Ethan Frome Character Analysis

Winter, a melancholy season, bring to the people the feeling of loneliness. The lonely person becomes lonelier. In the cold winter, just a little ray of sunshine is enough to warm a person's lonely heart. However, no one knows that little ray of sunshine in cold winter is a start point of the tragedy of love. Like "Ethan Frome" is written by Edith Wharton. The story revolves around the love triangle of three characters, Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie. Zeena, Ethan's wife, with illness, she represents the lack of energy. Contrariwise, Mattie, Zeena's cousin, who makes Ethan falls in love, represents the full energy of life. Mattie is a little ray of sunshine of Ethan in the cold winter. That makes Ethan feels thrilled, and the love triangle begins

The novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton tells the story of Ethan Frome and the tragedy he faces in his life. The story mainly focuses on the relationships between and among Ethan, his wife, and his wife’s cousin, with whom he is in love. Wharton uses different literary devices to develop the plot, including irony as one of the most effective. The use of irony in the novel, especially in the climatic sledding scene, greatly adds to the development of the tragedy.

“I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade; and you must have asked who he was.”(1) The novel Ethan Frome takes place during the winter during late 1800’s to early 1900’s in Starkfield Massachusetts. The setting is significant because it brings the narrator to Ethan's house so he can tell the narrator his life story and Ethan feels like he was not allowed to leave starkfield in the story.

In today’s day in age many people are left out or may be considered some what outdated because they don't use or understand technology. Just like in the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, Ethan From is one character that is isolated. For Ethan he’s very distant and no-one really tries to get close to him because of what he’s been through, which isolate’s his life to just himself. Even after he get’s a wife named Zenobia, his house was silent after she grew ill. He’s in loop of confusion and filled with heartache.

The novel, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton tells of Ethan Frome and his struggles to be with the one he loves, Mattie Silver, and escaping the one he’s married to, Zeena. The tragedy that is Frome’s life is founded on the differences between Mattie and Zeena, such as their physical appearance and their communication and relationship with Ethan.

Ethan Frome Essay In Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie made quick decisions that lead them to live their lives full of sorrow. Each of their bad decisions resulted in the three of them living in the Frome graveyard before they even died. Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie deserve the outcome of their decisions because they could have prevented their futures from misfortune. . Ethan’s, Zeena’s, and Mattie’s selfish nature led to rash decisions resulting in each of them living a long life of despair.

The strife between monogamy and the lust for another is often the cause of a marriage ending before "death do us part." The challenges of infidelity in these situations often shape the individual enduring them in mostly negative ways. The novel Ethan Frome presents a main character facing an internal battle about responsibility versus his innate immoral nature, and the author exposes this extended metaphor as a struggle to warn that the conflict between moral standards and impulsive desires may have dire consequences.

Character of Ethan Frome Ethan Frome, a tragic romance, first published in 1911, is widely regarded as Edith Wharton's most revealing novel and her finest achievement in fiction. Set in the bleak, barren winter landscape of New England, it is the tragic tale of a simple man, bound to the demands of his farm and his tyrannical, sickly wife, Zeena, and driven by his star-crossed love for Zeena's young cousin, Mattie Silver. An exemplary work of literary realism in setting and character, Ethan Frome stands as one of the great classics of twentieth-century American literature.

In the book, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton Ethan is a victim of his own personal choices. Being pressured by his environment and emotions, Ethan then made poor decisions, such as falling in love with his wife's cousin, Mattie, and also trying to commit suicide with her. Ethan´s decisions led to his being a victim of his personal choices. This text portrays Ethan as a victim of his personal choices. He seems so depressed, he is stuck in his past.

Ethan Frome is a victim of his own personal choices and temperament. Ethan constantly ignored tension between Zeena and Mattie, and also never stood up for himself so that he could’ve left with Mattie to the west throughout Ethan Frome. He tries to, sometimes, but doesn’t completely make it all the way. He eventually does what he wants, but never succeeds, ends up where he started at, the Frome family farm in Starkfield. Ethan Frome runs into a girl wearing a red fascinator, and discovers the girl is Mattie Silver.

In chapter eight and nine of Ethan Frome, Ethan finds a note in Mattie’s handwriting telling him not to worry. He sits and thinks about the note and comes to a conclusion that he is going to leave Zeena a note saying that he is leaving her and running away with Mattie. However, he then sits on the couch in tears realizing how hard it would be to start over with nothing, and how heartbroken Zeena would be. When Ethan wakes up he realizes that it is Mattie's last day. After they have breakfast, he walks outside and tells Powell that Mattie’s dismissal is unresolved.

Ethan’s desire to become an engineer ceases when he abandons his studies at Worcester in order to take care of his family. “Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn’t ever anybody but Ethan” (11). Ethan feels that he can not abandon anyone who seems to be in pain, but this ends up hurting himself and the people that he cares about. Ethan Frome’s loyalty eventually starts to interferes with all of his hopes and dreams that he has for himself.

Throughout the tragic yet romantic novella, “Ethan Frome”, written by Edith Wharton, the protagonist, Ethan Frome, experiences frequent loss of hope in his life. The story follows his daily struggles and how those defeats in human nature impact him, as well as others, later on. Furthermore, the author reveals how his decisions lead to irreversible mistakes, which shows the irony in his situations.

Ethan Frome is an unfortunate individual who is trying to better himself, but in order obtain his goal, Ethan took advantage of Zeena, a nurse who is helping Ethan’s mother . There is a saying what goes around comes around and the action that he takes ends up doing the opposite of what is intended. His selfish acts are the result of his hunger to move forward, yet he still feels the guilt from his actions and tries to balance out his selfish with selfless acts, as a result Frome lives his life chained down by his own mistakes.

In Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the title character, Ethan, is unhappily married to Zeena. As Zeena is sickly, her cousin Mattie comes to help out with housework. Ethan and Mattie begin a doomed love affair that ends in disaster. Ethan and Mattie attempt to conform to the expected gender roles for the early twentieth century, while Zeena bucks expectations and ends up happier for it. This shows that people are happier when they act like themselves rather than how they are expected to act.