Essay on Poverty in Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome

The irony occurs in the story as Mattie ends up reminding Ethan of his wife, Zeena. Rather than being the lovely Mattie like she was before the sledding accident, Mattie now complains about her conditions. She is always bossy and condescending towards Ethan. In the beginning of the story, the author symbolizes Zeena like the cold winter, and she portrays Mattie like the warm spring sunshine (40). However, this symbolism turns out to be misleading. Frome begins to see some foreshowing of Mattie becoming like his wife when she is first alone with Ethan in the kitchen ( 53). Finally, as the story concludes, Mattie has now become the whining and complaining one (115). The irony of the story is that the two women turn out to be different after the smash-up. The idiom that says the grass is always greener on the other side turns out not to be true for Ethan. Zeena now behaves like the one who is the most caring and loving. She does away with all of her complaining to care for the two invalids. Mattie, on the other hand, has become like Zeena once was. Mattie has become the one who is like the cold harsh

Ethan doesn’t fantasize of anything immoral, all he hopes for is to come home for an evening companionship before the

Ethan Frome was characterized as an isolated and poor lived character. He was very society based. In his younger years, he was a follower, he lived his life based on what everyone else was doing. After he graduated, he thought the correct thing to do was fall in love and get married, however, he found out the hard way that that is not how life should be and he realized that many years later after he suffered.

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

Poverty, the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor (Webster Dictionary). Poverty is a constant issue for not only the America, but all over the world. This theme runs the course of the books narrative, and is clearly shown in the

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

Ethan Frome is portrayed as a tragic hero to a contemporary audience. By definition, a tragic hero is one who makes a decision that later affects he or she greatly in a critical way. In the novel, Ethan decides to marry just for the very reason to get rid of being alone. In comparison, the winters of Starkfield already make him feel lonesome and unworthy. As mentioned in the beginning of the novel, "Guess he 's been in Starkfield too many winters." (Frome 23). In the end however, Ethan 's decision was inevitable. He is just like any other individual who could not bare the fact of being alone. In agreement to the loneliness, Ethan faced throughout the novel, The Sacramento State University states, “This person is fated by the Gods or by some supernatural force to doom 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.

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

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.

Everyone in the world wants to be happy in life, but most of the time that doesn’t really happen. Many people usually face hardship in their life for them to become happy in the long run. Henry David Thoreau once said, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them,” which mean some people keep their struggles quiet. Men fake their life until they reach a grave and realized they did nothing in life. This relates to Ethan because when the argument happened between him and Zeena he than expresses his frustration towards her. In the book, Ethan Frome Ethan lives a tragedy life. Ethan has a lot of complex problems like Ethan marrying Zeena and him not able to stand up for his wife. After Ethan and Zeena get married, Zeena becomes an annoying, selfish and sick wife to Ethan.

Ethan Frome Essay In Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie made quick decisions that lead them to live their lives full of sorrow. Each of their bad decisions resulted in the three of them living in the Frome graveyard before they even died. Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie deserve the outcome of their decisions because they could have prevented their futures from misfortune. . Ethan’s, Zeena’s, and Mattie’s selfish nature led to rash decisions resulting in each of them living a long life of despair.

Zeena is Ethan’s cousin who originally came to nurse his sick mother. Ultimately, the two get married after his mother’s death, and Zeena blames her questionable illness on Ethan’s mother, claiming “For I’d `a` been ashamed to tell [Dr. Buck] that you grudged me the money to get back my health, when I lost it nursing your own mother!” (97). While Ethan is evidently unhappy in his marriage and has been hurt by Zeena, this does not excuse the rest of his behavior. He is unfaithful to his wife, not only with her family and caregiver, but with a young and naive girl whom he takes advantage

In Edith Wharton’s novel, Ethan Frome, one major critical theory revolves around the psychological criticism. The novel revolves around this critical theory because Wharton wanted the reader to observe how the setting becomes dependent on the emotional state of the character and vice versa. Throughout the novel, Wharton makes changes to the environment to represent Ethan’s fondness for certain characters. On the contrary, Wharton displays how the setting directly influences Ethan’s mental state. As the reader perceives this influence that each character has on Ethan Frome, they can develop an understanding of the relationships established in the novel. This critical theory will be expressed throughout the literary analysis paper, specifically in the Novel Summary section and Literary Criticism sections. The following text will analyze the drastic changes in the environment and compare it to Ethan’s mental state.

Poverty: The state of being extremely poor. The state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.