Comparing Age Of Innocence And Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton

Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome were written both by Edith Wharton as a backlash against romanticism. She subverts the previous expectations of the genre by questioning the nature of love and the idealism of marriage. In Ethan Frome, Ethan is trapped in a marriage with his cousin Zenobia Frome, or Zeena, and his love with Mattie Silver. Meanwhile, in Age of Innocence, Newland Archer is engaged and married to May Welland but truly desires to be with her cousin Ellen Olenska. In these two marriages, Wharton clearly demonstrates that permanent happiness from a perfect marriage is a naive ideal to live up to.

In both Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome, the characters’ roles and statuses in society serve to highlight the division in their respective

In the typical novel in the romantic period, the power was either equal or distributed towards the man, as was typical for the time. However, Wharton turns this idea on its head by having the female characters control the male lead. In Ethan Frome, Zeena, the hypochondriac housewife, who was seen as weak by the society at the time, manages to have power over her physically strong husband. However, due to the social hierarchy at the time, Zeena is forced to use underhanded means to achieve her goals. She constantly reminds Ethan of her weak stature, also stating that “The doctor says it'll be my death if I go on slaving the way I've had to. He doesn't understand how I've stood it as long as I have” in order to make Ethan as guilty as possible of her treatment. (Ethan Frome 65) However, this constant manipulation by Zeena only leads to weakening the romantic relationship between the two marriages. This plays into a different aspect of the romantic novels: the idea of an everlasting and happy marriage. While Ethan and Zeena are married, they are miserable. Zeena manipulates Ethan to do things for her, while Ethan secretly wants to elope with Maddie. However, even Madie is only using Ethan for job security, as she is afraid that Zeena will throw her out. Finally, when Ethan attempts to “escape” his marriage in a Romeo and Juliet suicide attempt, the epitome of

Similarly to the setting of Ethan Frome, Age of Innocence is set is a period where there is a strict power balance and social hierarchy among the people. Thus, Wharton has May use manipulation in order to gain power, as it will keep the appearances of the power balance to outsiders, but in truth gives May the ability to control Newland. For example, May is able to convince Newland to invite certain people, by subtly convincing Newland of their apparent social status, such as when she asks him “but wasn't he a little common?” to get him to not invite the Frenchman. (Age of Innocence) While effective, these strategies are what lead to a rift in their relationship, as Newland feels weak and unable to love his wife as much. Thus, Newland pursues the romantic ideal of eloping with a lover: Ellen. However, it is Newland’s naivete and belief that their romance was ideal that only lead to the failure of the relationship, as Ellen could not live up to these ideals. Thus, The Age of Innocence mocks the romantic ideals of a perfect marriage, by having the marriage be a loveless, manipulative relationship, and the cliche of eloping with a mistress fails due to Newlands