In the eye of the beholder: Mattie Silver in Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome

• Published in: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi dergisi Vol. 58; no. 1; pp. 1081 - 1100
• Main Author: Bakşi Yalçın,Olgahan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih Coğrafya Fakültesi 01.01.2018
• Subjects: Kültür & Sanat; Tarih; Ankara; Türkiye; Edith Wharton; New England Villages; Ethan Frome; Economic Dependency; Traditional Female Roles; New England Kasabaları; Evdeki Melek; Angel in the House; Ekonomik Bağımlılık; Geleneksel Kadın Rolleri
• ISSN: 0378-2905
• DOI: 10.1501/Dtcfder_0000001627

This paper examines Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome as a work depicting the female confinement/entrapment in traditional roles, as well as of the limitations and expectations placed on women who are raised to become nothing more than domestic servants and companions for men in nineteenth-century American society, and also argues that young women, like Mattie Silver, are treated as beautiful objects for the male aesthetic appreciation and whether they are married or not they are expected to conform to the ideals of nineteenth century American womanhood. Set in the fictional New England town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan Frome tells the story of a taciturn farmer, Ethan Frome, whose dreams and desires end in a tragic way. Neither his wife Zeena Frome nor her distant cousin Mattie Silver is a center of interest in Ethan Frome as they are mostly excluded from the narration. Accordingly, an attractive young woman who has been recently orphaned, Mattie Silver is introduced as a weak, vulnerable person who is forced to move in to help Zeena with the household chores, and she is financially dependent on the Fromes for existence. This paper further argues that, Mattie's economic dependence has obvious narrative effects as she is not given an individual narrative section or point of view to articulate her own story; instead in the eyes of her admirer, she emerges vividly against the infertility, sickness and ugliness of the older Zeena. In other words, as Gilbert and Gubar (79) contend, Mattie is portrayed as an angel, a charming young woman full of joy and life with a sparkling personality in line with her name as if to justify Ethan's infatuation with her while Zeena is depicted as a monster, a witch or a madwoman.