Conflicts In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton

Throughout the romantic struggle, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome sacrifices himself to be happy with Mattie Silver but in the process he paves his path towards infinite limbo.

When realizing that they can't pretend they don't have feelings for each other any longer they know the have to escape Zeena. After ruling out divorce and leaving to go west with Mattie, they ultimately decide that they will only truly be free of Zeena in death. "The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison wardens hand-cuffing a conflict. There was no way out -none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished." (69) However, their suicide attempt failed to leave Ethan crippled and disfigured and Mattie paralyzed. Mattie's injuries prevented her from going anywhere making her just as bad as Zeena. Like Zeena, she never left the house and was constantly needing help. She lost everything that made her who she was. She went from a lively young woman who was waiting for an adventure, to a crippled woman who was dependent on others to take care of her. The attempt that should have set him free of Zeena, transforms Mattie into a mirror image of the very thing he tried to escape. Ethan Frome's life becomes one long continuation of Ironic events that he can't escape from

Ethan would quietly lament this loss for as long as he lives. Not fully being able to express his true nature, a man with a refined mind who can’t show the world how he feels, and what he’s is passionate about. This can also be shown when the narrator states “His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even in his unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and powerful persuasion”(Wharton 11). Second is Ethan hastily marring Zeena when she came to take care of his mother when she became sick, throughout the book you can easily pick up on the disconnect between the two. Although it is reasonable why he did so. Ethan’s reason to marry Zeena took place in the form of loneliness and desperation, Zeena was preparing to leave during starkfield’s longest winters, leaving Ethan alone with the recent passing of his father and mother. All of these feelings were only intensified by the overpowering cold, therefore Ethan felt like it was necessary to marriage Zeena since

Ethan marries Zeena after Zeena comes to care for Ethan's sick mother. Ethan's mother eventually dies and just before Zeena leaves "he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm" so to avoid facing loneliness he unconsciously asks her to marry him(35). Similarly Whartons expected marriage, Ethan merely married Zeena because "he felt obligated to her" and he was "not aware of the implications of having her was a wife"(66 Farwell). Whartons unromantic and incompatible marriage is seen in Ethan because he quickly realizes he is "not in love with her, he does not find her beautiful and mostly he does not find her interesting"(66). In addition to the similar incompatibility seen in Whartons marriage, Ethan's wife also begins to fall ill just as Teddy Wharton had. Zeena "becomes obsessed with her various aches and pains" neglecting Ethan and "falling silent"(64 Farwell). Ethan becomes miserable and starts to become hostile towards Zeena, while Zeena becomes "a hundred times more bitter and discontented than when he had married her"(64). Ethan begins to see "the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth failure, and hardships and vain" in Zeena(58). Based on the striking similarities it is often seen that "Frome is Wharton trapped in a loveless

The tragic novella of Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton focuses on adultery in rural New England. Stressing the importance of relationships, the narrator tells the story of Ethan Frome, a man searching for love. Despite being married to his cousin Zeena, he only views this civil union as a moral obligation. Then, he ventures into an adulterous relationship with Mattie Silver, and begins to understand what love is really about. The author often focuses on a red pickle dish, a treasured wedding gift, which unexpectedly shatters. In the story, Ethan Frome, by, Edith Wharton, Ethan and Zeena Frome’s broken pickle dish is a symbol of their dysfunctional relationship, of the unusual setting under which it is destroyed, and the ideas of matrimony.

The novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is about a tragic hero, Ethan who is not in love with his wife, but another person named Mattie. An important symbol in this novel is a pickle dish. This dish symbolizes Ethan’s relationship with his wife. The pickle dish first appears in chapter 4 of the novel. As Ethan and Mattie are eating, the cat interferes by causing the dish to fall. The plate breaks into multiple pieces. The dish mainly represents the broken relationship of Ethan and his wife, Zeena, after Mattie arrives. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton uses a pickle dish to symbolize Ethan and Zeena’s relationship in the past, and future.

In his essay about self-reliance, Emerson writes, “Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.” (Pg. 5) In this quotation, Emerson clarifies a misconception that he believes is generally accepted among people. He explains that a person’s contradicting her/his previous decision is not a negative action. It is actually healthy for a person to have enough confidence to change her/his mind. This quality of a self-reliant individual is exemplified by Ethan in the novel Ethan Frome. As Ethan leaves his mother’s funeral, Wharton writes, “...when he saw her [Zeena] preparing to go away, 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. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter…” (Pg. 29) In this quotation, Wharton highlights the fact that Ethan is unhappy with his original decision to marry Zeena. When Ethan asks Zeena to marry him, his desire for her is out of loneliness due to his mother’s death. Later on in the novel, however, Ethan realizes that he does not love Zeena and that he wants to begin a relationship with Mattie. Ethan has the choice to discard his true feelings, stay married to Zeena, and forget about Mattie. Despite this opportunity to avoid divorce and hardships, Ethan agrees to commit suicide together with Mattie in order for them to live happily in their afterlife together. Ethan is confident and knows what he wants out of his relationships, which helps him complete the second component of self-reliance according

