriptions of Mattie often put her in the softer light of a lamp or fireplace, introduce us to the color red in a landscape otherwise described in grayscale, and use comparable passages to shape our attitude about her. When Zeena is gone and Ethan finds the door locked Mattie answers “She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child’s. Then, striking upwards, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.” This description through Ethan’s view point uses very positive diction to portray Mattie as embodying youth and innocence.
This stark contrast and definition in the way the characters are described helps create a good vs. evil scenario in our minds throughout the novel. It also makes what would be a very boring book about nineteenth-century New England into a novel that keeps you interested in reading more.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Brandon, I like how you noticed that Edit Wharton used lighting to contrast the two women! It is a very subtle detail, but extremely effective, as you showed with the quotes you included. As I think about it, the use of lighting to "color" the characters really fits in with our discussion of verisimilitude. Lighting is something that is all around us, creating a world with depth and color, so it only makes sense to use descriptions including that depth and color to describe what's happening in the story. Through scenes like the ones you shared and other instances, Wharton (and, I guess you could say, the speaker) definitely provides a huge contrast between the two women, showing us how differently Ethan thinks of them and how he does prefer Mattie and look at her in a much more positive "light" than Zeena.
Sorry Braedon, I accidentally wrote "Brandon" for some reason.
'cuz Braedon is in APLG, Brandon is in AP Lit:) My mistake cross posting.
comments closed.
Post a Comment