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Literary essay on ethan frome
Literary elements in ethan frome
Tragedy in literature
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An emotion is a distinctive feeling deriving from a relationship with other individuals. Emotions are very powerful and can either hinder or strengthen an individual. Emotions can be a tragic flaw. In the novel Ethan Frome written by Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome is a tragic hero that has a tragic fall which leads to his demise. His demise is when he has thoughts of running away from his present life. Ethan Frome's haramita is that he is a very concernful person.
The tragic fall that Ethan Frome has is that he is a very concernful person. An example that of this flaw is when "'Somebody had to stay and care for the folks... Fust his father-then his mother-then his wife'" (Wharton 3). This quote demonstrates Ethan's flaw because he gives up
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Meanwhile, how could she keep the farm going? It was only by incessant labour and personal supervision that Ethan drew a meager living from his land, and his wife, even if she were in better health than she imagined, could never carry such a burden alone" (Wharton 73). This evidence demonstrates Ethan's quality of his kind and loving nature towards others. The reason is when he wants to leave Zeena, he thinks about her future and how she will suffer to support herself. He cannot bear Zeena's pain, so he puts her future and their marriage before his dreams. His dream is to "leave with Mattie the next day" (Wharton 72). Another example when Ethan is a very concernful person is when "she would have suffered a complete loss of identity" (Wharton 38). This quote demonstrates Ethan's concern for Zeena because Ethan's dream is to move to the metropolitan area, but Zeena's sickliness will make her look inferior to the city. Ethan's concern for Zeena's image prevents him to "sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town. Ethan's love of nature did not take …show more content…
His demise is when he has thoughts of running away from his present life. "Frome was in the habit of walking into Starkfield to fetch home his wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on the rare evenings in which some chance of amusement drew her to the village" (Wharton 16). His tragic flaw is shown in this quote because he picks Mattie up after parties due to the fact that he is concern that a dangerous person might harm her. These pickups lead to his demise because every time he picks her up, they grow closer. Another event that leads to his demise is when "'I'll try to get a place in a store 'You know you can't do it. The bad air and the standing all day nearly killed you before'' (Wharton 85). This piece of evidence demonstrates Ethan's flaw because when Mattie suggests the kind of job she will have in the future, he is concern of her well-being and working conditions of that job. As Ethan starts to have romantic feelings towards Mattie, he is getting closer to his demise. When they start talking about Mattie's future, Ethan starts to have thoughts of running away from his present life. "'if I could ha' gone with you now I ha' done it'" (Wharton 86). This is Ethan's demise because once he has thoughts of leaving with Mattie his future actions are determined by this demise. His future actions eventually leads to unforeseen consequences that haunt him for the rest of his life. Ethan Frome's tragic flaw is that he is a very concernful
He deals with her complaining, overpowering and demanding personality, and she acts like she is always ‘sick.’ However, he didn’t ignore his feelings for Mattie and he wasn’t strong enough to run away and escape. When he was planning to run away with Mattie, he had to go get money from Mr. Andrew so they could run away but on his way there he met Mrs. Andrew. She told Ethan, “I always tell Mr. Hale I don’t know what she’d ‘a’ [Zeena] done if she hadn’t ‘a’ had you to look after her… You’ve had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome” (Wharton 104). After Mrs. Andrew tells this to Ethan, he doesn’t go ask for Mr. Andrew to pay him and instead goes home. He feels ashamed for for making Mr. Andrew get the money he needs because last time Ethan asked for the money, Mr. Andrew couldn’t get it. He also feels guilty for hurting his friends and he doesn’t want to leave Zeena with nothing when he runs away with Mattie. This displays again, how Ethan is a weak
Ethan has dreams of leaving Starkfield and selling his plantation, however he views caring for his wife as a duty and main priority. One day, Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver, comes to assist the Frome’s with their daily tasks. Immediately, Mattie’s attractive and youthful energy resuscitates Ethan’s outlook on life. She brings a light to Starkfield and instantaneously steals Ethan’s heart; although, Ethan’s quiet demeanor and lack of expression causes his affection to be surreptitious. As Zeena’s health worsens, she becomes fearful and wishes to seek advice from a doctor in a town called Bettsbridge, giving Ethan and Mattie privacy for one night.
