Ethan Frome Character Analysis Essay
Ethan Frome takes place in Starkfield, Massachusetts, in the late 1890s to the early 1900s. One of the three main characters Zenobia, better known as Zeena, is Ethan Frome’s wife. Zeena and Ethan came to be a couple when Ethan’s mother became sick and Zenobia came to assist her. After Ethan’s mother passed, Ethan felt lonely and did not want Zeena to leave. Ethan fell in love with Zeena and later married her, although she was seven years older than him. After a small time of being married to Ethan, Zeena became sick herself. Throughout the story Zeena went from being a nurse to a patient, only to return to her role as being a nurse for both Ethan and Mattie, the help. In Edith Wharton’s naturalist novel Ethan Frome, the main character, Zeena, is a jealous, hypochondriac who ends up becoming the most responsible character in the novel. …show more content…
After years of being sick, Zeena’s hypochondria gets in the way of their relationship and begins to speak negatively of everything every time a conversation takes place. Zeena’s negativity ultimately leads to Ethan shutting her out altogether and not speaking. Mattie Silver then comes into the picture after her parents die and the Fromes take her in to assist Zeena. Ethan begins to show attraction to Mattie after her sudden outburst of life, figuratively speaking, and positivity that has entered into his life. Mattie genuinely listens to Ethan’s thoughts per se, rather than invariably talking about herself and her problems. In chapter two, Ethan quotes “... It was during their night walks back to the farm that felt most intensely the sweetness of this communication…” Zeena’s streak of jealousy caused her verdict for Mattie to leave, without
Character Archetypes In Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome
848 Words | 4 PagesEthan cared for both of his parents right up until their deaths’, even postponing his education. Throughout his affair with Mattie he is constantly thinking of Zeena and how it would affect her. Even when Mattie and Ethan are about to sled into the tree, Ethan is thinking of his horse being hungry when he says “he’s wondering why he doesn’t get his supper…” (Wharton 71). His selflessness and the way he worries about others is his tragic flaw.
Morality In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton
772 Words | 4 PagesEthan longs to be with Mattie, but his fate will ultimately be decided by the ones who surround him. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is therefore based on the moral and societal obstacles that can interfere with one’s desires. First, Ethan is entirely aware that it is frowned upon by society to have feelings
Character Analysis: The Protagonist Ethan Frome
253 Words | 2 PagesThe Protagonist Ethan Frome is interesting and complicated both physically and emotionally. The character has to take care of his hypochondriac of a wife Zeena, who seems to have a dominant spirit. She controls Ethan mostly through guilt, whenever he tries to object or argue she coughs or pretends to get worse, but seems to feel better when she gets her way. She has almost complete control of him throughout the movie, till another character gives the recessive Ethan glint of hope. Mattie Silver, the cousin of Zeena, she is young and carefree.
Ethan Frome Sacrifice Analysis
503 Words | 3 PagesThroughout 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. Ethan Frome is introduced as a man who is battered and withering. Upon going into his backstory, we discover his true self. A man who is in a marriage with a woman he has little to no feelings for, Zeena. Mattie Silver is the new woman who he has his eyes on and for her he sacrifices everything but just saves enough to withhold his integrity and obligation.
Gender Roles In Ethan Frome
188 Words | 1 PagesIn the life of Ethan Frome, Ethan had two women that played a large role in the middle of his life Mattie Silver and Zeena. Both of which ended being up his significant other at one point. The changing of roles, to Ethan, by Mattie and Zeena has lead these characters to become parallels. The first example of them being parallels is at the point where they are Ethan’s helping hand around the house. Zeena being the first, developed a relationship with Ethan.
The Themes Of Love, Isolation And Silence In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton
354 Words | 2 PagesIn the book Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton the concepts of love, isolation and silence are explored. In the book the idea of love is explored throughout in the love triangle of Ethan, Mattie and Zeena. The idea of isolation is explored when the snows come to Starkfield and Ethan’s life spent their. Silence is explored in the story when Ethan can’t tell Mattie that he loves her, it is also explored when Ethan can’t tell Zeena that he want’s Mattie to stay.
