The Day Ethan Frome Lost Control of His Life
I believe Ethan Frome lost control of his life when his mother died. After
his mother's funeral, Ethan did not want to be left alone on the farm, so he
asked Zeena to stay with him. At first, Ethan enjoys her company. However,
Zeena soon becomes a nuisance to Ethan, and prevents him from becoming an
engineer in a large city. After being married a year, Zeena becomes sick
herself, and the only time she talks to Ethan is to complain or show her
discontent.
After Mattie comes to the farm, Ethan does not love Zeena at all. He
thinks the only pleasure she has left is to inflict pain on him. Since Zeena is
a burden on Ethan, he naturally wants to improve his life. The reason he does
not have control of his life is because he is married to Zeena, and he is not
brave enough to go away with Mattie. The reason he is married to Zeena is
because his mother died. Since Zeena is why Ethan does not have control of his
life, and Ethan married her because his mother died, the point in time when
Ethan lost control of his life is when his mother died.
I believe Ethan could have changed the direction of his life if he had
gone away from the farm to marry Mattie. The reason he did not have control of
his life was because he was married to Zeena. If he would have married Mattie
and left Zeena, he would not have been in the sled accident, and consequently,
he would have lived a much happier life with Mattie.
The second way Ethan could have changed the direction of his life is if he
The first way that Ethan displays his weakness in the book is shown through his marriage to Zeena. Ethan was an intelligent student and was enrolled in school when he had to give up his schooling because of his sick father that he needed to help. Along with his father, his mother also became sick soon after. Zeena came to live with him and help care for
When Ethan was (is) young, he wants to leave the town to go to college. However, Ethan had to stay in the town with his sick mother. In addition, Ethan met Zeena when she came to his house to nurse his mother. After his mom passed away, Ethan
In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the protagonist Ethan Frome has an unusual personality. Along with this, Ethan’s motivations seem hidden. Ethan mainly associates with his wife Zeena and his young lover Mattie. The reason his social circle is limited is because the town has shunned him. The people have isolated him due to the decisions he has made. The story begins with the new town Reverend who forms a special interest in Ethan. Furthermore, the story goes back in time to explain why the town treats Ethan the way they do.
From the beginning of the story, society opposed Ethan Frome in any ways. To begin with, he was a prisoner with his wife, Zeena. Just because Zeena took care of his mother as she was dying, Ethan felt like she was the woman for him. However, when Zeena’s cousin Mattie came to live with them, he instantly fell in love with her, and felt nothing but audacity towards his wife. When Zeena goes away due to her illness, Ethan and Mattie sit at home planning their future ahead of them. He plans to elope and run away with Mattie, but he cannot lie to his neighbors, Mr and Mrs. Hale in order to achieve the money he needs. In the end, Ethan decides to abandon life itself along with his true love Mattie. Ethan was a prisoner to poverty. When he was young, he wanted to leave his family farm in order to move to a larger town to become an engineer. However, that plan backfired and he was trapped in Starkfield for life. Society does not want Ethan to be happy for he committed adultery and treated his wife like she didn’t matter. The gravestones in his yard are a reminder t...
Ethan is the definition of a teenager and this characterization is known for making bad decisions so whenever he makes a decision in the book the reader can predict that something's going to go wrong like when he agrees to rob a bank or when he smashed his dad’s car in the first place.
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.
The main theme of the book Ethan Frome is failure. It is shown in three ways throughout the story: Ethan's marriage, him not being able to stand up to Zeena, and his involvement in the "smash up".
and Hannah also wanted to be his wife but at the end of the story they
made him into someone who felt he had no control upon his destiny, because it
...being so ugly. He cannot hide from the reality. He doesn’t realize what a catastrophe he has created and so he pays the price of death to William and Justine.
“No, he didn’t. For I’d ‘a’ been ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to get back my health, when I lost it nursing your own mother” (Wharton 46). This section of the book fixed my perception of Zeena. As I begun reading I thought Zeena was just simply an ill wife, with her hard-working husband. While Ethan battles his feelings for Mattie, I was angry. This is based on how I was raised, I was angry that Ethan liked another while his own wife struggled with her own health. I thought he could do more to help his wife. The quote shocked me, I didn’t think of Zeena like this. I thought of her as a sickly, caring wife. I was wrong and this section gave me a new version of what was happening. Soon instead of being angry at Ethan, I became
The crash left them both severely injured. The Fromes were poor before, but after, with Ethan only able to do a little work, they were poorer than ever. Never a social man, Ethan cut off the few relationships that he had maintained so his old friends would not see his poverty. The townspeople speak of Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena in the past tense, just like they refer to dead people. When Mrs. Ned Hale talks about Ethan and Mattie she said, "Yes, I knew them both.
...rson and he knows that she will take care of the little guy even if the Guy is not around. A distort desire to be free of the situation drive the whole family into tragedy and leave them grieves
She becomes suspicious, noticing every little detail that Ethan does. Panicking, she figures out a way to save both of their relationship, by faking her illness to the next level and firing Mattie in order to get another maid. When Zeena developed her ‘sickliness,’ she “fell silent” (Wharton 39), because Ethan “never listened” (Wharton 39). Up to the point until Mattie came to live with them, she started to say more than she has ever said. She started to break her silence slowly because of her jealousy. “She grumble[s] increasingly over the house-work” (Wharton 18) and remarks that he’s “always late, [because he] shave[s] every morning” (Wharton 19). Zeena also “found oblique ways of attracting attention to [Mattie’s] inefficiency” (Wharton 18). Zeena, at this point of time in the novel, notices the strong connection that Ethan and Mattie have developed for each other. After Zeena speculates those things and tells Ethan, her “thrusts frightened him” (Wharton 19). He had “assumed that [Zeena] would not notice any change[s] in his appearance” (Wharton 20). Ethan is blind to Zeena’s perception. He seems to think the things that he has done with Mattie does not betray or deceive Zeena. He is ignorant of what is going around him. Despite Zeena’s ‘thrusts’ he doesn’t think anything of it. He continues his secretive relationship with Mattie, while Zeena notices his changes
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