Ethan Frome Conflict Essay

After the smash-up, Ethan is still quite a handsome man but his state of mind has changed. Ethan has become consumed with guilt from the smash-up so much so that he has become “bleak and unapproachable” and “so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two” (page 3). This clearly conveys that Ethan has become bitter and cold.

As I was saying before, the presence of Ethan in Starkfield for the whole of his life has added to his plight. The metaphor is showing how the residents of

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

When his mother, too, had fallen ill, Ethan had had no time for “convivial loiterings in the village” (Wharton 61). Once a social and admired man, Ethan now lives in a life of solitude and silence. After his mother fell ill, “the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that of the fields” (Wharton 61). His mother had been a talker in her day, but after her illnesses, the sound of her voice was seldom heard. When asked why, her answer would be “because [she was] listening” or “they’re talking so [loud] out there that I can’t hear you” (Wharton 61). Towards the end of her illnesses, Zenobia Pierce came to help Ethan. It was only then that Zeena’s volubility was “music in his ears”, relieving him of the “mortal silence of his long imprisonment” (Wharton 61). After his mother’s death, Ethan married Zeena, hoping to rid him of the loneliness of the farm. However, Zeena, too, eventually fell silent, and Ethan must take of her like he once did for his mother. In addition, irony also takes place during Ethan and Mattie’s first evening together. Zeena, being a hypochondriac claims that her “shooting pains” have gotten more severe and therefore must leave to Bettsbridge to see a new doctor, leaving Ethan and Mattie alone. On what should have been a romantic idyll, the evening is in fact stressful and

Ethan Frome, written by Edith Wharton; this novel is about a farmer, Ethan, who lives a sad life in the town of Starkfield; he had many ambitions for the future only to have them crushed by his wife, Zeena. When Zeena’s cousin, Mattie, comes to live with the Fromes, Ethan soon realizes that he has developed feelings for Mattie and she was the object of his affection. Ethan immediately becomes involved in a love triangle between Mattie and Zeena. Unsure whether or not to follow his heart and run away to marry Mattie or just ‘shrug off’ his feelings for Mattie and pretend like they were never there, Ethan is faced with a tough decision. A few days later while Mattie and Ethan are out sledding, Mattie has the idea of running into an elm tree,

Through the use of foreshadowing, the story has suspense to carry out the main message of importance of benevolence to the readers. In the novel, Ethan meets a man by the name of Link Hornsby, who has a bad reputation. He also meets Ike, a cook at the Chow Down diner warns Ethan about hanging out with Link, saying, “You wanna screw up your life hangin’ with the likes a’ Hornsby, you go right ahead.” (Aker, 253) This foreshadows how Ethan’s life was controlled largely by Mr. Hornsby, as he introduced gambling to Ethan and he became addicted to it. By the end of the book, his life was on the

His wife is the primary reason for his unhappiness. One day, upon arriving home from work, Ethan sees the gravestone of a distant relative and his wife. The relative's name is also Ethan Frome and his wife's name is Endurance. On the gravestone is written, "Dwelled together in peace for fifty years." Ethan fears that, like this man, he will have to live a long life with his wife Zeena. The name Endurance show us what kind of situation Ethan is in. Unlike his ancestor, Ethan does not live a peaceful life, he endures it. He bears his wife's complaining and grumbling, and truly has no happiness at all. He does not want to spend fifty years with his wife if he is not happy. Ethan did not marry Zeena out of love, he married her because he felt indebted to her because she took care of his ailing mother. After his Mother died, he could tell that Zeena was becoming sickly herself. Ethan felt that since Zeena took care of his mother and served her so willingly, he was now obliged to take care of her. Unfortunately, Zeena is a terrible wife. She is sickly, unattractive, and unkind. She focuses on herself and is always complaining about her illness. Ethan imagines how hard it will be to live with Zeena for years to come. This is the cause of his

Responsibility is relevant to Ethan Frome because Ethan feels he is responsible for taking care of Zeena and supporting her during her time of pain and illness, just as she comforted and nursed his mother when she needed it. To reimburse for the time and effort Zeena spent, not only taking care of his mother, but also comforting him, Ethan marries Zeena. At a young age, Ethan drops out of school and decides he needs to fulfill the duty of taking care of the loved ones around him. “Somebody had to stay and take care for the folks. There warn’t ever anybody but Ethan. Fust his father – then his mother – then his wife” (Wharton 5). Ethan does not want to abandon anyone during their time of agony and despair. Overlooking the fact that he

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a novel chock full of symbolism where every line has another meaning, creating another world within the story of Ethan Frome. This inner world has a lot to do with love, and what it really means, and who understands it and who doesn’t. It is a complex inner story that has many twists and turns, and really forces the reader to think outside the box to understand the messages that Edith Wharton was trying to convey. Love and conscience are the plot and strife of Ethan Frome, and really help create a deeper meaning to the book. However, Zeena’s lack of understanding of the concept of love really shines through in everything that Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie do.

