Ethan Frome, who has to face multiple conflicts throughout the book with his nonstop dream to be an engineer which is crushed due to the illness of, Zeena, his cousin, but who also happens to be his wife. Also a love begins to grow mid way through the book between a girl named Mattie and Ethan, even though he is still married to Zeena which ultimately leads to the distance between their love. In the book Ethan Frome, the feeling of isolation in Ethan and Zeena becomes more prominent, while anger grows between Ethan and Mattie from having denying their love, which contributes to the many mistakes and downfalls Ethan has to face throughout the book.
In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton the narrator tells the readers how he met the main character,Frome, in Massachusetts. Edith Wharton takes the reader twenty-four years into the past and there we see that Frome is a young man,who chased after an education in science, but when his father dies he is forced to return back to the farm. After that his mother becomes ill and his cousin Zeena comes to take care of her,but when his mother dies, Frome marries Zeena out of loneliness. As time passes by Zeena becomes more sick, due to this their marriage is without love and Frome feels very lonely and has no one to talk to. Then Mattie silver,Zeena’s cousin,comes to take care of her,and Frome falls in love with her and can not imagine life without
Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome was truly a book ahead of its time, being the center of controversy, it pushed what was standard of most novellas at the time, and and especially what was expected from woman. Set in the stark winter of New England, Massachusetts it tells us the tragic story of our main protagonist Ethan Frome. Ethan lives a normal life with his wife Zeena until Maddie Silver, Zeenas relative moves in creating a tension between everyone in the house. This created obstacles for Ethan since he really needs to think who his heart was really with and who he needed to fight for. Ethan Frome is a very difficult book to read because the reader had to endure a domino effect of Ethan, Zeena, and Maddie’s impetuous decisions, leading to the
“Is fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?” (Jodi Picoult). Ethan Frome, written by Edith Wharton in 1911, embodies this quote. In Ethan Frome, all three main characters, Ethan, Mattie and Zeena have made decisions that will affect the rest of their lives. Ethan and Mattie had an inappropriate relationship behind Ethans significant other, Zeena 's, back which caused each of them to be emotionally distraught.
Reader Response Literary Analysis of Ethan Frome The novel Ethan Frome written by Edith Wharton is a classic novel of the early 1900’s. Wharton created a novel that is only fully comprehended in the cold winter months with snow swirling outside your home as you read with a cup of hot tea to warm you. It is an icy writing, with many different thoughts to extract from it. A main theme in this novel is society and morality are obstacles to the fulfillment of desire(“Ethan Frome”)
Melissa Palacios English 3A Feb. 21 2017 The novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is about a tragic hero, Ethan who is not in love with his wife, but another person named Mattie. An important symbol in this novel is a pickle dish. This dish symbolizes Ethan’s relationship with his wife. The pickle dish first appears in chapter 4 of the novel.
The Protagonist Ethan Frome is interesting and complicated both physically and emotionally. The character has to take care of his hypochondriac of a wife Zeena, who seems to have a dominant spirit. She controls Ethan mostly through guilt, whenever he tries to object or argue she coughs or pretends to get worse, but seems to feel better when she gets her way. She has almost complete control of him throughout the movie, till another character gives the recessive Ethan glint of hope. Mattie Silver, the cousin of Zeena, she is young and carefree.
The story, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton is about a man who is married to a women named Zeena. Ethan and Zeena have a servant who works at their house named Mattie, who happens to be Zeena’s cousin. Throughout the entirety of this novel, Ethan catches feelings for his wife’s cousin, Mattie. Although, he is still married to Zeena he does not want to be. The story shows the evolution of Ethan’s feelings and attraction to their maid.
In the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton the concepts of love, isolation and silence are explored. In the book the idea of love is explored throughout in the love triangle of Ethan, Mattie and Zeena. The idea of isolation is explored when the snows come to Starkfield and Ethan’s life spent their. Silence is explored in the story when Ethan can’t tell Mattie that he loves her, it is also explored when Ethan can’t tell Zeena that he want’s Mattie to stay.
There are a couple of teens in Ethan Fromes story such as isolation, science, and illusions. The writing explains the rules of society during the time. It also explains the challenges woman had to face in society. Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie are the main characters. The story is all about there 3 different lifestyles and their roles in society.
During her life, Edith Wharton had an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist for the London Times, while in a dysfunctional marriage, so she uses Ethan Frome as a “sympathetic” character to justify her actions. She uses him to parallel her life experiences of loneliness and regret; “Confused motions of rebellion stormed in him. He was too young, too strong, too full of sap of living, to submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes.” (Wharton 72). In order to have her audience feel more sympathetic toward this character, she makes him a male figure but makes him more feminine to correlate with herself; dependant on Zeena to provide for him, clinging on to a relationship he doesn’t have, can’t live alone, etc: “The mere fact of obeying
Ethan’s bad choices of leaving school, feeling lonely and marrying Zeena and then also being avoidant when he wants to leave her. Obviously, Ethan Frome’s tragedy is all caused by his personal decisions. One of many ignorant choices Ethan makes is when his mother gets ill, somewhere in the beginning of the story. During this time, Ethan dropped out of college.
Ethan Frome: An American America is popularly considered as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Its reputation necessarily implies that Americans are free and brave — ergo, they understand what they want in life and they try their best to reach their goals. Having the freedom to choose, however, is not without responsibilities. It is precisely this freedom that compels people to accept the consequences of their choices and actions whatever they may be in the end.
Ethan’s initial response is to attempt to simply piece back the pickle dish with glue. The use of glue or “the easy route” to fix the broken pickle dish so Zeena won’t discover the accident, symbolizes Ethan’s thought process to try repairing their loveless relationship. Furthermore, Ethan is afraid to even tell Zeena that the dish has broken which shows the lack of communication and understanding in their relationship. Zeena’s response is much more dramatic, by intensely accusing Mattie of not only breaking her most prized possession, but also threatening her husband and their marriage. Zeena’s anger and resentment over the broken pickle dish actually illustrates her sorrow over her broken and unfulfilling marriage.
Readers may not always be aware of the careful consideration involved in the narrative aspect of literature, but its significance should not be overlooked, for narration can play an enormous role in the development and reception of a novel. First, second, or third person. Limited or omniscient. Objective or subjective. All are components of that which constitutes a narrator, and all have the ability to dramatically alter the manner in which a story is relayed to the audience.