Ethan Frome, a novella written by Edith Wharton, communicates a story of Ethan and his life living with his ill wife, Zeena, when a new lover comes into his home. Ethan and Zeena live in a place called Starkfield, a cold and lonely location situated in the New England area. Mattie comes into Ethan’s life to help her cousin, Zeena, around the house as her sickness has obstructed her ability to do housework. This causes problems for Ethan because he starts to fall in love with Mattie as she stays with the Fromes. The isolation of Starkfield prevents Ethan from living his life the way he wanted to. That causes Ethan to abandon his dreams of college and moving away from Starkfield. Ethan becomes hindered by the isolation of Starkfield because of
The book says, “His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of attracting attention to the girl 's inefficiency(Wharton, chpt 1).” This means Zeena knew about the love affair. Because Ethan and Zeena did not honestly love each other, the affair did not bother Zeena. Eventually, though, Zeena wants to force Mattie to go back home. Ethan and Mattie are extremely devastated by this. Ethan is not in love with either girl, but cannot leave either one. What happened next was a sleigh riding accident. Ethan purposely drove a sled into a tree hoping to kill Mattie and himself. By doing this he could escape all his responsibilities. He would not be abandoning anyone technically. The immaturity in Ethan 's personality is shown through this event. The accident caused Ethan and Zeena to be obligated to care for Mattie for the rest of their lives. Because the accident was intentional Ethan should be held accountable for it. He was supposed to be a mature adult who made the right decisions. He failed at this. Ethan should have been put in jail for this mishap. Moreover, Mattie did die that day because her liveliness
Ethan Frome is the main character of Edith Wharton’s tragic novel. Ethan lives the bitterness of his youth’s lost opportunities, and dissatisfaction with his joyless life and empty marriage. Throughout the story Ethan is trapped by social limits and obligations to his wife. He lives an unhappy life with many responsibilities and little freedom. Ethan Frome studied science in college for a year and probably would have succeeded as an engineer or physicist had he not been summoned home to run the family farm and mill. Ethan quickly ended his schooling and went to run the family farm and mill because he feels it is his responsibility. He marries Zeena after the death of his mother, in an unsuccessful attempt to escape silence, isolation, and loneliness. Ethan also feels the responsibility to marry Zeena as a way to compensate her for giving up part of her life to nurse his mother. After marring Zeena he forgets his hope of every continuing his education and he is now forced to remain married to someone he does not truly love.
...ss for yourself because in the end, one will regret it. Ethan’s morals prevent him from leaving Starkfield to pursue and achieve his dreams. He cannot baffle the traditions of his town. After Zeena tries to "foist on him the cost of a servant", forcing Ethan to let go of Mattie, he chooses to “leave with Mattie”. However, he cannot go through with the plan because he cannot bear to leave Zeena alone with her sickness. He knows she would not be able to take care of herself and cannot afford her own medicine. It is inappropriate to leave his wife in this bad condition. Therefore Ethan chooses to live an unhappy life instead of deceive his family and friends. Wharton portrays that by following society’s standards they will lose their hope and end up living in misery. Ethan chose to embark the obstacles and in the end it ruined him to a life of unhappiness and failure.
The narrator, upon meeting Ethan Frome for the first time, thought "he seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface." He "had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, but had in it…the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters" (Wharton, 9).
Though too intelligent for rural life, Ethan finds himself stuck in an average man's shoes. Leaving any opportunity he had to become someone in life, Ethan moves back to Starkfield to take care of his ailing mother and attend to their farm(Wharton 29). Rather than living a lonesome life after his mother passes away, Ethan asks Zeena to stay with him, which turns out to be his first mistake (Wharton, 29). As soon as his mother passed away, Ethan should have asked Zeena to leave and sold his farm. His love for learning and keenness for engineering could have led Ethan to a much better life. Unfortunately, he feels obligated to stay with Zeena, thus ending all hope for a better life.
Mrs. Hale tells the narrator that if Mattie had dies, Ethan may have lived, but as things are, his existence is a kind of a living death. In addition, in chapter two, he had asked his dead ancestors, at their graves, to help him keep Mattie with him. We find that his natural ally is death and life is his enemy. Mrs. Hale believes that Mattie? surviving the accident is literally a fate that is worse than death, since the dead hold their peace, whereas Mattie and Zeena are often mad at each ther, adding to Ethan?s suffering and unhappiness.
