Ethan Fromes Character Quotes

Ethan’s parents passed away and he thought getting married would solve all his problems and he would not have to be alone. Ethan found a girl named Zeena and he proposed. They lived on his cold farm in Starkfield, Massachusetts. Zeena became sick and they had to hire a housekeeper, which turned out to be Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver (Wharton 25). When Zeena became sick and Ethan started having feelings for Mattie, he realized he made an immense mistake of rushing into love when he was young. Now he lives a life of suffrage and greater

Ethan's wife, Zeena, displays another area of the poverty of Ethan's life. Her particular poverty is the lack of feeling. She is a cold, decrepit individual, who is convinced that she is sick, and refuses to be told otherwise. She is very uncaring and unpleasant. She constantly gripes at Ethan, and she can't stand her cousin, Mattie. on page 38, Zeena is trying to get rid of Mattie, by hinting that she should get married quickly. She wants to hire another girl.

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

Isolation can be the determining factor in changing one’s mindset. In Ethan Frome, Ethan faces many disappointments throughout the novel. In the novel, Ethan is an orphan since both parents have passed. His wife Zeena who is also his cousin has become the dominant one in the relationship taking over full control. While living in Starkfield, Zeena has suddenly become “sick” and is forced to bring in her cousin Mattie for help around the house. Zeena is depicted as a bitter prematurely old woman who is always “sick” while Mattie is the picture of health as well as the sweetest woman alive. When Mattie comes into the picture, she becomes the speck of happiness in which Ethan longs for but Zeena keeps taking away. This brings up a theme of failure throughout the novel.

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

This quote was found on page 13, in the introduction when Harmon Gow is explaining to the narrator who Ethan Frome is.

Pentheus foolishly suspects that the stranger is weak based solely on his effeminate appearance. The audience is quickly made aware of Pentheus’ ignorance in expecting the conventional, because they know that Dionysus is far from it. The king’s shallowness proves to be fatal when he is convinced to enter the domain of the Bacchae and is brutally killed by them, just as Dionysus had planned. Euripides and many of his contemporaries were masters of dramatic irony.

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”

Another ironic element of the sledding ride is the appearance of Zeena’s face, Ethan’s wife, during the scene. Ethan and Mattie are speeding down the hill towards the elm to what they believe will be their deaths. In one of the last instants before they reach the tree, Zeena’s face appears to Ethan. “But suddenly his wife’s face, with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between him and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside”. Ethan seems not to have thought about the effects his death would have on his wife, but this sudden image of his wife suggests that he feels guilty. It is ironic that he uses phrases such as “sullen self-absorption” and “evil energy” to describe his wife. Yet, she is the last person he imagines before he reaches the elm. This moment is one last time that he must brush her aside, as he attempts to break free from Zeena forever.

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,

When he was young his life stared to fall apart. He had to give up his life and become a full time caregiver. As Harmon says, “I guess it's always Ethan done the caring”(3). Ethan’s parents became ill and wasn’t able to care for themselves. His father became injured in an accident and his mother had a mental disability. Ethan took care of them for many years until they passed away. When his parents passed, he married Zenobia. Zenobia was there to continue with the things his mother did for him. Soon after their marriage Zenobia also became ill. Then had to take care of her too. After, all these incidents that happened, Ethan managed to stay strong through

This also ties back to the lesson of not judging a person before you get to know them. Even though Ethan was the one who “enhanced” the “laidback-non-stressing” side to Lena that you’ve never seen before, Lena also highlights different characteristics of Ethan. It seemed that ever since Lena moved in town, there’s a different side to Ethan that has never been there before. He stopped caring about what people thought of him, and he strived to be different than everyone else. Since Ethan always described their town, Gatlin, as a town where nothing exciting or new ever occured, when Lena came along he had a sense of boldness to to him.

It was making him despondent for years. However, for a short while, the author Edith Wharton, was giving me a sense of strength from Ethan. In the entire novel, this was the only time I noticed a strong reaction from him. When Zeena told him about getting another girl to help her at home “You know I haven’t got the money to pay for a girl, Zeena. You’ll have to send her back: I can’t do it.” But she shut him down right after. Zeena went on by telling him she was replacing Mattie, Ethan did not take it very well and wanted to react physically, there was definitely some strength being displayed here. “For a moment such a flame of hate rose in him that it ran down his arm and clenched his fist against her. He took a wild step forward and then stopped.” But throughout all this, Ethan was still a weak man. He was stuck between, leaving Zeena and living in the house with both women. He didn’t have the money to leave, but didn’t want to make it obvious he didn’t want Mattie to leave either. “You can’t put her out of the house like a thief—a poor girl without friends or money. She’s done her best for you and she’s got no place to

Ethan Frome is a novel written by Edith Wharton, it was published first in 1911. It recounts the story of a “couple” in an fictive isolated village, Starkfield in Massachusetts. With the arrival of Mattie, a cousin of Zeena, their lives changed radically. This extract is situated at the very beginning of the book; the author has just introduced the main character and the setting. In this extract, the author shows us the evolution of the feelings that have Ethan towards Mattie.