Ethan’s ingenuity and dexterity in the engineering field had been a preeminent factor in the cultivation of his early ambitions. As it is asserted, “He had always wanted to be an engineer, and to live in towns, where there were lectures and big libraries and “fellows doing things.” A slight engineering job in Florida, put in his way during his period of study at Worcester” (Wharton 36). Essentially, his aspirations were to lead him away from Starkfield and into a place where he become accomplished. However, with the death of his father and obligations to remain at home on the farm his dreams were suppressed, thus becoming an oppressive force in his life as they lead him to feel despondent. As he would never be able to feel the sense of achievement he strived for he would spend the remainder of his life sullen and forlorn. The desire to be with Mattie, as well, remained a prevalent aspiration of Ethan Frome. After the announcement of her departure he began to arrange plans to leave with her, but soon began to see the impracticality of this decision and resolved to stay. Edith Wharton asserts, “The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a convict. There was no way out—none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished” (Wharton, 66). Ethan becomes a

Many people do not really think that his wife didn’t have to do with anything about his poverty but she played a major role in why he is in poverty. For examples she says “How she has been sickly”(Wharton56). The reason that Zeena is one of the causes of Ethan’s poverty is that she is never having a conversation with him and never talks to him. This is one of the reasons because during this time of his life. He needs someone to talk to, because there are things that he keeps trying to keep inside that he needs to share with someone but Zeena does not want to communicate with him unless it has to deal with her health. She is also causing Ethan’s poverty because she is becoming sick and Ethan is trying to take care of her, sometimes she do not want the help which makes Ethan feel left out. She also causes his poverty because towards the end of the story, She boots Mattie out of the house which causes Ethan to go on the trip to take Mattie to the train station and when he decides to go to a different location instead of the train station, he talks about moving West with Mattie, but the poorness of Ethan kicks in. He does not even have the money to go out west with her. Overall Zeena was one of the reasons that Ethan has been going through poverty throughout his

Ethan’s passionate longing to run away with Mattie is destroyed by his responsibility to his wife. As long as someone in Starkfield is having a dance or party, “...not long afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give all its nights to revelry” (9), Ethan has

Edith Wharton's novel "Ethan Frome" depicts a love triangle that results in tragedy during the late 1890s or early 1900s. When Ethan Frome's mother was sick, his older cousin, Zenobia or Zeena, came to help, and he ended up marrying her after his mother's death. She had a cousin named Mattie Silver who comes to live with them, and Ethan soon becomes attracted to the young ebullient Mattie and her carefree spirit. Suffering is a common theme throughout the novel, as all three of the main characters are trapped in their own circumstances, and all endure suffering in their own way. The character Ethan is depicted as a helpless victim, however he is only so in the sense that he's emotionally weak and too caught up in his own self-pity to actually

Here, this moment presents Ethan’s unsettling, and uncontrollable infatuation for Mattie. Wharton uses this scene to display the isolating thoughts that occur when one begins to act against societal norms – in this case, within the institution of marriage. Ethan is not the only character that notices his change in behavior ever since Mattie’s arrival. His wife, Zeena, quickly identifies the change in his morning routine: “I guess you’re always late, now you shave every morning (16).” This statement implies the fact that Zeena is slowly becoming aware of his favoritism towards Mattie, and also highlights a tone of disapproval because Zeena is his wife, not Mattie.

What Ethan is blind to see is that no matter who he was with, or where he was, he would still fail in finding a greater happiness. His moral values hold him back from grasping what he really needs. He is the perfect example of a person who can’t except what they have directly infront of them. Ethan makes a living in Starkfield, and has a wife and identity in the small town. Before Mattie entered the picture, Ethan was content with the simplistic life he was accustomed too. Even though his marriage wasn’t the best, he didn’t complain, because he knew when he married her he would care for her ‘in sickness or in health’. Mattie’s youth re-awakened his boyish desires for an exciting future, but he is far too old and obligated to Zeena’s health at this point in his life to fulfill them. It is imbedded in human nature to strive for the best, and to do whatever it takes to grasp it, but our religious or moral values keep our internal demons at bay. Ethan is tempted by Matties dream, that they can run away from their problems here and start a new life away from home, but understands the unattainable reality in the situation. He is an intelligent man, who is emotionally weak because he is so easily swayed when Mattie pushes him in a certain direction. Ethan is tired of taking care of Zeena, and feels constricted by her ever watchful eye. He and Mattie attempt suicide, because for them it seems like