Ethan Frome
Dead Hill Farm
Starkfield, MA
December 1, 1911
Dr. Elwon Harwood
Professor of Physics
Worcester Technological
Institute
22 Newton Lane
Worcester, MA
Dear Dr. Harwood,
I am writing to you to thank you for teaching me about the world. When I had to leave my studies, due to unfortunate familial circumstances, I could not have had the strength to continue without your guidance. You taught me that even behind the simplest matters lies a complex web of meanings as to why an event occurred. Believing that there is a reason for everything has helped me to see the beauty and depth of nature. You showed me the meaning behind the face of things. Now an old man, I am forever grateful to you because you taught me that no matter how bleak life looks I can step outside my door and remember why life is worth living. Thank you for helping me see the fragments of wishes unfulfilled and dreams lost in the hills, trees, sky and all my surroundings
Yours truly,
Ethan Frome
I finished a letter that had been started years ago. I said good bye to my youth. I watched Matt dance. I fingered Matt's sewing. I tried to piece together the pickle dish. I kissed Matt. I got onto the sled with Matt. I took a different path. I crashed into a tree with Matt. I almost sacrificed my life for … What? love, lust or simply freedom? I wanted to be Matt's knight in shining armor, save her from Zeena. I thought that if I had gone to school and left my mother to her illness, Zeena would not have been able to imprison me. I thought that if I ran away with Matt Zeena could not bind me to her any longer. Some people pitied me, they said that I had an awfully mean time of it. While my life was hard, and at times unbearable, I chose to remain. I did not walk away, not even when I thought I was on the breaking point, when Zeena wanted to take away Matt. Matt, she was another person to whom I felt I had a duty to. I was bound to her through incomprehensible ties as inextricably as to Zeena.
When I had to choose between her and Zeena, I saw Zeena. Something inside me was reminding me, yet again, that I could not escape my duty to Zeena. Even though I do not speak of Zeena I fond terms, I can not rest the blame on her. I chose Zeena, just as I had chosen my mother those long years before. If I ever truly believed that I could just pick up and run away, I was a fool. My nature does not allow me to, for as Harmon Gow once said it's always Ethan done the caring. If I abandoned the people I owed a duty to, I would be bound to them all the stronger. I would forever feel guilt and shame in the inner recesses of my mind and soul. I can never find happiness in abandoning my duties, so I must learn to find happiness fulfilling them.
