Character Analysis Of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome
A long time resident of Starkfield, the protagonist Ethan Frome shows he is considerate by caring for and helping others. He first shows this trait when he gives up his desire to live in a city to support his ill mother. Though he has a strong wish to leave Starkfield, he respects his duty and cares for his mother. Ethan also shows this attribute to Zeena, by looking after her and contributing to her medicine while she also falls ill. Zeena is again thought of by Ethan when the pickle dish breaks.
After hearing the story of Ethan Frome, Ethan is actually a very strong person. He is emotionally strong. Throughout the story, Zeena always got on Ethan for even the smallest things but she does not know how aggressive she is coming off. Zeena always boss Ethan around and make him do everything. Then she takes most of his money then use it to go see a doctor that will supposedly help her.
“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.
In fact, the only reason Ethan and Zeena married each other was for the desperate demand for money due to sickness, first with the poor health of Ethan’s mother and then the sickness of Zeena. They were stuck in a cycle of finding money just to take care of each other, especially since all the debt that accumulated from the farm was now stuck to their name. While some people were constrained by money, others went out to look for ways out, such as in the story, “A Wagner Matinee,” which illustrates Aunt Georgiana, a young Boston music teacher, who decides to marry a younger man named Howard Carpenter. The author explains, “Carpenter, who of course had no money, took a homestead in Red Willow County, fifty miles from the railroad... They built a dugout in the red hillside, one of those cave dwellings whose inmates usually reverted to the conditions of primitive savagery.
Ethan Frome, the story of a man with a difficult romantic triangle between his wife and her cousin constructed by Edith Wharton. The tragic outcome of the story was slowly created throughout the story due to the faulty actions of Zeena. Some of which fell under the categories of playing pity games, attention seeking exertions, and improper/poor decision making within the entire story. I believe without the faulty acts taken by Zeena within the relationship and close surrounding subjects between herself and Ethan, there would have never been a “seed” to sprout from. Throughout the story Zeena played plenty of pity games giving Ethan more motive to feel uneasy in regards to their relationship fundamentals.
In the novel, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the main character, Ethan Frome, is to blame for the misery of the characters at the end of the novel due to his guilt. When Ethan is starting to write a letter to Zeena about how he is going to leave her and move West, he stops and thinks. Ethan says (directed towards Zeena), “‘I’m going to try my luck West, and you can sell the farm and mill, and keep the money’”(115). He ends up not finishing the letter to her because his guilt takes over and causes him to not follow through with his plan to move West. Ethan feels that he should not just leave Zeena in Starkfield with nothing.
Ethan chooses his duty to Zeena over his dream with mattie he would receive when proposed with the option of moving to the West, he decides against it because of what he owes to Zeena. He doesn 't knows if she would not be able to support herself and that clouded future is why he doesn 't agreed to leave. Again, Ethan chooses between duty to Zeena and seeking his personal dream when he and Mattie were going to take their lives so they would not have to live without each other. Throughout his time with Zeena, he was forced to choose between duty to his family and his dreams. He could have left and continued his dream of being an engineer but instead he married her do to a sense of payment for what she had done for his mother.
In Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton depicts Ethan as a tragic hero who gets downtrodden by his circumstances and mainly, his personality. He has the tragic flaw of not being willing to put anyone in pain even if he benefits from it. Through this, he gets blocked from pursuing an education when he must care for his ill parents. Consequently, he also doesn’t get to socialize with other people of his age, making him feel awfully lonely. To further his tragic predicament, he marries Zeena, his cousin who arrives to take care of his mother and unfortunately, she prevents him from pursuing his love for nature and engineering by wanting to stay in Starkfield forever for her own ego.
Edith Wharton's book Ethan Frome is the tale of a man, his wife and the woman he falls in love with. Ethan marries Zeena but falls in love with Mattie who is the opposite of his wife in every way. Where Zeena is sedentary and a sickly woman, Mattie is exciting and lively. In an ironic turn of events the woman he falls in love with transforms into a mirror image of his wife. Ethan married Zeena, out of fear of being alone for the rest of his life and suffers an unhappy and loveless marriage because of it.
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.
In Edith Wharton's famous book Ethan Frome, main character, Ethan Frome’s story is a personal tragedy. His own decisions he makes are his own fault. But what is his tragedy? Well, to a certain understanding, his tragedy is that in the present day, he is always dreary and not as happy as he could have turned out; in other words, one could say that his tragedy is that he is unsuccessful in happiness. Although one may argue that the tragedy wasn’t all Ethans fault, and that the weather of new england caused it, that certainly isn’t true.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken” (Lines 1-7). In Edith Wharton’s classic, Ethan Frome, this theme is present for protagonist Ethan Frome, who falls in love with his maid, Mattie, and forsakes his wife, Zeena. Ethan and Mattie’s flirtation with infidelity sets a catastrophic series of events into play: Zeena is jilted by the lovers’ betrayal, Mattie asks for the irrational way out of her situation, and all three characters make destructive decisions. Ethan’s indifference toward his wife and lack of compassion for her illnesses clearly demonstrates Ethan and Zeena’s loveless relationship.
In the novel Ethan Frome, author Edith Wharton conveyed the tale of her protagonist’s tragic life in Starkfield, Massachusetts through a limited first-person narrator for the prologue and conclusion of the novel and a limited third-person narrator for the chapters detailing
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 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.
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