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        Ethan Frome


        setting

        Starkfield, Massachusetts

        time

        language

        English

        region

        North America

        year published

        1911

        page count

        195

        difficulty

        Intermediate

        main characters

        Narrator, Ethan Frome, Zeena, Mattie

        Rip's impressions

        Wharton writes so beautifully, the story flows along. One, however, is not prepared for one of the saddest, most depressing ends to a novel one will ever read. She must have finished it while going through a tough breakup with her love and wanted to kill herself. Just sayin'. Definitely a candidate for the Dustbin, not because it is not good, but because it is so depressing.

        first line

        I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. 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.

        last lines

        (spoiler alert)

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