In many cases, the villain of a story is the malevolent character that actively complicates the life of the protagonist. But in some cases, the villain ruins the life of the protagonist in the background by sucking the protagonist dry of hope. Zenobia Pierce Frome from Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, is the passive villain. She ruins Ethan's life and shows her evil side by neglecting Ethan, complicating his life, and taking away everything Ethan holds dear.
Zeena's first weapon against Ethan is neglect. Ethan needs human interaction to function properly. But Zeena, being the villain she is, deliberately deprives Ethan of it. Wharton symbolizes Zeena's neglect with the pickle dish that was never used. When the cat shatters this pickle dish, Mattie cries, "[Zeena] never meant it should be seem not even when there was company; and [Mattie] had to get up on the stepladder to reach it down from the top shelf..." (63). Zeena has placed the red pickle dish, which represents love, passion, and marriage, where it is not easily accessible. Symbolically, Zeena stores away her love and marriage in the drawer, effectively freezing her marriage. Also, the cat, which represents Zeena, breaks the pickle dish. This implies that Zeena destroys all possible love and affection when they surface from oppression. Mattie also states that the pickle dish is never meant to be used, which means that Zeena's intention is to to neglect Ethan's thirst for love as long as she desires. Zeena also decides to neglect Ethan's desire for friends. Zeena knows that Ethan is able to carry himself because he has Mattie by his side. Zeena, being the villain she is, decides to neglect Ethan's desire for friend and expel Mattie. During her heated discussion with E...
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...arkfield. Ethan is able to endure because Mattie is by his side to support him. By taking Mattie away, Zeena is trying to cut the thread that connects Ethan to sanity and reason. When Zeena tries to take Mattie away from him, Ethan breaks down. He decides to take his own life than see Mattie go.
Zenobia Pierce Frome from Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, is a villain that sucks her victim dry. She destroys Ethan's hopes and dreams while simultaneously taking away his worldly goods. She reduces Ethan from a man with bright future into a ruin of a man that endures life that is worse than death. Zeena reaffirms that she is a villain by neglecting her husband, complicating his life, and taking away everything from him. Wharton, through Zeena, teaches that the villain does not always take the active role. She also teachers the readers to choose their wives carefully.
Many people oppose society due to the surroundings that they face and the obstacles that they encounter. Set in the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is the story of a poor, lonely man, his wife Zeena, and her cousin Mattie Silver. Ethan the protagonist in this novel, faces many challenges and fights to be with the one he really loves. Frome was trapped from the beginning ever since Mattie Silver came to live with him and his wife. He soon came to fall in love with her, and out of love with his own wife. He was basically trapped in the instances of his life, society’s affect on the relationship, love, poverty, illness, disability, and life.
Ethan Frome marries Zenobia (Zeena) after the death of his mother in "an unsuccessful attempt to escape the silence, isolation and loneliness of life" (Lawson, 71). But, after time, he finds his life again becoming silent, as it was with his mother. Their lack of communication is continually making the marriage more misera...
Has a Story ever made a reader want to hurt the character responsible for trouble that’s being caused? Of course; usually the antagonist is often the nuisance. Richard Connell creates these instigative characters with pleasure and diversity. In his story “The Most Dangerous Game”, He Creates General Zaroff so that he is easy to hold a grudge against. Likewise Edgar Allan Poe Creates a character that is easy to hate. In his short story “The Cask of Amontillado”, Poe creates a mastermind killer. Connells antagonist, General Zaroff, and Poe’s antagonist, Montresor, give the reader an invitation to hate them. These two characters are similar yet different in their evil persona, wealth, and challenge.
This quote is explaining the feeling of Ethan when Mattie Silver comes into his home. Ethan was gloomy and pretty much sick of his wife and when Mattie comes to his house she brings hope and a whole new outlook on life to Ethan. Ethan feels that she is warm person and a polar opposite compared to Zeena. Her coming transforms Ethan?s cold and depressing existence.
Ethan's death allows his parents to re-evaluate their lives. Macon realizes that he has no coped with the death of his son and he has turned to isolation for ...
