What Is Ethan Frome Naturalism

Aubrey DeJacimo Mr. Williams Honors English II 22 February 2024 Literary Landscapes: Navigating Realism and Naturalism A young soldier serving the Union during the American Civil War spies a lone Confederate horseman. Although he feels guilty for taking a seemingly innocent life, he knows his duty to protect his unit. As he moves away from the bushes concealing him, he realizes that the identity of the horseman belongs to his father. Ambrose Bierce maneuvers this plot point in his short story, “A Horseman in the Sky”. The young soldier, Carter, faces a moral conundrum when he realizes he must sacrifice the life of his father to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. Bierce displays themes of naturalism in his works. The idea of naturalism stems …show more content…
In the story introduction, the narrator has never seen Ethan’s injuries. When he finally lays eyes on him, he observes “... besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, he had so shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window” (Wharton intro). In an attempt to escape the burden of his wife’s disability, he becomes plagued with one of his own. Ethan’s romanticism of dying with his lover ends in him facing a naturalistic conflict greater than the one he had to begin with. His eventual physical disability embodies the naturalistic intention of the author. The consequence of his choice to try and escape his imprisonment was that his wife’s illness led to his physical impairment. Ethan’s lover, Mattie, also experienced the outcome of this choice. When the narrator gazes upon Mattie, he notices how “She sat huddled in an arm-chair near the stove, and when [he] came in she turned her head quickly toward [him], without the least corresponding movement of her body.Under her shapeless dress her body kept its limp immobility, and her dark eyes had the bright witch-like stare that disease of the spine sometimes gives” (Wharton …show more content…
Mallard feels free as she realizes she has no one to live for but herself. Basking in her newfound freedom, she begins to think of all the days ahead of her when she will get to decide what she wants to do. Just as suddenly her feelings of freedom spark, they quickly become extinguished again when her husband, Brentley Mallard, walks through the door unscathed. Mrs. Mallard feels shocked and disappointed by the day’s events, that she drops dead on the floor all within that same hour. Kate Chopin brings into service the use of naturalistic conflicts in her short tale “Story of an Hour”, specifically gender. Chopin contrasts the dueling emotions that take place within the spirit of Mrs. Mallard in the short span of one hour. Her sudden sense of relief was the result of years of repressing her sensibilities because she was a woman in a man’s world. “Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself, a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free" (Chopin

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