Essay On Wharton's Ethan Frome And The Anthesis

Ethan Frome and the Anthesis of Wharton Edith Wharton was born in New York in 1862 and was a gifted child that authored her first few works, but was forced to publish them under another’s name. Wharton later published her novel Ethan Frome to relate to her life and warn to others what kind of lifestyle to avoid. She did this by creating her character Ethan and making him the antithesis of herself and her success. Ethan fails in making choices in his life and Wharton never stops pushing through adversity to reach her distant goals. Wharton’s life is similar to Ethan’s in the way that throughout the novel Wharton’s friends and family discouraged her from continuing her writing, trying to make her into Ethan, the character she created to be the

Edith highlights the consequences of not pushing forward and not putting in effort into life by creating her character Ethan and making him fail in his decisions to make a point showing how to get nowhere like Ethan, and how to become satisfied like herself. Edith is trying to say in this novel that a perfect opportunity is not just going to slide by, it has got to be made, however Ethan does not make his own opportunity and decides to marry Zeena, waiting for the opportunity to come to him like “when they married it was agreed that … they would sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town” (Wharton 27). This is important because it shows his acceptance to waiting for time to pass instead of going for what he wants as soon as he can unlike Wharton. Wharton did not stop writing and did not stop striving to become a great author and she juxtaposes her experience with Ethan’s decision to wait and to try to make everything work out before he strives to become a great engineer. Ethan never became an engineer while Edith became a famous author, showing that waiting for the perfect opportunity will never work, and people have to take life into their own hands. In the end, Edith is satisfied with her life as a successful author and because of his inaction of life, Ethan lives his life dissatisfied