This essay offers a comparative analysis of Edith Wharton's two novels, Ethan Frome and Summer, exploring their shared thematic preoccupations with forbidden love, emotional repression, and the cruel ironies of fate. The paper examines the parallel struggles of Ethan Frome and Charity Royall — two inarticulate protagonists whose dormant desires are awakened by unexpected relationships — and traces how Wharton uses romantic irony, marital dysfunction, and deterministic outcomes to illustrate the devastating gap between longing and fulfillment. The essay concludes by noting how both novels, despite their different tones, converge on themes of loss, inevitability, and the limits of human agency.
The paper demonstrates comparative literary analysis: it identifies a shared thematic framework across two works by the same author and then maps both similarities and differences onto that framework. This technique — first establishing common ground, then distinguishing outcomes — is a standard and effective method for organizing multi-text literary essays at the undergraduate level.
The essay opens with a brief author biography and thesis, then dedicates individual sections to each novel's plot and themes before moving into explicit comparison. The concluding paragraphs synthesize observations about Wharton's craft and the shared message of both works. This structure follows the classic "block then compare" model, making it accessible while still achieving analytical depth.
In her long career, which stretched over forty years and included the publication of more than forty books, Edith Wharton (1862–1937) portrayed a fascinating segment of the American experience. Throughout her literary career, she conceived stories of exceptional originality and depth, and was especially skilled at illustrating tales about romantic irony — how cruel little twists of fate can dramatically affect circumstances of that nature. Two of her novels, Ethan Frome and the less fictitious Summer, both carry a prominent shadow of these ingredients.
They are both works that depict the same basic emotions: love and longing born of prolonged and usually enforced emotional abstinence. They both portray individuals who are inarticulate and ineffective in expressing love, sorrow, or misery. Also common to both is the element that each protagonist, at some point in their life, encounters a character who arouses feelings that were not previously considered possible. In the case of Ethan Frome, these feelings were entirely suppressed and thought — even by the farmer himself — to be extinct. Similarly, in the case of Charity Royall, the main character in Summer, feelings of love and desire were little more than a passive presence in her mind until she encounters the young man who plays a key role in shaping the novel's depth and plot. "With sudden vehemence he wound his arms about her, holding her head against his breast while she gave him back his kisses" (101).
The story of Ethan Frome centers on a farmer of that name. The narrative initially revolves around him and his invalid wife, Zeena. What deepens Ethan's predicament — his despair and desolation — is that besides suffering from minor ailments, his wife is also a hypochondriac of considerable scale. She manages to make any ailment appear tenfold worse than it actually is, and constantly insists that he purchase medical books and patent medicines as supposed treatments for the mostly imaginary diseases that afflict her. It is, in fact, this state of affairs that leads them to call in a destitute cousin of Zeena's to help run the household.
This cousin, Mattie Silver, being young and pretty, brings with her a feeling of rejuvenation and exuberance. Inevitably, Ethan begins to feel an inclination toward her, and though the relationship remains largely unspoken, it grows rapidly. Neither Ethan nor Mattie intended to do wrong; it was simply one of those unconscious, inevitable attachments, almost primitive in its intensity. This causes Zeena to observe them with mistrust and malice, ultimately resorting to casting her own cousin out into the world, with no support or means of survival. [1]
The grounds she claims for doing so are that she perceives Mattie as useless, shiftless, and incompetent — though possibly true on the surface, it is apparent that the real reason is jealousy. The tale carries a highly original theme, which is further emphasized by its climax. The climax is initiated when, on the way to drop Mattie at the station for her final departure, Ethan decides to speak aloud his feelings for her. They find themselves at the top of a steep slope well known as a thrill to ride down by sled, and in the wake of his confession and her reciprocation, they resolve upon a joint suicide. [2]
Upon his instigation, they decide that rather than executing the crucial turn at the bottom of the slope that would make the ride safe, they will simply crash into oblivion. Here again fate's cruel sense of humor is on display: both survive as crippled invalids under the supervision and care of Zeena — the very embodiment of both their barriers and fears. Zeena can also be read symbolically as fate itself, as she has the final say in all matters.
The story is a perfect example of marital dominance leading to an illicit love affair and reflects the broken spirit of Ethan Frome as a man. This is most powerfully underscored by the recurring question the reader will encounter: why, in the first place, does Ethan not simply desert his wife and elope with her cousin? Also noteworthy is the awakening of emotions within Ethan — emotions he previously considered beyond his reach. [3]
The story of Summer, though told in a rather different style and mood, shares much with Ethan Frome at the level of raw concept. It is the tale of a young girl, Charity Royall, who bears her surname as a result of being adopted by a lawyer named Royall, a respectable citizen of the quiet and uneventful town of North Dormer. The story begins with angry and defiant overtones from Charity, rooted in her longing to see the world and the more modernized cities near her hometown — places she has had the privilege of visiting only once. These desires to experience the outside world are heightened when she observes a young man dressed in city attire who appears to be a stranger to the town.
This is not so much a love story as it is the tale of a young woman of strong and defiant spirit maturing in a culture that is not really hers. From the beginning she has been repeatedly reminded that she ought to be grateful to lawyer Royall, who had the goodness of heart to bring her down from the Mountain and give her a proper upbringing in one of the town's most prestigious households. The element of illicit desire is initially introduced when the lawyer, old as he is, tries to enter her room one night with his intentions plain upon his face. Charity is deeply disgusted and expresses her contempt with heavy sarcasm. The lawyer — her rightful though unofficial guardian — is crestfallen and does not pursue the matter further, nor does she. [4]
This too is a story that illustrates the freaks of fate so prevalent in love affairs of any kind, illicit or marital. The most pronounced instance of this occurs when Charity begins, for the first time, to associate the presence of Mr. Royall with a sense of peace and security. The story highlights how traumatic events can completely alter a person's way of seeing things. By the end of the novel, Charity is shown to be content and secure with the same man she had initially despised for suggesting such a relationship. [5]
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