Wharton's New England: Seven Stories and Ethan Frome (Hardscrabble Classics) - Softcover
Although Edith Wharton is usually identified with the "old New York" of such masterworks as The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, she spent ten years living and writing in New England, a setting that appears in two novels, a novella, and fully a quarter of her short stories. In these works Wharton turns from portraying the monied and the mannered to probing inscrutable psyches and souls. The New England of these tales - which range from light comedy to horror - becomes a metaphor for fierce poverty, cultural barrenness, and an oppressive Puritan heritage that both fascinated and repelled Wharton.
Thus the frigid, engulfing winter of Starkfield buries Ethan Frome in a living death. That sense of moral and emotional confinement also appears in "The Angel at the Grave," as a young woman senses she has been "walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of dead ideas." In "The Lamp of Psyche," a visit to Boston relatives sheds new light on a woman's marriage; "Xingu" gently satirizes the snobbery of small-town "huntresses of erudition"; "Bewitched" and "All Souls" explore the theme of witchcraft. Barbara A. White's insightful introduction suggests that in these stories Wharton "seems to have projected onto New England aspects of herself that she most feared: repression, coldness, inarticulateness, mental starvation, and even lack of high culture."
Thus the frigid, engulfing winter of Starkfield buries Ethan Frome in a living death. That sense of moral and emotional confinement also appears in "The Angel at the Grave," as a young woman senses she has been "walled alive into a tomb hung with the effigies of dead ideas." In "The Lamp of Psyche," a visit to Boston relatives sheds new light on a woman's marriage; "Xingu" gently satirizes the snobbery of small-town "huntresses of erudition"; "Bewitched" and "All Souls" explore the theme of witchcraft. Barbara A. White's insightful introduction suggests that in these stories Wharton "seems to have projected onto New England aspects of herself that she most feared: repression, coldness, inarticulateness, mental starvation, and even lack of high culture."
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From the Publisher:
5 1/2 x 8 1/2 trim. LC 94-42882
About the Author:
BARBARA A. WHITE is Professor of Women's Studies, University of New Hampshire. Her books include Edith Wharton: A Study of the Short Fiction (1991) and American Women's Fiction, 1790-1870 (1990).
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- PublisherUniversity of New Hampshire Press
- Publication date1995
- ISBN 10 087451715X
- ISBN 13 9780874517156
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages286
- EditorWhite Barbara Anne
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Wharton's New England: Seven Stories and Ethan Frome (Hardscrabble Classics)
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University of New Hampshire Press
(1995)
ISBN 10: 087451715X
ISBN 13: 9780874517156
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Wharton's New England: Seven Stories and Ethan Frome (Hardscrabble Classics)
Published by
University of New Hampshire Press
(1995)
ISBN 10: 087451715X
ISBN 13: 9780874517156
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Softcover
Quantity: 1
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