Ethan marries Zeena so he won't be alone after his mother dies. She seemed like a very cheerful, vivacious person while his mother was sick. After their marriage all this changed. She became a very nagging, sick wife. Because of Zeena's "complications" they had to hire someone to help around the house. Mattie, Zeena's cousin, needed a place to live and seemed fit for the job. She moved in and Ethan took and immediate liking to her. He found someone that cared for him, was always happy, and could share his youth. All of which, Zeena was incapable of doing. Ethan longed to be with Mattie, but he was loyal to Zeena. Being married to Zeena was Ethan's first failure.
In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, Zeena makes the mistake of taking Mattie in instead of hiring a girl from the start. This one issue, sparks the feelings between Mattie and Ethan, causes the smash up and ruins Ethan’s chances of living a life outside Starkfield. Due to Zeena’s choices, Mattie and Ethan are left with the constant reminder of their attempted suicide attempt.
The antagonist is “The Misfit”. He is never identified by his real name. He is an escaped convict who is curious, unsure, and believes he is not a bad person. By his actions, the reader can assume that he does not enjoy killing the family, but feels more obligated to do so.
In both Ann Petry’s “Like a Winding Sheet” and Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby” the protagonist is also the antagonist. In the story, Like a Winding Sheet its Mae’s husband, Johnson, and in the story Desiree’s Baby it’s Desiree’s husband, Armand. In the beginning of both stories their husband seem to be loving, caring husbands who would never hurt their family. Then, the stories turn in a twist when the husband became insolent and angry toward their wives, but they were feeling furious towards themselves. Johnson was repeatedly getting abused from the outside world and in his mind and he starts to espouse a dismissive image that turned to anger against his wife and eventually he kills her. Armand was angry at his wife because his son turned out
In Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton evaluates the utilization of a setting as an essential component of the story. He weaves the physical parts of the climate and scene so firmly among the characters' internal sentiments that the two turn out to be relatively tradable. It is each individual's point of view on life that decides how they handle each given circumstance. Ethan Frome, the prominent actor in the novel, name Ethan Frome, has fallen trap too many bizarre situations. Ethan’s better half is consistently wiped out, and the main type of satisfaction he has is from his significant other's cousin Mattie. This happens to be hard a result of Ethan's adulterous behaviour. Nothing is by all accounts going to support Ethan but he is never certain what precisely his heading ought to be and settles on unfulfilled choices that eventually make him hopeless as he sees it. The unmistakable quality of the distressing winter climate in Ethan Frome shows Wharton's
Ethan’s depressing outlook soon transfers to Zenobia making her blend with the unwanted coldness that was a Starkfield winter. She quickly became something Frome wanted to escape but couldn’t just as the frigidness of his setting.
There are many literary works that contain villains who play an essential role in the development of the work as a whole. However, I believe that the ultimate villain of this kind is Iago in Shakespeare’s play, Othello. Through manipulation and scheming, he beguiles the other characters of the novel.
In the book “Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton, Ethan, the main character in the book, experiences many episodes of isolation persuading him to escape from and cope with them with outlets of hope, only leading to a life of permanent isolation. The story depicts a classic ironic switch of roles and a triangle of unusual “love.” With many people coming and going, Ethan looks to rely on someone to relieve his isolation and communicate with, only setting him up for trouble.
The antagonist in the story is Abner Snobes. Abner Snobes is a very angry and inconsiderate man who has hate and detestation for almost anybody who is not “blood-kin”, and he portrays that hatred and contempt throughout the story (qtd. In Volpe 163).
Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon is main antagonist in The House of Seven Gables. An antagonist is character or characters that oppose protagonist who usually creates the problem. He was known by the major population as a man of noble character. However his relatives, Clifford, Hepizbah, and Phoebe Pncheon know him as a brutal, selfish, and greedy man. His “exceedingly pleasant countenance” (pg.86, Hawthorne) does not fool them instead they were filled with fear. They knew that their Uncle Judge...