Ethan Frome Quotes

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

In the novel, Ethan Frome, there are two women that are apart of Ethan Frome’s pitiable existence, Zeena and Mattie. There are both acutely different from each other but they also share some similarities between themselves. Zeena and Mattie are different in many ways in the matter of appearance, their outlook on life, and their interest in Ethan Frome but eventually it shows towards the end of the novel that Mattie is not so much distinct from these qualities after “the smash up”.

She provides the conflict by causing Ethan’s inner turmoil. She helps move the story along because of the thought she evokes in Ethan such as the thought of leaving his wife. However Ethan’s morals would never let him actually leave his wife supporting the theme of Moral Isolation

In the book Ethan Frome, the characters are caught between what is right and wrong. Mattie has a torn desire to be with her sister’s husband and Ethan does not stop her because he feels the same way. The theme for the book is duty and desire. Ethan has a desire towards Mattie because she does not complain and is thought of as

In the final chapters, Ethan and Mattie enter the Frome household. Wharton describes that the living room has "the deadly chill of a vault after the dry cold of the night." This quote represents the deathly sled run they are about to experience. Ethan and Mattie pursued their love life to the point of death due to desperation. Ethan felt trapped in his marriage with Zenobia and found an escape in the beautiful, young Mattie Silver. He chose to die with Mattie for an escape to his isolated, unhappy life, but it only backfired in the end.

That makes him stand between what he want and what he need and all he wants, just to stop at thinking. And Ethan's thoughts become his biggest barrier to reaching happiness. Ethan loves Mattie. Ethan dreams about the happiness of him and Mattie. We know that when Ethan says, "I guess we'll never let you go, Matt," he whispered, as though even the dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by the graves, he thought: "We'll always go on living here together, and someday she'll lie there beside me.". But there is no way that comes true when he becomes passive in front of Zeena. When Zeena figures out what is wrong in her family, and try to indirectly force Mattie to leave the farm, Ethan is passive with his feeble reasoning cannot protect Mattie. Then, Ethan plans to flee with Mattie. But once again, another thought comes up to Ethan's mind as an excuse for his passivity, and make him flinch. The narrator states, " If he gave the farm and mill to Zeena what would be left him to start his own life with? Once in the West he was sure of picking up work—he would not have feared to try his chance alone. But with Mattie depending on him the case was different. And what of Zeena's fate? Farm and mill were mortgaged to the limit of their value, and even if she found a purchaser—in itself an unlikely chance—it was doubtful if she could clear a thousand

Ethan has such a moral dilemma because Zeena and Mattie are so incredibly different. He struggles with which personality and character traits he likes better. Zeena has been by Ethan's side since his mother was ill and he respects her

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

Her feelings of isolation are only intensified by the apparent lack of emotion and affection she receives from her husband Ethan, followed by the betrayal and pain accompanied with becoming aware of Ethan’s passion for Mattie as opposed to her. In another light, Mattie’s feelings of loneliness are less developed throughout the novel, but still heavily apparent. She is orphaned and practically family-less when she seeks refuge from her isolation in the ironically desolate Starkfield farm and mill of the Frome’s. Mattie becomes so completely consumed with the fear of losing this only source of companionship, when Zeena appeals to have her essentially thrown out of their household that Mattie resorts to the ideal that suicide would be better than having to return to a world of solitude. On the surface, Mattie and Zeena appear to have little in common, but on the internal level these two share more than most.

Ethan was married to a cold complaining woman named Zenobia, nicknamed Zeena. His only joy in life was Zeena's younger cousin Mattie Silver, who stays with them as help for Zeena in her illness. Ethan grows to love Mattie. When Mattie is forced to leave by

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.

Many people oppose society due to the surroundings that they face and the obstacles that they encounter. Set in the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is the story of a poor, lonely man, his wife Zeena, and her cousin Mattie Silver. Ethan the protagonist in this novel, faces many challenges and fights to be with the one he really loves. Frome was trapped from the beginning ever since Mattie Silver came to live with him and his wife. He soon came to fall in love with her, and out of love with his own wife. He was basically trapped in the instances of his life, society’s affect on the relationship, love, poverty, illness, disability, and life.

prompted him to seek a relationship with Mattie. Her manipulative and lassitude state has kept Ethan bound and unhappy until the arrival of young Mattie. The reader notices a change in Ethan as he contemplates leaving Starkfield with Mattie, but his guilt stops this thought. Zeena can be described as a vitriolic character because she is self-centered and continually throughout the story inveighs Ethan and Mattie on all their actions and faults. His thoughts revealed that “even if he had the heart to desert her he could have done so only by deceiving two kindly people who had pitied him”

When Mattie is to be sent away, Ethan and Mattie grow desperate looking for a way out of their impossible situation. They decide that it is better to die in a sledding accident together than live their lives apart. Ethan hesitates slightly, “But in a flash