Ethan Frome Character Analysis

The key role in many novels generally is the setting, it helps the author reveal and reinforce characterization and theme. Edith Wharton uses setting in Ethan Frome to help bring out characterization and theme by the isolated life of Ethan Frome and the village in New England as well as the winter landscape surrounded by trees.

Symbolism can give additional meaning to a variety of texts. From music to movies to novels, symbolism creates an even deeper meaning than found in a surface reading. The symbolism found within Ethan Frome adds to the inherent meaning of the text to give it an even deeper meaning. Edith Wharton uses the pickle dish, the Oak tree, and the cat as symbols to achieve deeper meaning. The pickle dish is of great significance in the novel. It is used to represent Zeena's virginity.

Ethan Frome and his wife, Zenobia (Zeena), never really know what true love feels like because they are both very lonely people. They meet when Zeena is caring for Ethan’s mother; due to their loneliness, they mistake the bizarre feeling of companionship for love. Ethan marries Zeena, not because he is in love, but because he does not want to be alone and he feels like he owes it to her for everything she is doing for him. She is aware of this and claims, “...you grudged me the money to get back my health, when I lost it nursing your own mother! And my folks all told me at the time you couldn 't do no less than marry me after—” (Wharton 83). In addition to Zeena saying that Ethan

In the novel Ethan Frome, written by Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome is responsible for his own misfortune, but is also a victim of fate, due to his unhappiness and loneliness. Ethan Frome has always been a victim of fate, except when he chooses his own misfortune by sledding to his death with Mattie Silver. Ethan Frome has been a victim of fate because while studying engineering in school, his father died and his mother became ill. Her illness required him to quit school and move back to his home to provide and care for her. "Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn't ever anybody but Ethan. Fust his father-then his mother-then his wife" (Prologue

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

This stands in stark contrast to what Miss Elizabeth Bennett wants. Mrs Bennett wants her daughters to marry because it’s thea only way for them to solidfy that they will have food on their plates and a roof over their head. Mr. Collins is Mr. Bennetts brother and is set to inherit his estate when he dies. He comes to visit in the middle of the book and his main intentions are to ask on of the daughters to marry him and to observe what he will in time own. Mrs. Bennett says in response to all this “Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousnd a year. What a fine thing for our girls!” (57, Austen) The single man she speaks of his Mr. Collins, the Bennett kids uncle. Austen describes Mr. Collins as a self retious kind of man who thinks he is above the Benntt’s just because he is set to inherrit their estate. This gives him a villeness quality. Austen is commenting on the blindness of Mrs. Bennett to the qualitys of Marraige. She only shes Mr. Collins as money but Elizabeth sees him as a bad person to spend the rest of her life with and theirfore turns down his marraige purposal. Which causes trouble between her and her mother. This is the best example of the contrast in what the two women see as the meaning of Marriage.

The first factor which adds to Ethan’s tragic fate is time. The book is mainly set in the nineteenth century and in those times things like divorce and adultery were less acceptable. Ethan would have felt morally wrong to leave this wife working on a poor farm or just leaving her money. Ethan’s birth into a poor family and in the time he was born, meant that he couldn’t really do anything so he was left unhappy. There was no welfare state in the nineteenth century America so again Ethan had to accept the burden of looking after his parents and wife, paying all of Zeena’s medical ’needs’ with no help. Ethan must have found

In the story Ethan is married to Zeena while he is in love with her cousin, Mattie Silver, that lives with them at the moment. In the book it states, “All his life was lived in the sight and sound of Mattie Silver, and he could no longer conceive of its being otherwise”(Wharton 49). To what was stated before, Ethan was in love with Mattie. He felt that his marriage with Zeena was dead and there was no fixing it. The second cited text states, “He was a poor man, the husband of a sickly woman, whom his desertion would leave alone and destitute; and even if he had had the heart to desert her he could have done so only by deceiving two kindly people who had pitied him” (97). Ethan was going to leave Zeena and move out West with Mattie, but he would have to hurt two friends to do that. This whole book really falls under the theme of courage. Ethan took bold measures to do what was right verses following his heart and hurting people that felt for him. Courage is to be defined as, “Strength in the face of pain or grief”(google). Ethan stayed courageous throughout the whole book by not following his heart and

