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Theme Of Passion And Integrity In Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome

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As Edith Wharton said, “The worst of doing one’s duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else”. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton involved a man who was stuck in a love triangle as well as his home in Starkfield. The themes of passion and integrity apply to Ethan Frome like no other, whereas the theme of passion applies to Mattie Silver. Ethan Frome has tried countless times to get out of his home in Starkfield, “he’s been in Starkfield too many winters”(Wharton 6). All of Ethan’s attempts leave him empty and drawn back because of the sense of duty and integrity he has in him. When Ethan was a young man, he attended school in Worcester for engineering. He was drawn back to Starkfield by the death of his father, “and the
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A long time resident of Starkfield, the protagonist Ethan Frome shows he is considerate by caring for and helping others. He first shows this trait when he gives up his desire to live in a city to support his ill mother. Though he has a strong wish to leave Starkfield, he respects his duty and cares for his mother. Ethan also shows this attribute to Zeena, by looking after her and contributing to her medicine while she also falls ill. Zeena is again thought of by Ethan when the pickle dish breaks.

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Ethan Frome, who has to face multiple conflicts throughout the book with his nonstop dream to be an engineer which is crushed due to the illness of, Zeena, his cousin, but who also happens to be his wife. Also a love begins to grow mid way through the book between a girl named Mattie and Ethan, even though he is still married to Zeena which ultimately leads to the distance between their love. In the book Ethan Frome, the feeling of isolation in Ethan and Zeena becomes more prominent, while anger grows between Ethan and Mattie from having denying their love, which contributes to the many mistakes and downfalls Ethan has to face throughout the book.

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Mattie, Zeena and Ethan were all responsible for their own actions which resulted in them getting what they deserved. Ethan Frome was a young, 28 year old man, who lived in Starkfield, Massachusetts and was married to Zenobia Frome. Zeena helped care for Ethan’s mother when she was dying, which is how they got to know each other. After the death of his mother, Ethan began

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If Ethan didn’t “stay and care for the folks” (Prologue), he could have made the future much better for himself. Ethan definitely would have been happier in Florida being an engineer than in this village being a farmer. "When a man's been setting round like a hulk for twenty years or more, seeing things that want doing, it eats inter him, and he loses his grit.” (Prologue) Ethan’s forgotten dream was probably his only way out of this

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Being passionate about something always leads to death. To elaborate, when one is passionate about something, one feels like oneself has a duty to defend and protect what one is passionate about. For example, in Romeo and Juliet, they are both extremely passionate about one another and they get married after a few days of knowing one another. After their wedding, things go downhill and they end up killing themselves so they can be together. Also, in Ethan Frome, Ethan and Mattie desired to be with each other so he offered to drive her somewhere and it turned into them trying to kill themselves by hitting a tree so they could also be together.

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In Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton depicts Ethan as a tragic hero who gets downtrodden by his circumstances and mainly, his personality. He has the tragic flaw of not being willing to put anyone in pain even if he benefits from it. Through this, he gets blocked from pursuing an education when he must care for his ill parents. Consequently, he also doesn’t get to socialize with other people of his age, making him feel awfully lonely. To further his tragic predicament, he marries Zeena, his cousin who arrives to take care of his mother and unfortunately, she prevents him from pursuing his love for nature and engineering by wanting to stay in Starkfield forever for her own ego.

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Ethan’s bad choices of leaving school, feeling lonely and marrying Zeena and then also being avoidant when he wants to leave her. Obviously, Ethan Frome’s tragedy is all caused by his personal decisions. One of many ignorant choices Ethan makes is when his mother gets ill, somewhere in the beginning of the story. During this time, Ethan dropped out of college.

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He gets the idea idea to tag along to help find Ti-Anna's father. To a country that he has never been to and based on his actions never will. Even that speak the language. It creates tons of dangerous problems for Ethan. ¨I was thinking

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In Edith Wharton’s most remarkable novel, Ethan Frome, the main character, Ethan Frome, is in love with a prohibited woman… his wife's cousin. His wife, Zeena, is a sick woman who has a villainous essence to her and an irrevocable hold on Ethan. Mattie Silver is Zeena’s cousin and the woman Ethan is infatuated with. Through Ethan’s eyes, Mattie is described as youthful, attractive, and graceful basically everything Zeena isn’t.

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