Ethan's last failure was the way he modified his and Mattie's lives regarding the "smash up". He wanted to run away with Mattie, but he could not because his practical sense told him it was not feasible to do so. Mattie wanted so desperately to be with Ethan that she suggested in order to stay together forever, to die together. It was Ethan's job to steer into the tree with the sled so that it looked like an accidental death.
Frustration is evident throughout the entire book because of many different situations. Ethan’s frustration could sometimes be centralized to the occurrence of both his parents needing to be taken care of. Because of this, he could not do what he had longed to do his whole life which was “live in towns, where there were lectures and big libraries and ‘fellows doing things’” (“Ethan”). Even though Ethan could have easily given the daunting task of having to do all the farm work to his elderly parents, he decided to help the ones that helped him through his life. Ethan had a reputation for being a good guy throughout the town but what the town did not know was what Ethan truly desired. Zenobia Frome, also known as Zeena, is Ethan’s wife who has a case of hypochondria. “Ethan’s marriage to Zeena is a study in frustration, not only because of her hypochondria and the fact that they are childless, but because their interests are so different” (“Ethan”). ...
Due to Mattie's injuries, and Ethan's inabilities to leave Starkfield, he remains at his home in an uncomfortable relationship with Mattie and Zeena. Even though he still had Mattie at his side, he was not living the life he wanted in the "west" with Mattie. There was no real "difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard." Ethan gave up his life to stay at the farm with the woman he loves, and the woman he does not, resulting in him being subconsciously tied to Starkfield. Ethan's "father's accident" and his mother's falling "ill" results in Ethan's sacrifice of his career "to be an engineer" and makes him stay in Starkfield to marry Zeena. Even with opportunities that come along to change Ethan's continuous cycle of his life, he still ends up sacrificing everything to fulfill his duty and obligation to his wife
Ethan is not happy with his life and feels that it is his obligation to stay on the farm and work like his parents had “readers discover a man who feels overwhelmed by family responsibilities and who cannot free himself from what he believes to be family expectations.” (Witkosky). This obligation, and what Ethan believes to be his family expectations, ultimately helped lead to his decision in staying in Starkfield and not pursuing a happier life with Mattie elsewhere. Ethan also feels that even though all of his family members had died a long time ago, he still senses their presence, and he feels pressured to continue the family custom “Ethan senses their presence; in his eyes, the headstones on their graves, located near his farm, are like sentinels who guard and enforce family custom.” (Witkosky). Lastly the location of the Frome household in rural Massachusetts did not help the fact of Ethan’s isolation and his inability to socialize with others. Wharton symbolizes this loneliness and isolation by giving the town of Starkfield a cold and frozen setting, which is symbolic towards Ethan’s inability to move forward in his life “, the lack of social mobility in rural Massachusetts plays a role in Ethan's acceptance of the idea that he has no chance for advancement.” (Witkosky). Ethan’s ability to not being able to move forward
...decisive. He and his wife might have moved out to the city, where Ethan could have pursued his engineering career. And, when Mattie Silver came to live with them, Ethan Frome, content with his lot in life, would not have fallen into the love that caused his hardships. Ethan caused his own misfortune by not even attempting to make a change in his unsatisfactory life. As one of the ladies in town, Mrs. Hale, says: “I don’t see’s there’s much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard” (157). Ethan exists lifelessly. His unwillingness to change, lack of self-responsibility, sense of obligation, and lack of inner strength and courage all add up to his irresponsibility in creating his own misfortune, which sends him to his living grave.
He is physically isolated from the world and is also cut off from the possibility of any relationship. Due to his new situation, he looks for an outlet in order to relieve himself from this isolation. Luckily enough for him, Mattie comes around in order to help Zeena out due to her illness. Wharton writes, “...the coming to his house of a bit hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire under a cold heart” (Wharton 33). As Smith recognizes in this comparison, he says that “His (Ethan) life of isolation changes, however, when Mattie Silver comes to stay with him and his wife” (Smith 96). Smith correctly analyzes Ethan’s situation, labeling Mattie as this outlet of hope that he can turn to in order to cope with his isolation. Wharton herself shows that Ethan truly did view Mattie as his outlet for hope, mainly due to his love for her, which Mattie shares equally for him. This love sprouts from many things including attractiveness, conversation, understanding, and listening, many of which he lacks for his whole life and where most of his isolation roots itself. Wharton writes, “She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will” (Wharton 28). This is a fancy way of saying that they Mattie not only listened to Ethan, but also