Realism And Struggle In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton

My Struggle, Your Struggle, Our Struggle
“Ethan felt suddenly weak and powerless. Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer the listless creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy. She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others''(Wharton ch. 7). Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton lives as a staple work from the Realism time period. Strong feelings and real delemias are presented throughout the entire book; like in this quote, Ethan feels hopeless when his wife throws out their maid who he happened to love romantically. Leaving the reader with some personal connections and new struggles to ponder.

Rather than focusing on romantic and unrealistic ideas, Realism authors focused on day-to-day life's harsh realities and struggles. Literary works depicted ordinary people facing a variety of realistic issues such as financial issues, marital issues, gender inequality, social expectations, environmental issues, hereditary inhibitors, and more. Realism stands as a literary technique used to describe realistic elements including characters, settings, and themes relevant to everyday life and concepts. Realism accomplishes this through stories, poetry, journalism, and more. In realism writing, authors refrain from using elaborate imagery, figurative language, and unrealistic ideology that are often displayed in romanticism works. Naturalism lives as another philosophical movement of this time. Naturalism complements Realism by examining how heredity, economic circumstances, physical abilities, and environment shape people. Most often Naturalism works have a pessimistic tone with characters who face struggles they cannot overcome. Realism authors illustrated gender role inequalities, environmental struggles, and limiting social expectations to display the idea of realistic literature, by

During this period, many women authors came about. Therefore we see many works that include the struggles of gender roles in society. According to Stereotypes and Gender Roles, “Gender roles refer to the role or behaviors learned by a person as appropriate to their gender and are determined by the dominant cultural norms”(Worthy et al.). At this time women took on the expectation of early marriage and motherhood while men took on the expectation of working and providing for the family. A short story that includes gender role struggles; “Wagner Matinee.” One of the main characters Aunt Georgina struggled with gender role expectations especially, “When she returned to her duties in Boston, Howard followed her, and the upshot of this inexplicable infatuation was that she eloped with him, eluding the reproaches of her family and the criticisms of her friends by going with him to the Nebraska frontier” (Cather 721). Born a woman, Aunt Georgina had to follow her husband in his decisions. Therefore, she had to follow him when he decided to move away from her family and friends—leaving her unable to follow her own dreams. Additionally, Aunt Georgina had to leave all of her