Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a story about a man named Ethan and his life story. Edith Wharton helps create a very vivid picture of the events that go on in the book. She helped create this picture through irony, characterization, and the attitude of man versus himself.
             Edith Wharton wrote Ethan Frome in 1911. Wharton was an American author who wrote in the early 20th century. Her most popular work was Ethan Frome. She was brought up in a wealthy family and had the perspective of an upper class person. Many of her stories show the contrasts of traditional values and the degeneration of these values from generation to generation. Edith Wharton was a very talented author and had an excellent perspective on life.
             Ethan Frome is from Starkfield, Massachusetts, a small New England village. In the beginning, Ethan meets up with a man whose work has brought him to Starkfield. This man had previously seen Ethan and thought a lot of him. “Even then he was the most striking character in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man”(Wharton 1). The people in the village see Ethan as awkward or strange but they also are somewhat amazed by him. There is a certain quality about him that interests people. He is a very quiet man and very seldom comes out in public. As Ethan and this man are talking, they realize a bad winter storm is approaching. Ethan offers the man a place to stay, which was very unusual, because no one had been to the Frome’s house in over 20 years. Once the guy gets to the house, the true story of Ethan Frome begins to unfold.
             Ethan is married to a woman named Zeena who is always sick and cannot do much on her own. The Frome’s are very poor. Zeena started out taking care of Ethan’s mother but once she died Zeena became sick. When Zeena could not care for herself, her beautiful young cousin, Mattie, came to stay. While Mattie was there, she and Ethan began to fall in love....