Ethan Frome: List of Quotes explained Essay

11.”What really makes you alive is love.”Pg246¶4 This is the author talking about his family

d. Through his use of imagery devices throughout the poem, the author’s main message that

Because of the setting in this novel the activities in Starkfield are sparse. For many citizens there is little to do because the heavy snow falls keep the citizens in with lack of transportation. The activities they do are mostly during the spring which is extremely short, consisting only of a few weeks or possibly

He then married a woman he did not love out of fear of being alone. After all this, his wife's cousin comes to live with and help them. He then falls in love with her, but remains miserable because he knows that he cannot be with her. Happiness is definitely a wanting object in Ethan's life. Mrs. Hale is quoted as saying, " You've had a mean time, Ethan Frome."

Frome’s suffering brought about by forces beyond his control. Included in these forces are the weather and time of year, leaving for college and having to come back, and falling in love. The winter weather influnces Ethan to marry Zeena.Due to the seasonal weather, Ethan makes a poor choice in marrying Zeena. “After the funeral, when he saw her [Zeena] preparing to go away, he was seized with 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. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter” (44). This quote substantiates Ethan’s regret in marrying Zeena. He believes he wouldn’t have made that same decision had it been spring time. Another force beyond Ethan’s control is seen in the introduction, it is about Ethan being forced to come home on page 5 ““Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn’t ever anybody but Ethan. Fust his father – then his mother.””(25). This quote relates to when Ethan was forced from college and back to the

D. The chosen interpretation rests on how the narrator’s character is analyzed through her hidden thoughts.

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

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.

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

Ethan being very needy marries Zeena, and once she turns cold, Ethan suffers. Ethan had been very lonely, living with his sickly mother.

     Ethan Frome is a man torn between what he wants to do, and what he should do.  Life in a rural town can be tough, but when faced with complications, it can be almost unbearable.  When Ethan decides to marry his distant cousin, Zeena, his life turns down a long and lonesome road.  Ethan's lack of assertiveness and decisive action only worsens his already lonesome and stressful life.

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.

Wharton compares her to the spring as a "...window that has caught the sunset" (Pg. 14) This comparison is made because Mattie is like this big ball of light and life that has come into the Frome's life. She is seen in the eyes of Ethan as this hope and freedom. When Ethan and Mattie are together he does not feel this dreadful feeling of unfulfillment, but more a weightless feather floating through a happy life. In the end though, just as the winter destroyed Ethan's life when he married Zeena, and just as the winter turned Zeena into this cold, heartless person, it too destroyed the light airy personality of Mattie. Just as the winter made Ethan "the ruin of a man" (Pg. 3), it made Mattie the shadow of a woman. And just like that, the winter again takes its toll on another hopeful. This girl, once compared to the sun is now filled with darkness and void of sunlight just like a winter

His struggles are exacerbated by his surroundings such as Zeena his wife, the bleak Starkfield landscape, and his home which often takes on an oppressive quality. Mattie was Zeenas cousin and Ethans lover. This novel shows how even though Ethan and Zeena are married; Ethan loves Mattie more than he could possibly love Zeena. "It's bad enough to see the two women sitting there - but his face, when he looks around that bare place, just kills me" (Chapter 10).

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