Monday February 1, 2010

SECOND SEMESTER / term 4
VOCABULARY 7 handed out today. This is due next Monday, February 8
Some folks have a lackadaisical perspective on the vocabulary. It will come back to haunt you, as we will be reviewing units through short reading passages- much like an SAT- where the words will show up and you'll need to respond to questions with the assumption you are familiar with them. Please, take your time with these. This vocabulary will guarantee help you immensely on your SAT test.

Quiz on Ethan Frome today.
In class we are reviewing the literary movement known as Naturalism (see last Monday's blog, if you need a refresher). Again note the environmenatal forces, physical drives and economic circumstances that impacted the characters of the eponymous Ethan, his wife Zeena and Maddie Silver. Individually, you will need to be able to write out an example of each at the end of your quiz. The class discussion will be based your responses.

A reminder: we are in the 3rd floor lab on Wednesday. You will blog your response.

SYMBOLISM NOTES FOR ETHAN FROME based upon the powerpoint presentation.

1. Starkfield is besieged by long winters in which everything lies
buried under a deep, frozen layer of snow. Similarly, Ethan "seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its
frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface."

2.Ethan marries Zeena only because he does not want to spend a winter alone
in the silent farmhouse. But soon, Zeena too falls silent, her emotional chill
becoming an extension of the externalchill whose deadening influence Ethan
had feared. Winter is the barren season, when nothing grows, and Ethan and
Zeena's marriage is barren, in that they are childless. Zeena lacks the fresh
beauty that is associated with fertility: her breasts are sunken, her face gaunt,
her skin "bloodless." A symbol of the barrenness of their marriage is the red
pickle dish, which Zeena keeps unused on an upper shelf of the china closet.
Mattie's action in getting it down so that Ethan and she can use it - an act that results in its being broken - is symbolic of the threat that the beautiful and fertile Mattie poses to Ethan's marriage.


3.
While images of winter and frozenness characterize Ethan
and Zeena, Mattie is described in terms of warmth and spring.
In Chapter 8, when Ethan is determined to do something to enable him to be with Mattie, the sun comes out and a "pale haze" of spring can be seen, which Ethan associates with Mattie.

4.
Mattie's symbolic colors are sensual, passionate red (her scarf, and the red ribbon she weaves through her hair on her first evening alone with Ethan) and bright, flashing silver (her name). The color red has always carried connotations of sexual sin, hence terms like 'scarlet woman" (a whore or promiscuous woman) and 'red light area' (where the brothels are situated). The symbolism is continued in the red sunsets they watch together on their walks to and from the village, which he sees reflected in her face. The pickle dish that Mattie gets down for her and Ethan to use on their first evening together is red; significantly, Zeena means for it never to be used.

5. Zeena is associated with the Frome household cat.
While she is away in Bettsbridge, the cat becomes her 'agent,' seating itself in her chair between Ethan and Mattie and setting the rocking chair in motion as if Zeena were there herself. Most important, the cat breaks the pickle dish that Zeena prizes above all else and that Mattie has illicitly got down from the closet to make the table attractive for Ethan. The cat thereby exposes Mattie's gesture and, symbolically, her relationship with Ethan. This episode marks a turning point for Zeena, and she resolutely acts to get rid of Mattie.
The fact that Zeena's symbolic animal is the cat reinforces the portrayal of Zeena as a type of wicked witch of fairy tale. Witches kept companion animals, or 'familiars,' and could temporarily take over the bodies of the animals in order to travel about and do their work unseen. By far the most popular 'familiar' animal for a witch was the cat.

6. The elm tree
Some critics see the big elm tree into which Ethan
and Mattie collide in their suicide attempt as a phallic
symbol. Before their suicide pact, both view the tree
with awe, as they know that Ned Hale and Ruth
Varnum were nearly killed by colliding with it when
sledding. But they talk of the tree with bravado, each
claiming that they are not afraid of it. It is clear that
there is a coded message being communicated.
Each is feeling the other out as to whether he or she
has the courage to pursue the illicit relationship. Thus the tree takes on the symbolism of their passionate (potentially sexual) but illicit (and therefore dangerous) relationship. When the suicide pact is arranged, the elm tree becomes a symbol of the first and only resolute decision they make regarding their fate, and it is therefore reasonable to see it as suggestive of Ethan's regained manhood. However, the symbolism is ironically undermined by the fact that it is Mattie, not Ethan, who makes the decision to die together. Ethan merely goes along with what Mattie wants. The final irony is that the tree does not kill the lovers and grant them their tragic apotheosis: it cripples them, unmanning Ethan further and robbing Mattie of any chance of independence.