He could have left caring for his mother/Zeena to someone else, and lived his own life. He would never be lonesome if he lived in a big city, and he could have possibly been wealthier. The story introduces this idea by having one of the introductory characters say, “Most of the smart ones get away.” (Prologue) This ties in with the idea of Ethan’s conformity being his downfall. If Ethan didn’t “stay and care for the folks” (Prologue), he could have made the future much better for himself. Ethan definitely would have been happier in Florida being an engineer than in this village being a farmer. "When a man's been setting round like a hulk for twenty years or more, seeing things that want doing, it eats inter him, and he loses his grit.” (Prologue) Ethan’s forgotten dream was probably his only way out of this

He abruptly chose not to go back to school after his father died, which was one of his biggest mistakes. He stayed in Starkfield even though he had the opportunity to go back to school and study his main interest, science. Because of this, he spent most of his days cooped up in his house. “But one phrase stuck in my memory…Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters.”(Wharton 3). Because of his loneliness, he asked Zeena to marry him without thinking it through. He had no feelings for her and desperately hoped it would make him feel better. While being married to Zeena, his unhappiness peaked and caused him to fall in love with another girl who was the Fromes’ maid, Mattie Silver. Romance was in the air and most definitely not between Zeena and Ethan. Ethan flirted with Mattie and would try his hardest to impress her, for example, he began shaving his face everyday which he never used to do for Zeena. These inappropriate actions caused chaos within the household. Ethan began to lust over Mattie, wanting to spend as much

One of many ignorant choices Ethan makes is when his mother gets ill, somewhere in the beginning of the story. During this time, Ethan dropped out of college. It’s

One of the first risks Ethan failed to take was instigating physical contact with Mattie. Stranded on the back porch, Ethan contemplates taking action, but is unsure what to say or do, only later reflecting on “why had he not kissed her” while they had momentary solitude (Wharton 37). Unsure of her feelings towards him, the precarious action of bestowing her with a kiss would have offered insight to whether or not she reciprocated his emotions. From previous events it is shown that Mattie very well may not harbor emotions towards Ethan as she has been shown to make flirtatious advances towards Denis Eady, which Ethan is “largely oblivious to”

The novel Ethan Frome introduces many different themes throughout the plot. Probably the most apparent of these is the concept of whether Ethan Frome is able to exercise his own free will or if his life is already determined for him ahead of time. Due to the various situations that Ethan encounters during the course of the novel such as him not being able to obtain his engineering degree, his unpleasant marriage to Zeena, and ultimately his attempt to escape everything with Mattie, all pertain to the fact that although Ethan was able to make some choices, the overall path of his life seems to be predetermined for him already.

Another reason why Zeena suddenly began caring for Mattie and Ethan is that she wanted

In the novel, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the main character, Ethan Frome, is to blame for the misery of the characters at the end of the novel due to his guilt. When Ethan is starting to write a letter to Zeena about how he is going to leave her and move West, he stops and thinks. Ethan says (directed towards Zeena), “‘I’m going to try my luck West, and you can sell the farm and mill, and keep the money’”(115). He ends up not finishing the letter to her because his guilt takes over and causes him to not follow through with his plan to move West. Ethan feels that he should not just leave Zeena in Starkfield with nothing. Ethan thinks his actions through and realizes the guilt he would have if he left Zeena in Starkfield with the farm, in

Throughout the duration of the novella, Zeena is certain that she is the bearer of a worsening sickness. However, Ethan is skeptical of this, and as a result questions the prognosis the expensive doctors provide her with. The novella indicates this disagreement when it states, “Turning her head at this, she answered solemnly: ‘I'm a great deal sicker than you think’”(Wharton 68). As indicated by the quote, Zeena believes that she is plagued with a kidney disease, a main constraint endured by the characters. To further explain, it not only provides Zeena with confinement to her home, but it also means that Ethan must work to take care of the farm and the house, restricting him from having time for himself. In addition, Zeena’s sickness is not only an oppressive force acting upon her, but it results in her being oppressive or cruel to Mattie, who had already struggled through many acts of misfortune within her young life. To further explain, before Mattie had gone to stay with the Frome family, she experienced many losses and an inability to survive on her own. The novella provides the reader with the following information, “His wife died of the disclosure, and Mattie, at twenty, was left alone to make her way on the fifty dollars obtained from the sale of her piano. For this purpose her equipment, though varied, was inadequate” (Wharton 37). This indicates that after losing both her father and her stepmother, Mattie had only a small amount of money from selling her piano, and limited skills to earn her the pay she required to be independent. Thus, she was forced to stay with the only relatives that would take her in, Ethan and Zeena. These following characteristics of Mattie could be described as dictorical because as seen again, her oppressive economic troubles obligated her to live within the oppressive town and