Contradicting Opinions In Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome

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Influenced by the opinions held about the peers around, an individual can make a choice that can lead either him or her on a productive or destructive path. Ethan Frome, a poor farmer living in Starkfield, Massachusetts, is not an exception to this reality. In the novel, Ethan Frome written by Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome’s opinions about his sickly wife Zenobia “Zeena” Frome, his new love Mattie “Matt” Silver, and his close acquaintance Andrew Hale leads Ethan to a destructive direction. These mixed and contradicting opinions lead Ethan Frome where he has obtained what he desired but also where he still has what he desperately wanted to leave.
Ethan Frome has continuously viewed his wife, Zenobia “Zeena” Frome, as a sickly negative individual. …show more content…

To Mattie he could “show her things and tell her things” where she would listen and respond while Zeena would never (16). In Ethan’s opinion, Mattie was everything Zeena had not been; Mattie was young, gentle, and lively. As he fell in love with the young woman, he also fell into confusion and guilt. He felt confused for harboring feelings for Mattie, who may or may not reciprocate his feelings, and he felt guilt for falling in love with another while married to Zeena. This feeling of guilt is easily over come when Zeena decides to hire a girl to aid her and send Mattie away. After the argument between Ethan and Zeena, Ethan goes down to his makeshift study and contemplates the thought of eloping with Mattie and head west. However, after realizing the plan was futile because “he was a poor man . . . who his desertion would leave him alone and destitute” Ethan gives up on the idea (78). His fear of Mattie, who was his only hope in the dreary town of Starkfield, leaving cause him to agree to committing suicide. His fear of losing Mattie allowed himself to be persuaded by the young woman to ride the sled into an elm tree down the steep hill. Into the elm, so the two could die with each other instead of living without each other. Ethan’s love blinded opinion about Mattie led him down a direction where he would kill himself with her, just to be together and leave Zeena behind. It made him desperately want to take the easy way out and not face the consequences of his

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