Ethan Frome

In a freezing cold small town of New England, a nameless narrator tells about his encounter with Ethan Frome, a silent and inaccessible figure who arouses his curiosity and he drives him into reconstructing the story of his life, a circle starting, in a tragic spiral of events, from the secret wish for action to a quiet resignation, under the weight of the brutal life fatality.

Ethan, a sensitive and nature lover man, lives in the family’s farm with his wife Zeena, a cold, hypochondriac woman, always vacillating between silence and an unreasoning  anger. Helping him it comes the young and good-looking her cousin, Mattie Silver. Ethan is enchanted by the gaiety and the carefree youth of the girl, who in turn is enchanted by the strength and graveness of the man. But Zeena notices everything  from her sick bed, and she resolves to  turn away the girl. Ethan is forced to choose between the wish to go away with her, leaving a loveless marriage and an empty meaningless life, and the fear to defy social conventions, and to fail to fulfill his duties. All this up to the day when Mattie must leave: at that moment two lovers make a decision that changes forever, and tragically, their lives.

By the author of The Age of the Innocence, an absorbing, hard, ruthless novel, where the hope grows only to be cruelly betrayed by the triviality of the tragedy.

www.aliaeditrice.com/ethanfrome
www.aliaeditrice.com/English/ethanfrome
280 pages

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