Ethan Frome Essays Writing Workshop

1. Ethan Frome EssaysWriting Workshop Period 6Monday, December 6, 2010

2. Examples • Each slide features an example from a student in this class. • Let’s identify what we like about each example. • Let’s provide constructive criticism about what can be improved in each example. • Let’s check out my suggested revisions as we prepare to make our own revisions.

3. Today’s Focus Areas • Integrating quotes (within the flow of a sentence) • Integrating quotes (with an independent clause) • Integrating quotes (passive => active voice) • Verbs that show action (rather than state of being) • Some nice strong sentences • A nice strong introduction • Parallel construction • Finding places for quotes

4. Integrating Quotes (within the flow of a sentence) • For example after supper Ethan tried to find ways to be close to Mattie, “the cat, who had been a puzzled observer of these unusual events, jumped up into Zeena’s chair, rolled into a ball, and lay watching them with narrow eyes” (Wharton 38).

5. Integrating Quotes (within the flow of a sentence) • As Ethan tries to find ways to be close to Mattie after supper, “the cat, who had been a puzzled observer of these unusual events, jumped up into Zeena’s chair, rolled into a ball, and lay watching them with narrow eyes” (Wharton 38).

6. Integrating Quotes(with an independent clause) • Another quote is “They drew their seats up to the table, and the cat, unbidden, jumped between them into Zeena’s empty chair” (60). • The cat does not only observe them, but also actively positions itself to keep Ethan and Mattie apart: “They drew their seats up to the table, and the cat, unbidden, jumped between them into Zeena’s empty chair” (60).

7. Integrating Quotes (passive => active voice) • First, in the beginning of the novel, outside of the dance where Ethan waited for Mattie, she is wearing a red scarf. It is said that, “she looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red scarf wound about her.” (pg. 147)

8. Integrating Quotes(passive => active voice) • In the beginning of the novel, as Ethan waits for Mattie outside of the dance, she wears a red scarf: “she looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red scarf wound about her” (Wharton 147).

9. Verbs that show action (rather than state of being) • A reoccuring symbol that Wharton uses is the Frome family’s cat. • Wharton uses the recurrent symbol of the Frome’s family cat to represent Ethan’s nagging wife, Zeena.

10. Some nice strong sentences • In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, the three main characters, Ethan Frome, his wife Zeena, and their cousin Mattie, entangle themselves in a love triangle. • Her whole future is lost by her own naïveté and he spontaneous decision to give up everything for Ethan. (“give up” => “sacrifice”)

11. A Nice Strong Introduction • In the Modernist novella Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton uses symbolism to show the relationship among the characters. A symbol is a person, object, color or event that suggests more than its literal meaning. Some of Wharton’s metaphors include the Frome’s cat, Mattie’s vibrant dress, and the pickle dish that Ethan and Zeena received for a wedding present. The setting itself is even an important symbol in the work: the dreary nature of Starkfield, as decribed in the prologue, sets a bleak tone for the entire work.

12. Parallel Structure • Throughout the novel Ethan plays between his passion for Mattie often pondering her lips and lashes and his loyalty to Zeena. • Throughout the novel, Ethan vacillates between his passion for Mattie and his loyalty to Zeena: as Ethan ponders Mattie’s lips and lashes, Zeena’s nagging presence haunts him.

13. Finding places for quotes • The story begins and ends in Starkfield, Massachusetts. The town itself is referred to and described as a dark, gloomy, and cold area, immediately setting the tone for the rest of the story to follow. • Can you end this independent clause in a colon and find a great quote from the prologue to SHOW your reader what you mean?

14. Finding places for quotes • For example, in the beginning there is a scene in the book where Ethan is shaving. Then, Zeena asks him why he is deciding all of a sudden to shave every day. • Can you find a quote from this scene to illustrate what Zeena says to Ethan?

15. Peer Revision • Essay Rubric • 5 Stations • Goals • Quote Goal: one per paragraph! • Remember the quote sandwich! • This is probably the area where we most need to work today. • Don’t forget secondary source quotes.