Essay about Codependency in Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome

Ethan realizes that Mattie has to live her own life and find happiness. He feels that Zeena is being manipulative towards him and Mattie.

Zeena appears to use her illness as a way to manipulate others to do things. Ethan usually does things to please Zeena. He is taking care of her and feels as if he cannot run off and abandon her. Zeena is controlling over Ethan and wants him to do whatever she pleases. She went away to see another doctor to get a second opinion on her illness and used Ethan’s money to pay for the treatment that she was prescribed even though she knew she wouldn’t be able to do the treatment. As the relationship between Ethan and Zeena becomes worse, Zeena is able to sense the relationship between Ethan and Zeena and becomes

in to take care of his mother. He never did return to the college to

Secondly, Ethan Frome has had many failures within his life such as his marriage to Zeena. One may ask how is Zeena and Ethan’s marriage a failure? Ethan only marries Zeena after she could not nurse his mother back to health and she ends up passing away. When Ethan mother dies, Ethan is in a sullen mood or funk and in turn

So, it can be seen that Zeena and Mattie do have common feelings for Ethan Frome. She probably has resentment and dislike for Ethan From and even herself since it was her idea to crash the sleigh into the oak tree. Also, since her youthfulness was cut short because of an accident and there was no everlasting love that followed it.

In the novel Ethan Frome, the main character Ethan is trapped by the notion of needing to fulfil responsibilities that

Poverty is defined as deficiency, or inadequacy. It can be used to represent more than just the lack of money. Poverty is constant throughout the novel, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton. Poverty is evident in almost every area of Ethan's life.

Ethan marries Zeena and falls in love with Mattie as a direct response to his neediness for care and company. As well, Ethan also finds it a necessity to be accepted by Starkfield, which compels him to live with Zeena and finally stops him from escaping with Mattie. Ethan’s desire for love and acceptance could have been the outcome of a neglected childhood. He had been caring for his parents from a young age, as Harmon Gow tells the narrator, “Sickness and trouble: that’s what Ethan’s had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping”(6). Ethan spent most of his life caring for others and possibly lacked love from his own sick parents, which may be the reason for his neediness for society to be both proud of him and others to give him the care, which he had to give up from an early age, taking care of his parents. As many studies show, the young need love and affection in order to help with their self-esteem and it is a vital aspect of one’s mental health. Seeing the outcome of Ethan, a lack of care for the young, may cause detrimental effects on ones life as he or she grows

Mattie and Ethan never follow their love due to Ethan's morals and the respect he has for his marriage to Zeena. He wants Zeena to be well and he takes care of her when she is ill. Frome’s feelings for Mattie never oscillate and he wants to be with this woman who is not his wife. Even though Ethan only had one night with Mattie alone, he cannot help but think of what he has done as he sits in the kitchen. Mattie presents minority, beauty, and good health- all of which Zeena does not possess. It seems he favors the more hip, young, and beautiful women than dull, boring, and unattractive women.

In Edith Wharton’s novel, Ethan Frome, one major critical theory revolves around the psychological criticism. The novel revolves around this critical theory because Wharton wanted the reader to observe how the setting becomes dependent on the emotional state of the character and vice versa. Throughout the novel, Wharton makes changes to the environment to represent Ethan’s fondness for certain characters. On the contrary, Wharton displays how the setting directly influences Ethan’s mental state. As the reader perceives this influence that each character has on Ethan Frome, they can develop an understanding of the relationships established in the novel. This critical theory will be expressed throughout the literary analysis paper, specifically in the Novel Summary section and Literary Criticism sections. The following text will analyze the drastic changes in the environment and compare it to Ethan’s mental state.

Zeena poses as an asset to Ethan initially helping him tend to his sick mother. It is the passing of his mother and Zeena’s organization of his life that leads him to view her as spouse material. What starts out as Zeena’s light in the darkness of his isolation is quickly turned into a time of despair. Zeena is oppressive and begins to evolve as an individual who takes and never gives. When she is unsuccessful at getting Ethan to do what she wants, she begins to take on a series of unexplained illnesses that require a great deal of money and medical attention to tend

Ethan Frome also has a sense of duty to stay with his current wife Zeena. Ethan wishes to leave Zeena immediately and to run away with his true love Mattie, but he knows that Zeena could not possibly support herself on her own. Edith Wharton shows this by writing, “…that Ethan drew a meager living from his land, and his wife, even if she were in better health than she imagined, could never carry such a burden alone” (Wharton 96). This distinctly explains that Ethan’s sense of duty conquers once again and controls him to stay with his bitter wife Zeena. Most have a universal opinion that Ethan has to stay with his wife Zeena. Another author agrees with the fact that Ethan’s plans to run away with Mattie have become thwarted by saying, “But immediately his plans are set afoot, things begin to close in on him again: farm and mill are mortgaged, he has no credit, and time is against him” (Howe 132). The author states that Ethan’s small estate will not support Zeena, and so Ethan’s sense of duty prevails over him again.

Jeannette’s self-reliant behavior is frequently shown through her refusal of help from others. On one trip to retrieve her father from a bar, Jeannette’s father is so drunk that he can no longer walk. Another man offers to drive them home, and

Zeena was nasty and treated everyone so badly. Her nasty words and her tone really got to Mattie but not so much Ethan. “Zeena made no reply: She did not seem to hear what he had said” (Wharton 51). She is a selfish person and she does not listen to what anyone else says but herself. Also, Zeena automatically switched up on maids too quickly. “But when Zenobia's doctor recommended her looking about for someone to help her with the house-work the clan instantly saw the chance of exacting a compensation from Mattie” (Wharton 48). It was not necessary to switch up on maids that quickly but Zeena did not care at all and she did it anyways leaving Mattie upset. Lastly, Zeena seemed to be a hypochondriac. “Zeena had always been what Starkfield called “sickly” and Frome had to admit that, if she were as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm than the one which lay so lightly in his during the night walks to the farm” (Wharton 32).Zeena always had the intention of being “sick” but she was not sick enough to hire a maid or being able to control Ethan. She could of took care of herself without a problem. If Zeena was not so moody, selfish, and disrespectful, this could of changed the

In summation, the novel Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, can be classified as a tragedy. A man named Ethan Frome suffers many downfalls and short comings because of errors in judgement and character flaws. Ethan could not even kill himself and his true love without screwing it up. Because of these suffered tragedies, Ethan becomes a different man, paralyzed physically and emotionally and racked with guilt.