Decision Making In Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome
887 Words | 4 PagesEthan’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
Personal Narration In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton
869 Words | 4 PagesEthan Frome is a novel written by the Pulitzer-winning author Edith Wharton in 1911, that is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. In the novel, a new minister of the town who pities Ethan’s life narrates the whole story of Ethan’s thwarted dreams tangled between desire and reality, true love and responsibility in an extended flashback. The wrong choice Ethan makes on Mattie and Zeena turns his life into a great tragedy and irony, as the scene the minister sees at the end of the movie at Ethan’s house – he has to take care of his wife and mistress at the same time. Due to the fact that Ethan is destined to live a miserable life and his poor ability of making the right decisions, Ethan’s dreams never came to fruition.
Garden Of Eden Analysis
1094 Words | 5 Pagesso Mattie needs to leave. The “Ray of light” is clearly how Ethan sees Mattie as but if she leaves then it will move the possibility of leaving town and starting a new life with each other will be extinguished as well. “So ’t we'll never come up any more (Chapter 9)” Mattie wants her and Ethan to be together forever going sledding and purposely crashing into the tree so that they can die together.
Ethan Frome Quotes
984 Words | 4 PagesMattie, Zeena and Ethan were all responsible for their own actions which resulted in them getting what they deserved. Ethan Frome was a young, 28 year old man, who lived in Starkfield, Massachusetts and was married to Zenobia Frome. Zeena helped care for Ethan’s mother when she was dying, which is how they got to know each other. After the death of his mother, Ethan began
Theme Of Confinement In Ethan Frome
361 Words | 2 PagesIn a final scene from Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton draws a timeline leading up to the main character, Ethan Frome, and his love interest, Mattie Silver deciding to take their lives rather than letting the rules implied by the society of Starkfield force them to part, their decision in turn contributing to the theme that confinement from pressure from society can drive citizens to their torment. Contributing to the novel as a whole, this scene also highlights Ethan’s built up misery by displaying his willingness to die in order to escape his unwanted marriage to his ailing wife, Zeena. To begin with, as a resident in Starkfield, a town whose residents, obviously unadjusted divorce, consider seven year of marriage as “not so long”, Ethan feels
Ethan Frome Character Analysis Essay
835 Words | 4 PagesEdith Wharton’s novel, Ethan Frome, is based through a realistic genre that displays a tragic romance between the main characters, Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver. Forced to subdue to their circumstances, Ethan and Mattie live in a paralyzed situation in which “they are passionate or imaginative spirits, hungry for emotional and intellectual experience”, but, “find themselves locked into a small closed system” and “suffer a living death”, accordingly to the views of Edmund Wilson. Wilson’s perspective is accurately exemplified as Ethan depresses his desires to fulfill his longings in order to adhere to his circumstance, and through Mattie bowing to her duties to replace her youthful and vivacious spirit. Ethan Frome goes under several situations
Ethan Frome Literary Analysis
738 Words | 3 PagesBoth Zeena and Ethan have varying responses, however both showing some commitment to repair their union. In Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton utilizes a broken pickle dish, to represent the views of espousement, and the representation of their varied human actions. Ethan and Zeena Frome’s marriage represents a union based on obligation rather that love. Throughout the story, Ethan is a weak and submissive husband under the control of a domineering wife.
Zeena In Wharton's Ethan Frome
731 Words | 3 PagesShe never comes out directly and says she dislikes Mattie. Zeena will say something that may seem innocent but there is underlying meaning. She would try to get a feeling for what’s happening. During the course of Ethan Frome’s life, his wife, Zeena, plotted to intimidate and fire the house girl Mattie. Zeena may not be the most educated, but she is in no way stupid.
Ethan Frome: A Personal Tragedy
550 Words | 3 PagesEthan’s bad choices of leaving school, feeling lonely and marrying Zeena and then also being avoidant when he wants to leave her. Obviously, Ethan Frome’s tragedy is all caused by his personal decisions. 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.
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