Within "Edith Wharton's Dream of Incest: Ethan Frome" by Ferdâ Asya, the thesis of this analysis seemed to be that Wharton feared the punishment for the feelings she had for her father, however as I read further into the article, I found that the thesis may be that she used this novella as a need for punishment.
This thesis was shown through the novella of Ethan Frome because the work was used to show the "writer's urge to confess the guilt that she unconsciously felt for her incestuous desire for her father" as said by Ferdâ Asya. This "urge" is also the reason that Wharton feels the need for her characters to be punished for their immoral feelings. This article also brings about Wharton's personal experience with an affair she had that lasted two years. Her own feelings relate to those of Ethan's because she looks for an escape from her loveless and also unfaithful husband. She feels the need to punish herself by punishing Ethan because she knows what she did was immoral and wrong. However, she felt more incestuous when she began to have desires for her father. This led her to ultimately punish the characters by forcing them to live in unhappiness and regret for their feelings at the end of the novella. As well as penalizing the characters because of her own experiences, the author prevents Ethan and Mattie from engaging in an emotional or physical relationship because of the guilt feeling. The author uses their lack of a relationship to exude the need for punishment brought out by the guilt because she feels just thinking about the possibility of a relationship was immoral in this time. This shows that she wants to punish herself through her characters, which displays a need for punishment. This work was said to be a "dream-wish," which was described as the motive force for producing dreams supplied by the unconscious, by Sigmund Freud. These "dream-wishes" eventually became "dream-thoughts" from Wharton's frustrating and agitating incidents of her life trying to search for the reasons of her disillusioned wishes. Wharton had wishes and desires about her father. Ethan is seen as a father figure in this book to Mattie Silver, which are the two main characters who experience the dominant form of pain. These wishes proved to be Wharton's need for reprimand.
I believe that this argument was extremely well put and the thesis of the article was clear and supported by many points. Besides the ideas presented previously, there were many other suggestions that prove Asya's thesis is valid. I agree with the points brought about by Asya and I believe that Wharton's main purpose for this novella was created because she felt a need to punish herself for the immoral feelings she had for her father through the characters of the novella, Ethan Frome.
I noticed that in the article, Asya mentions that in 1907, Wharton was very lonely. I wonder if this loneliness led her to think about feeling intimate desires for her father, which ultimately led her to write the novella, Ethan Frome. The writer also moved to Paris that winter and lived alone, which is when these feelings for her father began. This loneliness could also be a reason for her need to punish the characters of Ethan Frome, while also punishing herself in the process.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
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