Since Edith Wharton wrote the novella, Ethan Frome, there have been thousands of people reading it with thousands of different opinions on the characters, their development (or lack thereof), and how they got down on the page. In her essay, "Edith Wharton's Dream of Incest: Ethan Frome," Ferda Asya analyzes the work as a glimpse into the author's own personal life.
The author believes that Edith's Wharton had an incestuous love for her father which came out in her novella. Asya points to Wharton's childhood as evidence of her attraction to her father. Based on autobiographical information from the Wharton, it can be concluded that Wharton loved her father, while she feared her mother. In her upbringing, she was only taught to speak and feel what the family deemed appropriate and therefore never spoke her true feelings. Asya believes that these conditions resulted in her feeling an incestuous love for her father that resulted in unconscious feelings of guilt.
Asya goes on to say that her guilty feelings about how she felt for her father come out in the story of Ethan Frome in the incestuous relationships between the characters, particularly Ethan and Mattie. During her life, Wharton was married for a short time. She also was having an extramarital affair with another man who she was attracted to. In this way, Asya points out, Ethan Frome became Edith Wharton. In her first draft of the novella, Asaya says Wharton had included less physical attraction between Ethan and Mattie. However, when Wharton was alone while her husband was away, and even more so afterwords, she had an even greater longing for her father. It was after this that she added further physical/sexual attraction between the characters. Wharton, though, still had a guilty conscious over her longings. This is what drove her to add in the tragic accident and ending of the story. Asya says that she felt that y punishing the characters of Ethan and Mattie, she was punishing herself subconsciously. Overall, the Asya points out that her incestuous longing for her father is what provided the most influence on the novella.
The author believes that Edith's Wharton had an incestuous love for her father which came out in her novella. Asya points to Wharton's childhood as evidence of her attraction to her father. Based on autobiographical information from the Wharton, it can be concluded that Wharton loved her father, while she feared her mother. In her upbringing, she was only taught to speak and feel what the family deemed appropriate and therefore never spoke her true feelings. Asya believes that these conditions resulted in her feeling an incestuous love for her father that resulted in unconscious feelings of guilt.
Asya goes on to say that her guilty feelings about how she felt for her father come out in the story of Ethan Frome in the incestuous relationships between the characters, particularly Ethan and Mattie. During her life, Wharton was married for a short time. She also was having an extramarital affair with another man who she was attracted to. In this way, Asya points out, Ethan Frome became Edith Wharton. In her first draft of the novella, Asaya says Wharton had included less physical attraction between Ethan and Mattie. However, when Wharton was alone while her husband was away, and even more so afterwords, she had an even greater longing for her father. It was after this that she added further physical/sexual attraction between the characters. Wharton, though, still had a guilty conscious over her longings. This is what drove her to add in the tragic accident and ending of the story. Asya says that she felt that y punishing the characters of Ethan and Mattie, she was punishing herself subconsciously. Overall, the Asya points out that her incestuous longing for her father is what provided the most influence on the novella.
This seems to be a very valid argument that Asya writes about. It makes total sense to me that Wharton would have had guilty feelings over her longings for her father due to the way she grew up. I wouldn’t be surprised if those longings were a result of her childhood as well. Asya does an excellent job of organizing her points and I agree with her interpretation. It is very interesting how the novella progressed between drafts 1 and 2. What I would have liked to know is how much contact, if any, that Wharton had with her father after her childhood. Whatever the case, Ferda Asya’s “Edith Wharton's Dream of Incest: Ethan Frome” was a fantastic, well thought out article that shed new light on my understanding of the article.
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