In “Ethan Frome”, Edith Warton uses season and setting in chapters one and eight to display winter in Starkfield as a negative force on the residents. The novel takes places in a chilly Starkfield where the narrator describes Ethan Frome as “dead and in hell now”, and Dan Harmon suggests that it is because Ethan has stayed for “too many winters” (Warton 2, 1). This demonstrates how Starkfield is “stark” and draining to those who stay as long as the Frome’s had. For instance, at his innocent youth, Ethan yearned to escape Starkfield to pursue a career in engineering, however, after a winter proposal, his marriage to Zeena anchored him at home and forced him to live the rest of his life under the burdensome snow of Starkfield. By the time he