Discuss Wharton’s Use of Visual Tableaux in Ethan Frome
Edith Wharton scars the reader’s minds with scolds in the form of visual tableaux. She implants these images of comparing the outside to the inside in key moments portraying to the reader the characters feelings of each other. Other techniques she uses to illustrate the characters opinions is by drawing distinct pictures of Mattie, to craft the reader an opinion of Ethan’s view towards Mattie. Wharton emphasises the mood of such scenes by drawing the landscape in exceptional beauty in relation to the scene.
In the occasional scene Edith Wharton draws us the image of one character outside and another inside. This expresses the character’s opinion or personality. Early on during the tale Ethan walks into the town to collect Mattie from a “dance”. As he approaches the town hall he creeps up to a window. While watching the dance and Mattie he looks into the light coming from inside and sees Mattie being “whirled” down the length of the hall to the “bounding tune of the Virginia Reel”. The image Wharton crafts here sticks to the mind of the reader immediately telling him Ethan’s feelings for Mattie. The light representing the new life in his life, Mattie, and her inside in the warmth also represents this. He is alone outside adrift of everyone alike his solitary personality. When Ethan comes home to Zeena, his wife who he does not love any more, late one night with Mattie, he looks at the house from a distance and he sees the that the “shutter less windows of the house were dark”. The use of shutter less in this phrase adds to the effect of how the house is collapsing and how it is open to the elements. The fact Wharton creates this picture with the house being dark shows that Ethan has no feelings for her, and she is nothing special to him. The reader again is painted the image of the contrast between the outside and inside by Wharton, when Ethan again is returning home however this time it is to Mattie. He approaches the house and sees a light “twinkling in the house above him”. The metaphor in the light twinkling emphasises how Mattie is the new life and a sensation in his life. She is also the light twinkling in his world and she is inside when this light is shining. This metaphor grasps the mind of the reader and clings to it. She is inside in the warmth, while he is outside. Wharton freeze frames these contrasts between the outside and inside in order to express the characters personality or their feelings for another character.
The Essay on Edith Wharton Ethan Mattie Zeena
Ethan Frome: Fantasy Is An Escape From Ethan Frome: Fantasy Is An Escape From Winter Ethan Frome: Fantasy is an Escape From Winter Ethan Frome, the title character of Edith Wharton's tragic novel, lives in his own world of silence, where he replaces his scarcity of words with images and fantasies. There is striking symbolism in the imagery, predominantly that of winter which connotes frigidity, ...
Ethan’s feelings for Mattie are often shown when Wharton freeze frames Mattie in particular scenes in the book. This is to emphasise the relationship between them and his feelings for her. When Zeena goes to meet the new doctor Mattie and Ethan are left alone. In the morning after having dinner together Ethan is sitting in the kitchen watching Mattie wash up. She is bent over the sink with “her slim arms bared to the elbow”. This description emphasises Mattie’s innocence and her beauty. The bared represents the innocence and the slim her beauty. Her beauty is emphasised yet again in the play. She has finished a picnic and Ethan has finished a hard day’s work. He is walking down the hill towards her and he sees she is as “bright as a blackberry” and brewing a pot of coffee over a gypsy fire. The simile with nature here exaggerates her beauty. She is compared to a blackberry, as bright as one, this emphasises her looks and affects the reader considerably, sticking to his mind. When Ethan is taking Mattie back to the station to let her go they stop in a little wood and Ethan sees that her face is “part of the sun’s red” and of the “pure glitter on the snow”. This metaphor again exaggerates her beauty but also how Ethan thinks she is so beautiful as he is looking at her at this moment. These moments of paintings of Mattie show her true beauty and Ethan’s feelings for her.
The Essay on American Beauty Scenes Where Lester
American Beauty is one of the best films I have ever seen. The Academy gave the movie a Picture of the Year award, among other honors. There are many good uses of cinematography throughout the film. I will be describing how cinematography is used to enhance what is happening in that particular scene. The theme in American Beauty is suburban life. It s all there, the self-centered good-looking ...
The true beauty of the landscape is often framed by Frome in order to emphasise the mood of the scene in the book. Mattie and Ethan are together and walking home viewing the “reflection of cold red on the eastern hills”. This transfer of the mood onto the surroundings exaggerates the mood of romance in the scene with the red and the reflection. On another beautiful evening when Ethan is outside walking home thinking of Mattie he notices the “the flight of cloud flocks over golden stubble”. This exaggeration of the colour again intensifies the mood of the scene and the romance in it with the graceful flight and the golden stubble. This grabs the reader and does not let go of their mind. When Ethan has just delivered some “lumber” to Andrew Hale he collects his cart to ride back up. In the sky he notices a star “pricking” through occasionally and showing “a deep well of blue behind it. This metaphor of the landscape and his thoughts for Mattie overwhelms the reader with the romance in this scene. It shows not only how romantic he feels but how his feelings are bright on the surface but with a much deeper meaning behind. These paintings are painted to emphasise the mood of the scene principally but they also show the thoughts occasionally.
These paintings painted by Wharton throughout the book affect the reader greatly and intensify the mood of the scene by the landscape. They portray to us the mood of the scene through the beauty of the landscape, the feelings for another character through freeze framing Mattie. They show the opinion of a character and their feeling for another character through the contrast between outside and inside. They emphasise a certain point and they stick this point to the readers mind permanently.
