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The Sympathetic Character In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton

334 Words2 Pages
During her life, Edith Wharton had an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist for the London Times, while in a dysfunctional marriage, so she uses Ethan Frome as a “sympathetic” character to justify her actions. She uses him to parallel her life experiences of loneliness and regret; “Confused motions of rebellion stormed in him. He was too young, too strong, too full of sap of living, to submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes.” (Wharton 72). In order to have her audience feel more sympathetic toward this character, she makes him a male figure but makes him more feminine to correlate with herself; dependant on Zeena to provide for him, clinging on to a relationship he doesn’t have, can’t live alone, etc: “The mere fact of obeying
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