Ethan Frome

Ever since Madame Bovary, that first proto-naturalist work, naturalism has been the literature of adultery. Ethan Frome is no exception - although no sexual adultery takes place, it is the story of farmer who, saddled with a nearly invalid wife, loves her cousin, Mattie, who has come to stay with them.

It is without a doubt of story of degeneration. There is in fact a reference to technological advances as "degenerate," which I assume to be in the sense of decadence (5). But more prevalent is physical degeneration. When we meet Ethan, he has already degenerated. But this is no slow, gradual degeneration: he is permanently marred by a past accident, described as a "smash-up" (3). Eventually, we hear the whole story in flashback: how Ethan and Mattie grew close, how his wife Zeena kicked Mattie out of the house to make room for a hired girl who can do the work an invalid shouldn't, how Mattie and Ethan, unable to afford to run away, decide to commit suicide by running into a giant elm on a sled, and how they survive, Mattie paralyzed from the waist down, Ethan, with one side marred, to spend the rest of their lives together with Zeena.

This work seems to perfectly fit within Norris' definition of naturalism as a dialectic between the deep truths of romanticism and the surface accuracy of realism. In that way it recalls Garland's veritism as well - these are hardened people, beaten down by life, who long for escape, but they are not depraved murderers, incestuous, or adulterous.

But the mode of telling is romantic. The foreshadowing of the elm is repeated over and over again, and that particular method of suicide is deeply sentimental and romantic. Wharton has taken rural Massachusetts and made it into a snow-drenched land of mystery and secrets. And the final scene of the book, when we see the Frome's house in present day: broken down Ethan,
endlessly toiling Mattie (whose "complications" eased up when she had to work), and paralyzed, tortured Mattie. This is a romantic story with all the bleakness of real, hardbitten, hardworking people.

Two more notes: First, this is definitely a story of inertia. Our narrator is an engineer, and when he offers the scientifically minded Ethan a book about biochemistry "[Ethan] hesitated, and I had the impression he felt himself about to yield to a stealing tide of inertia; then "Thank you- I'll take it," he answered shortly" (9). But if Ethan overcomes the tide of inertia that comes with his degeneration to accept the book, it is only because inertia let him down. Death by sled is undoubtedly death by intertia; this is a story that sees its characters inevitably sliding down a slope to their doom, and even dramatizes it in their method of suicide.

Secondly, a note on value: I have noted before that, in Age of Innocence, the van der Ludyens are the most prestigious family in New York, but their influence seems mostly based on the fact that they don't entertain - their value grows as their presence is absent, and upon seeing them, Ellen, who has no interest in New York social politics, finds them uninteresting.

In the same way, Mattie gets down and uses a pickle bowl while Zeena is away, and the cat breaks it. Zeena is away - it is her most precious and beautiful posession, and yet she has not used it a single time - not "even when the minister come to dinner" (63). Wharton seems to view these situations with derision; her sympathy is with Mattie and Ellen, who want to use beautiful things even if there are risks, and not with Zeena and the van der Ludyens, who see the withholding of a thing as its most powerful use.

Update:
The introducer writes:
"Ethan Frome has elements of romance in it, but Wharton radically refuses the Romantic's romance with time. Timer here is not the swift devestator [...] it is rather the gradual, relentless poisoner" (i would add: the bringer of degeneration)

And also: "The end of Ethan Frome is, in fact, the triumph of the realistic mode over the romantic one." (both quotes xiii).

The introducer is spot on, except she seems to be missing Norris' insight: this triumph is what we call naturalism!