Norman and Ethel’s marriage is one where you can clearly see they both love and care for each other dearly. Throughout the movie, Ethel’s feeling for Norman are always apparent whether it be love and compassion when she consoles him after he tells her the story of his getting lost in the woods or sadness when she realizes that Norman isn’t the happy man he use to be. She even says to him that he is the sweetest man in the world but that she only gets to see it. Norman relies on his wife for many things whether it is comfort, support, or motivation. She is constantly the one telling him what to do in regards to his chores whether it is telling him to go pick berries or start a fire because its cold. Besides fishing, Norman does not take charge of any tasks throughout the movie that …show more content…
This shows how men are more dependent on women in older age and that is why men who are married tend to live longer than men who get divorced or never marry.
Their marriage as a whole exemplifies many ideal relationship characteristics in the elderly. The emotional security is present throughout the film in the support they give each other no matter the situation. The peak of this emotional security takes place in the last moments of the movie were you can see Ethel frantically trying to help Norman who has a minor heart attack. Her love for him and the fact she did not want to lose him enabled her to give him the medicine he needed to overcome the attack; a situation he may have not been able to make it through without her help. Their loyalty is present and exemplified in Ethel when she slaps Chelsea for bad mounting Norman. She says that Chelsea should not be talking about her