A Winding Language: Double Meanings in 'Ethan Frome' Anonymous 11th Grade

Language comes in many forms. The forms can be actual different languages, or the forms can be found within a language. There are many forms of languages in writing alone. One can be straight forward, like a business letter, and another then be long a winded. One author chose to take the difficult winding path to convey her story of a man and his confused heart. Edith Wharton, the author of Ethan Frome, wrote a story filled to the brim with double meanings and representations in order to reflect a deeper understanding of her characters.

In the beginning of the story, the reader finds a unnamed man who is fascinated by a person in the small town of Starkfield, Ethan Frome. He begins to ask around the town and gathers bits and pieces of Ethan’s story. Wharton shows, through the narrator, that Ethan’s life had been miserable for awhile due to being surrounded by illness and death. “‘Sickness and trouble: that’s what Ethan’s had his plate filled up with, ever since the very first helping” (Wharton. Prologue. 5). A metaphor is used to sketch a rough understanding in the reader’s mind that Ethan had never been able to escape his troubling life every since the first problem in his life had came, his father’s illness and death. Every...