“Is fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?” (Jodi Picoult). Ethan Frome, written by Edith Wharton in 1911, embodies this quote. In Ethan Frome, all three main characters, Ethan, Mattie and Zeena have made decisions that will affect the rest of their lives. Ethan and Mattie had an inappropriate relationship behind Ethans significant other, Zeena 's, back which caused each of them to be emotionally distraught. Mattie, 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 …show more content…
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
Ethan fears that Zeena can read his thoughts. The extent of Zeena's authority is such that Ethan and Mattie are both uneasy when reminded of her. Mattie can not even sit comfortably in Zeena's rocking chair while Zeena is in Bettsbridge. An example of this is “Zeena’s empty rocking chair stood facing him. Mattie rose obediently, and seated herself in it.
Wharton uses a lot of symbolism in the story “Ethan Frome”. Such as the red ribbon and red scarf. The color red represents vitality, good health, and ruddiness, all of which Mattie has a great quantity of. Zeena, on the other hand, lacks all of these qualities, considering her “condition”. This makes Mattie very attractive to Ethan, like a breath of fresh air, like a new beginning.
However Ethan’s greatest act of love is to take care of Mattie after the accident, but also his wife in the same house for years after the accident. He willingly accepts this horrid circumstance as his love is so great and he feels
The description of how Mattie made him feel when he touched her. Ethan want happiness so bad that he was willing to end his own life to be with Mattie, but when Him and Mattie decided to end their life, A picture of Zeena flashed through his mind. “But suddenly his wife's face, with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between him and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside. The sled swerved in response, but he righted it again, kept it straight, and drove down on the black projecting mass. There was a last instant when the air shot past him like millions of fiery wires; and then the elm…”, He thought about the commitment he made with Zeena.
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”
Melissa Palacios English 3A Feb. 21 2017 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.
Alongside the other actions, Zeena made numerous poor decisions leading to the tragic outcome of the story. Some of the major poor decisions were the root of everything else I have listed here making this the biggest and most important topic to be discussed. One of the examples I noticed would be the decision of firstly marrying Ethan, while being aware of the feelings he has had for her cousin, Mattie. Following that was another poor decision which was allowing Mattie to come work and stay in their home while still acknowledging the lingering feelings Ethan had for Mattie.
Zenobia Frome, wife of the titular character of Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, is not a pleasant woman. In a passionless marriage, Zeena attempts to maintain control over her husband even when not present, while Ethan explores a budding relationship between himself and their hired girl, Zeena's cousin, Mattie Silver. Wharton explores the consequences of an unhealthy relationship lacking in love and passion though the symbolism of the Fromes’ cat and the red glass pickle dish. “The cat, unbidden, jumped up between them into Zeena’s empty chair” (34). Although not directly a result of Zeena’s distrustful demeanor, the cat acts on her behalf while she is away seeing a doctor in the next town over.
After hearing the story of Ethan Frome, Ethan is actually a very strong person. He is emotionally strong. Throughout the story, Zeena always got on Ethan for even the smallest things but she does not know how aggressive she is coming off. Zeena always boss Ethan around and make him do everything. Then she takes most of his money then use it to go see a doctor that will supposedly help her.
Both 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.
Ethan and Mattie ultimately were committing a suicidal act, which bumped the interest level of the story up, and made the story fictive because it's the total opposite of what happened in the real
Ethan chooses his duty to Zeena over his dream with mattie he would receive when proposed with the option of moving to the West, he decides against it because of what he owes to Zeena. He doesn 't knows if she would not be able to support herself and that clouded future is why he doesn 't agreed to leave. Again, Ethan chooses between duty to Zeena and seeking his personal dream when he and Mattie were going to take their lives so they would not have to live without each other. Throughout his time with Zeena, he was forced to choose between duty to his family and his dreams. He could have left and continued his dream of being an engineer but instead he married her do to a sense of payment for what she had done for his mother.
(Wharton, 27) but with Zeena that was not the case. Mattie’s youth gave Ethan a reminder of what he could have had in his own youth, she reminded him of his dreams and that he had missed his opportunity to escape Starkfield. All of this was in Ethan’s mind. Although Mattie did not have a hand in placing these thoughts in his head, her presence made him realize what he could have had, and in return it gave him more of a reason to blame Zeena for his
The nature of the Frome’s marriage was made transparent when Ethan fell in love with another woman. When the novel begins, Frome demonstrates his cowardice when confesses that he
Ethan’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.