ethan frome motif essay

Elaine and Robert, Mattie's two unmarried children, along with other family and friends, are encouraging her to be what they expect a seventy-eight year old woman to be. They talk about how she needs to get rest because she is slowing down and can't keep going as steady as she seems to think. When she decided to try and help a young juvenile, Wesley Benfield, become a better person by taking him to church and offering him to stay the night with her, Robert thought that Mattie was sick.

In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, setting is an important element. The setting greatly influences the characters, transportation, and activities.

After her and Ethan Frome’s wreck though, she becomes what Zeena was and experiences what she went through. She becomes that resentful and despaired person, that the younger version of Mattie is majorly differentiated from. At the end, irony is displayed because Zeena seems to regain some of her health and beauty while Mattie lost all of hers.

Soon after being deserted on the road, grandfather comes down with a summer grippe and becomes helpless. Mattie then needs to take care of them both by finding food and water. This shows responsibility because she not only had to take care of herself, but of her grandfather too with no help from anyone, and no one to tell her what to do.

Symbolism can give additional meaning to a variety of texts. From music to movies to novels, symbolism creates an even deeper meaning than found in a surface reading. The symbolism found within Ethan Frome adds to the inherent meaning of the text to give it an even deeper meaning. Edith Wharton uses the pickle dish, the Oak tree, and the cat as symbols to achieve deeper meaning. The pickle dish is of great significance in the novel. It is used to represent Zeena's virginity.

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

Anderson teaches many lessons in her novel but among the most important is taught by showing the many steps Mattie took to reach full independence. She began as a bratty teenager with her head in the clouds, and ended as an independent woman with dreams and aspirations. She discovers her identity and while her situation is out of the ordinary, she proves that aging and revealing your true personality can make the difference between life and death. In the beginning of the novel, Mattie feels that she should be praised whenever she does something for someone else. For example, in the beginning of the book on page 3 it says, “I made a face at the doorway. I had just saved her precious quilt from disaster, but would she appreciate it? Of course not.” This demonstrates that Mattie wants perpetual praise from others, an expectation that children often possess. Mattie is also too young to understand the responsibilities that come with adulthood. This is evident in the novel when Mattie is dreaming of a future with no responsibility. Mattie

In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the minor character Mattie Silver serves as a foil towards the main character Ethan Frome. Throughout the novel, Ethan is a man who faces many challenges in his path causing what little happiness he has to vanish therefore illuminating the work as a whole. One may realize the faults of Ethan’s ways through theme, symbolism and irony.

As previously stated imagery concerning Mattie is very warm and summer-like. Mattie's face seems to Ethan like "a window that has caught the sunset". Her effect on Ethan was likened to " spring rills in a thaw". Mattie's mood changes were, to Ethan "the flit of a bird in the branches.". When Ethan puts his arm around Mattie when they are walking home it seemed that they "were floating on a summer stream." When Mattie tells Ethan that she would never want to leave his house, "The iron heavens seemed to melt and rain down sweetness."

Ethan marries Zeena and falls in love with Mattie as a direct response to his neediness for care and company. As well, Ethan also finds it a necessity to be accepted by Starkfield, which compels him to live with Zeena and finally stops him from escaping with Mattie. Ethan’s desire for love and acceptance could have been the outcome of a neglected childhood. He had been caring for his parents from a young age, as Harmon Gow tells the narrator, “Sickness and trouble: that’s what Ethan’s had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping”(6). Ethan spent most of his life caring for others and possibly lacked love from his own sick parents, which may be the reason for his neediness for society to be both proud of him and others to give him the care, which he had to give up from an early age, taking care of his parents. As many studies show, the young need love and affection in order to help with their self-esteem and it is a vital aspect of one’s mental health. Seeing the outcome of Ethan, a lack of care for the young, may cause detrimental effects on ones life as he or she grows

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.

Before dying, Mattie’s mom made Mattie promise to stay with her family and the farm, making her do endless work, leaving no time for writing. Her older brother leaves soon after getting into an intense argument with Pa. She wants to go to New York for college, and write a lot more after receiving news that she has a scholarship at Bernard College. But she can’t afford the train ticket and she can’t leave her younger sisters alone at the farm. So she stays and helps, still looking for money to get there, asking her wealthy Aunt Josie to give her money to get to New York, which Aunt Josie flatly denies.

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

Isolation is used as a means of developing relationships between the characters, whether friendly or hostile. An obvious relationship that is formed is the one between Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver. Mattie was brought in by Zenobia, or Zeena, Frome as an assistant around their house. Ethan, being isolated from most other people that would bring him happiness, quickly begins to fall in love with Mattie. This is made clear early on, stating, "The girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear; he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imported left long reverbations and echoes he could wake at will" (Wharton 32). Due to the fact that Ethan had no one else but Zenobia in his life, Mattie was the only person keeping

This event, referred to as a “smash-up”(2) by natives of Starkfield, is revealed to be a pact between Ethan and Mattie to commit suicide by sledding into an old elm tree. Ethan finally knew Mattie's “avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too”(52). She confirms finally that she felt the same for Ethan as he had for her, and persuades Ethan to commit suicide with her so that they would “never have to leave each other any more”(52). This grand gesture shows the true devotion they felt for each other, and in agreeing with her, demonstrates Frome’s fatal flaw: he loves Mattie over reason or even life itself.