For at least the young Ethan Frome, his desire to make others happy is a defining feature of his personality. The seemingly contented man introduced to readers contrasts with the unfortunate description of his education: “his father’s death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature end to Ethan’s studies…” (14). Even in his youth, Ethan prioritizes the needs and wants of others over his own. While dropping out of school was inevitable once the funds stopped flowing, his decision not to sell the family farm and remain in Starkfield is the most socially acceptable thing to do. With the whole town of Starkfield watching, Ethan accepted his duties as a son and eventual husband. These obligations corned Ethan, so much so that he was not able to elope with Mattie. Although Ethan despises his wife, his concern for her is demonstrated when he thinks: “and what of Zeena’s fate?...how could she keep the farm going?” Even when he’s about to leave her, Ethan is still worried about her prospects and position in society. In this respect, Zeena personifies all inhibitors of dreams: time, money, education and ability. Ethan’s failure to get away from Zeena is indicative of his resignation to fate.

An ineffective hero, known as a tragic hero, possesses many characteristics. Ineffective heroes are doomed from the beginning, but most importantly, are wounded physically or emotionally, in most situations, as a result of their own flaws. Ethan Frome of Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, possesses characteristics of an ineffective hero. He suffers from the beginning of the novel, stuck living with his sick parents, and as a result of his flaws, he marries Zeena and falls for Mattie, resulting in both his physical and emotional fracture. However, Ethan cannot succeed and ultimately suffers, as a result of his neediness.

Zeena was taking care of Ethan’s mother and he fell “in love” with her while she was taking care of his mother. It is said that “Her efficiency shamed and dazzled him. She seemed to posses by instinct all the household wisdom that his long apprenticeship had not instilled in him” (29). Ethan proposed to Zeena because he didn’t want to be alone, it is said in the novel that “He was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm, and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him” (29). It is unclear whether Zeena possessed a love for Ethan as Ethan claimed to of have for her. In the end of the novel Mattie is looked at as the annoying one, and he starts to care for Zeena because she is not the one inept to do household chores.

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.

In the novel, Ethan would be considered weak because he fell out of love with his wife. Ethan started falling for Zenobia’s cousin Mattie Silver. ".their evening together had given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he was glad now that he had done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the picture" (Wharton 55 ). This is considered weak because why would you fall out of love with the person you have loved since you were young. No man should ever disrespect his wife like that. Especially, falling in love with your wife’s own cousin, that’s so wrong. Men never understand how good they have something until they lose it. Ethan had a good wife and I didn’t see any reason for him to fall for Mattie. Mattie didn’t know how to do anything. She wouldn’t be worthy of being a wife to anyone. Mattie didn’t know how to keep the house clean nor cook. The only thing wrong with Zeena

All through the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, Ethan has several excuses to why he can not run away with Mattie, those being, public moral standards, Ethan’s own morals, and finical reasons. These reasons are stopping him from being with Mattie, his true love. One of the reasons Ethan will not run away with Mattie is because of the public’s moral standards. The time period in which this book was written it was looked down upon to have a divorce. And on top of that Zeena , Ethan’s wife, was sick at the time.

The big question of moral would be whether or not Ethan is an immoral person for being unfaithful to his partner. Examining the relationship from an outside perspective, I would clearly say that Ethan was wrong for cheating on his wife. However, while reading the novel it becomes very apparent that Zeena and Ethan are in a dead marriage literally. As Zeena lies around the house dying, the fuel to leave her continues to spew within Ethan. Yet there is a sort of transgression attached to that. Ethan was well aware of the wrong attached to divorcing his wife while she was sick. However, looking at the start of their relationship yields a new opinion. Wharton said no he didn’t. For I’d been ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to get back my health when I lost it nursing your own mother! You lost your health nursing mother? Yes; and my folks all told me at the time you couldn’t do no less than marry me after (97, 98). Zeena never felt as though Ethan was fully in love with him, but rather making up for the loss of health endured by Zeena while trying to nurse Ethans’ mother back to health. Where is the immorality in the idea of leaving the one you loathe in search of a relationship with the person you do love? Ethan had loss nearly all respect and feelings for Zeena. Wharton says Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer the listless creature who