Your personal fulfillment versus your duties can cause a rift in your life. Ethan Frome was in competition with the duties for his wife and his personal happiness and choosing to be with Mattie. He had to always choose on the important things in his life. This very thing caused confusion in his life. The author uses point of view , imagery, and the setting to show how Ethan’s feelings were portrayed about both women in the book and his life. Point of view is mostly used throughout the book. You get to see through Ethan’s perspective. This showed how the duties for his wife made his life boring and dull until Mattie came along. He describe Mattie as “The girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.” (Wharton) . The conversation and long walks just made him happy. The duties for Zeena made him miserable but he made a vow to her. It also showed how he gave into his duties by choosing to quit school and come home to help his ill parent. …show more content…
The description of how Mattie made him feel when he touched her. Ethan want happiness so bad that he was willing to end his own life to be with Mattie, but when Him and Mattie decided to end their life, A picture of Zeena flashed through his mind. “But suddenly his wife's face, with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between him and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside. The sled swerved in response, but he righted it again, kept it straight, and drove down on the black projecting mass. There was a last instant when the air shot past him like millions of fiery wires; and then the elm…”, He thought about the commitment he made with Zeena. Even though he thought about his wife, he still chose his personal
Sebastian Castellanos English Unit Activity Ethan Frome There are many different symbols or themes to be found in the story of Ethan Frome. A novel written in 1911 by Edith Wharton. But of all things the red glass pickle dish meant the most and best described the main topic of the story, Ethan's and the relationship to his wife Zeena. Ethan Frome is a story of a man who finds love in his cousin’s wife Mattie although unhappily married to another woman by the name of Zeena. One day Zeena leaves and Ethan is excited to have the house alone with Mattie.
As result of several illnesses within his family, Ethan was forced to stay in Starkfield without a degree or the life he truly desired. Zeena’s constant state of hypochondria pushed Ethan farther away from his goals and closer to an unhappy marriage. When the new help arrived in Zeena’s cousin
Wharton uses a lot of symbolism in the story “Ethan Frome”. Such as the red ribbon and red scarf. The color red represents vitality, good health, and ruddiness, all of which Mattie has a great quantity of. Zeena, on the other hand, lacks all of these qualities, considering her “condition”. This makes Mattie very attractive to Ethan, like a breath of fresh air, like a new beginning.
Ethan’s main purpose for moving back to Starkfield was to take care of his sick mother, which he felt was a family duty. It was seen as though family members and married couples should stay together and take care of each other no matter what. Zeena’s neice, Mattie Silver, is a warmth to Ethan he so desperately needs, but he knows he must stay loyal to Zeena. Ethan preferred trying to kill himself with Mattie, than divorcing Zeena, showing how unorthodox divorce was at the time. Pressure from society is something Ethan could not overcome and is a major factor in Ethan’s misery and morality in the
The problems that both Ethan Frome and Mrs. Pontellier faced in Ethan Frome and The Awakening, respectively, were due in part to personal problems facing them. Ethan Frome was starstruck by Mattie, the cousin of his wife, Zenobia. Years of dissatisfaction and an ever-growing rift in their relationship opened the door for Ethan to finally find happiness with Mattie, but this new happiness was coupled with unhappiness and drama from Zenobia. Edna Pontellier also suffered the same problem that Ethan underwent. Mrs. Pontellier, confused about her current relationship with Mr. Pontellier and how he was gone all the time, decided to find pleasure in other men, notably Robert and Alcee Arobin.
At first the reader is drawn to Ethan’s love of his ailing father, and his mother, eventually even his own wife in their constant care. Ethan is represented as a fairly loving man, and this is only emboldened when the story steers toward the subject of Mattie Silver. Ethan displays an almost endless capacity of love for her on the minutest of details. He takes on the responsibilities of the house chores as he realizes that Mattie is simply not able physically to do so, on top of his own chores. He even takes up driving her the miles to town on an almost daily basis in addition to all of his already mounting responsibilities.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a story that is much more than meets the eye. Wharton’s novel is a tragic tale of a man who marries on a whim and years later falls in love with another, that particular other being his wife’s cousin and handmaid. This tale ends with an “accident” gone wrong, and the three are almost trapped in their home forever (Wharton 74-77). Throughout the story, Wharton uses symbolism to give the story so much meaning. Wharton includes symbolism within her setting, objects and their colors, and her characters.
”(98).To explain, once Ethan had seen the change of Zeena and Mattie, he had accepted where his life had lied. Ethan suffers knowing that he would never be able to run away and be happy with Mattie, especially after she had changed so drastically. Furthermore, Ethan realized that it would be exceptionally wrong to leave the woman who had changed in an act to take care of him for the woman he really loved. Zeena had dedicated her life to making sure the two were brought up anew, and in exchange, Ethan realized that his life was to be her husband and provide for her in whatever way she deems necessary, even if they do not love each
With Maddie’s entrance, the Frome house became even more in turmoil as Ethan starts to fall for Maddie, even though he was still married to Zeena. There is the possibility that someone reading may feel sympathetic towards Zeena but I think many people will think she indirectly asked for her marriage to be irreversibly broken as she never truly showed that she loved Ethan nor did she go out of her way to create a happy home environment. Though she did love him deep down in her heart, she was unable to obtain his heart as easily and without effort as Maddie did, even though she was around him more. Ethan was so unhappy in his marriage, he was willing to die with Maddie and leave Zeena behind but fate is a cruel mistress because not only did Maddie and Ethan survive, Maddie actually became a younger version of Zeena which led to the end of the love he had acquired and the beginning of a more depressing and barren
Altruism is always an admirable trait, but as with any other trait, if altruism is taken to an extreme, it can result in consequences such as giving away so many resources that one would be unable to provide for himself and being unwilling to risk harming others. This theme is portrayed in the short novel Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, by means of the main protagonist and tragic hero, Ethan Frome. Due to his tragic flaw of selflessness, Ethan fails to muster up the courage to stand up for himself, which dooms him into the final demise, in which he and Mattie Silver cripple themselves in a sledding crash. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Ethan possesses the tragic flaw of excessive selflessness.
Ethan and Mattie attempted to end their lives by sledding into the big oak tree. Unfortunately, they survived, but the incident ended up causing damage to their bodies. Zeena also lost because she had to take care of someone who betrayed her. The incident also caused damage to Ethan’s personality. Throughout the book, Ethan seems to be an all-around happy person until he attempted suicide.
He had changed his name and his life. “The role of a husband helped him terminate the guilt caused by his father’s excessive criticism and anger towards his celibacy.
Ethan flirted with Mattie and would try his hardest to impress her, for example, he began shaving his face everyday which he never used to do for Zeena. These inappropriate actions caused chaos within the household. Ethan began to lust over Mattie, wanting to spend as much
The tragic novella of Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton focuses on adultery in rural New England. Stressing the importance of relationships, the narrator tells the story of Ethan Frome, a man searching for love. Despite being married to his cousin Zeena, he only views this civil union as a moral obligation. Then, he ventures into an adulterous relationship with Mattie Silver, and begins to understand what love is really about. The author often focuses on a red pickle dish, a treasured wedding gift, which unexpectedly shatters.
Zeena and Ethan’s relationship is a constant power struggle, and he finds solace and stability in Mattie, because she is young and naive. Ethan grows to Mattie extremely quickly, and jumps to the conclusion that she automatically loves him back. While this may be the case, it was still a play on his masculine side, because for so long he was treated as less of the man in charge. When he found someone who was submissive, he fell into a delusion that he finally found the perfect person. Ethan then makes an extremely rash decision, to take both his and Mattie’s own life just to escape Zeena.