Ethan Frome Essay

cheating with better than the person that he is cheating on. In Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, Ethan falls in love with Mattie, and Zeena notices it. Zeena expresses the way that she feels about Ethan being with Mattie and that she knows what is going on between them through her dialogue, actions, and what she observes. It is easy to see that Zeena knows that Ethan is trying to replace Zeena with Mattie. Zeena started to figure out how Ethan was starting to replace her when he began spending more time

From the famous words of Péter Zilahy,“You have to make choices even when there is nothing to choose from.” The title character in Ethan Frome desperately tries to choose fleeing with his long-lost love, Mattie, versus staying at home fulfilling his sacred oath to his wife, Zeena, even though he knows he cannot run away from destiny. He experiences a desire to escape his marriage in order to maintain true love, but instead of obtaining the life he wishes he beings to suffer as he learns that when

In the novel Ethan Frome, the narrator (a young engineer) moves to a small town in New England named Starkfield in order to work on a project during the winter. He begins to become curious of a crippled man in his fifties named Ethan Frome after seeing him at a post office. After hearing about a sort of short summary of Frome’s life from his landlady, Mrs. Ned Hale and a resident of the town named Harmon Gow, the narrator soon becomes very interested in learning more about Frome and ends taking the

setting in Ethan Frome to help bring out characterization and theme by the isolated life of Ethan Frome and the village in New England as well as the winter landscape surrounded by trees. Ethan Frome is located in Starkfield, Massachusetts, a place where not too many people live. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator walks into Starkfield’s post office. The narrator said that if you knew Starkfield than you knew the post office. Ironically, the first time the narrator saw Ethan Frome, was at

seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade; and you must have asked who he was.”(1) The novel Ethan Frome takes place during the winter during late 1800’s to early 1900’s in Starkfield Massachusetts. The setting is significant because it brings the narrator to Ethan's house so he can tell the narrator his life story and Ethan feels like he was not allowed to leave starkfield in the story. In Ethan Frome

man and his wife. In Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, the protagonist’s apathetic marriage could be described as such. Ordinarily, marriage is a happy union, but nevertheless, Ethan and Zenobia had a sad story. That, along with the social structure of the time, brought about the painful consequences of adultery and the alienation of Zenobia, Ethan, and Mattie Silver, which cultivated into a life of bitter loneliness. The egocentric nature of Zenobia forced Ethan to care for her as a dependent rather

Fulfillment of desire is human nature, an aspect of a person that is universal. Throughout the story of ‘Ethan Frome’ by Edith Wharton, the self-titled protagonist struggles to fulfill his own desires, battling social norms as well as his own morality. Even when the whole situation has been set out to work perfectly for Frome, he cannot bring himself to cheat on his wife, an aspect that is admiring, but ultimately self-crippling. His indecisiveness is not only an aspect that drives the whole story

larger part of the novel than it is. However, the setting of Starkfield in Ethan Frome is different in that the depiction of Starkfield is integral to one’s understanding of the underlying motives and feelings of the characters in the novel. The “accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters” (Wharton 5) tangibly affects the personalities and actions of Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie, mostly negatively. The character of Ethan Frome is first introduced to us via an unnamed narrator, who is an engineer temporarily

Ethan Frome was too passive. Ethan Frome never took control of his life. He’d make decisions, but he never committed to them. Ethan wanted to have a romantic evening with Mattie, run away from Zeena with Mattie, and even commit suicide, but he could never commit. Although he had some strong moments in the story, when it came to important decisions, he’d always fail to commit. It was finally happening. Zeena was going away for the night and he’s finally having his time alone with Mattie. Ethan had

driving force in the novel and is clearly shown through the actions of the main character Ethan Frome. For most of his life, he has put the needs of others before his own. Harmon Gow says, “Oh, as to that: I guess it’s always Ethan done the caring” (Wharton 6). When his mother fell ill, Ethan stopped his studies in college and immediately came home to take care of his sick mother. It was not necessary for Ethan to throw away the education he worked so hard for, but he felt that it was his duty to