Relationships cannot thrive in an atmosphere of mistrust and isolation. A relationship must contain at least one or the other to thrive, trust is one of the most vital aspects of a relationship. In a healthy relationship, there would be no isolation, because both people would be content in each other’s company enough so that there is no isolation of one or the other. Although mistrust and isolation is present in many relationships today, that doesn’t mean that they thrive, a solid foundation of trust is or should be established before anything else, nowadays more than in previous years. For relationships to thrive, isolation shouldn’t be present. In Ethan Frome, there is a very unhealthy relationship in which there is a lot of unbalance, “when …show more content…
In Ethan Frome, it is present between Ethan and his wife Zeena; Zeena attempts to get rid of the housekeeper Mattie because she sees what Ethan wants/ sees in her. There is large amounts of mistrust in the Frome household due to much isolation, sickness, and also unequal work load also “when the sense of a partnership is lacking-when your partner is oblivious to or inconsiderate of your needs, this weakens the ties that hold you together” (text 2, lines 26-27). In The Scarlett Letter, Hester Prynne has deep seated mistrust due to the ‘brand’ on the chest, the ‘A’. Hester is full of mistrust because the one she committed adultery with, was also the one that helped with her sentence. Another factor is that her old husband was healing Dimmsdale, her ‘illegitimate’ lover. Hester and her daughter Pearl lived with mistrust, the townspeople were disgusted by her, and would never trust her even after her sentence was lifted. Relationships can stand on the grounds of mistrust and isolation, but they may never thrive on it due to the fact of trust and companionship being the key factors in a relationship. This was shown throughout both The Scarlett Letter and Ethan Frome in a variety of ways, including the lack of true companionship in both novels and also the complete lack of trust held by some characters in both