Ethan wouldn’t label himself as a morning person. It was more the exact opposite. If you were lucky, it’d take a stampede of elephants and hippos together trudging up and down a single road to merely cause him to stir. As soon as he has closed his eyes and he has begun to snore he shall stay that way until his automatic body clock and need to be punctual wakes him seconds before his alarm has a chance.
Once he is awake however, it’s like someone has injected caffeine straight through his veins and he’s more than willing to climb any mountain. His happy demeanour and tendency to bounce a lot has put him into people’s bad books. They’d stay as far away from him until at least 10am.
Opposite to most people, he’s happy in the mornings. But with the combination of late nights and not enough caffeine; his happiness disappears towards the middle of the day. It's his body that wakes him promptly at half seven every morning, not an alarm. And, no one, even at the weekends can cause an exception.
Even so, this morning was a little tiny bit different. Of course, he’s awake at half seven on the dot. Even though it’s a Saturday. However, this time his arms are pressed tightly around something and
He’s surrounded by a smell he's become so familiar to in the previous months.
He has woken up to that smell before, but if he had woken up with his arms in the same position, he would have a predicament on his hands. The scent then was from the bedding, or floor surrounding him and that wasn't quite the same. Of course those times were accidental, nodding off during a tedious movie with a small group of friends, and passing out on his apartment floor after one too many drinks.
This was twenty times better than any of those situations. This was th...
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... already fulfilled it, and was enjoying every few seconds of it. Even if the rest of the creatures knew little to nothing of his sexuality or relationship with Ethan, he could still take comfort in the fact Ethan loved him. That’s all that mattered to him.
"Maybe two hours... Sorry I didn’t wake you; I’m not good at the whole romantic morning thing. And you aren’t the most pleasant company in the mornings. You’re much better calmly sleeping in my arms. You’re like an angel."
"You realise that was romantic?” Sam smiled against Ethan's shoulder, realising he could get used to this. He enjoyed Ethan's morning hair and waking up to those warm eyes too much to not want it there every morning.
And it would be every morning.
“I do.” He murmurs before kissing his lips ever so lightly and holding him gently against him. “I think we could stay in bed another hour or two.”
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
He could not get away from Zeena, nor run away with the girl he felt drawn to. There was no way Ethan could afford to get away even if he tried. Ethan could not afford to pay for himself to leave town, nor could he provide for the woman he desired. He also imagines life as if he were suddenly resolved from all the issues going on in his life. All the issues that went on, Ethan brought upon himself due to the way he managed his life.
“All I need is a little time,” he says, his brown eyes wet and earnest as a cocker spaniel’s. “Kind of a vacation from marriage. A year or two to find myself.”
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.
...controllable circumstances brought him back home, it was he who chose to stay and risk losing all hope for the life he had dreamed for. Ethan's decision to be with Zeena did nothing but make his already dreadful life worse. When Mattie finally arrives, it's almost like a small burden has been lifted from Ethan's shoulders and he is almost allowed to live again. Lacking the ability to make decisions, Ethan worsens his life by letting things just slide by; and by not standing up to Zeena, the outcome leaves Ethan more desperate and lonelier than he was before.
...rned my head toward his,tucked my long brown hair behind my ear, took my face with both of his hands and told me that everything would be okay. Ben pulled my face to his a gently kissed my forehead and then pulled my head to his chest, which was warm, and strong.
Ethan's second failure was not standing up to Zeena. She claimed the doctor said that she was extremely sick and needed more help around the house. She told him without any discussion that Mattie had to go. Ethan could not find the words to make her alter her decision. Zeena also decided that Mattie had to leave the next day. It was stated in the book that Zeena had the upper hand in the house by the line "Now she [Zeena] had mastered him [Ethan] and he obeyed her." Ethan could not find the right things to say, and it was because of his failure of not being able to stand up to his wife that he was going to lose the only thing that made him happy.
Ethan shows the weakness of character when he surrenders to his loneliness. Although Ethan returning home to care for his father who was hurt on the farm, and then proceeding to put off education to care for his mom when she became ill, might have been seen as a strength. As soon as someone left his side he couldn’t bear to be alone. When Zeena was about to leave Ethan he felt a sense of loneliness that he couldn’t handle.
“God I’m up,” said Dominik Zakrzewski, 20 of Queens, N.Y. “Sometimes I dreaded lifting my legs out of bed.” He used to prolong getting up and thought of things he could do to stay in solitude.
“I’m sorry I am late, I overslept” or “I can’t make morning appointments, I have a hard time waking up in the morning.” These are the infamous excuses and reasoning’s I have abused time after time for my repetitive failure to accept the help my alarm clock offers every morning. For the longest time, I have shared a deep passion with sleeping in. However, this passionate habit of mine has cost me a lot of losses from losing responsibilities that were entrusted to me as well as losing valuable time each day. Having accustomed myself to this comfortable habit, I have neglected the fact that I am being given twenty-four glorious hours each day to accommodate my responsibilities as a human being. With each day wasted, I tend to live a more stress filled lifestyle because after I wake up each afternoon, I anxiously spend the remaining hours of my day trying to make up for lost time. After being fed up with my delayed lifestyle, I had no one to blame but myself. To help me battle my habitual sleeping in, I turned to the help of Laura Vanderkam’s book, What The Most Successful People Do before Breakfast.
would place two metal ball in his hands, lay back in his chair and fall asleep.
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 to stay in Starkfield and not pursue 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).
There were many themes found in Ethan Frome, but the greatest of them all is loneliness and isolation. In college Ethan acquired the nickname "Old Stiff" because he rarely went out with the boys. Once he returned to the farm to care for his parents, he couldn't go out with them even if he wanted to. Whatever he's done has kept him apart from others: tending to the farm and mill, nursing his sick mother and caring for Zeena. Ethan's isolation is intensified, because he is often tongue-tied. He would like to make contact with others but can't. For example, when he wants to impress Mattie with beautiful words of love, he mutters, "Come along."
Most people are cranky in the morning, and there is no exception for students. The fact that over half of these students have such a difficult time socialising in the morning is proof of how big of an issue the start time of school is in the education system. Not only are students more stressed, but they also experience other mood swings due to the lack of sleep that school start times create during the school week. National Public Radio aired a talk with Michelle Trudeau where she spoke on the problems of sleep in the education system. She makes it a point to discuss how having to wake up so early has a direct link to traces of depression in students in most areas of their lifestyle all across the nation ("High Schools Starting Later to Help Sleepy Teens"). This negative demeanour was not only seen by teachers in classrooms at school, but also by the parents of the student. Parents experience this moodiness at home not only after school but on the weekend as a majority of the Saturday and Sunday is spent sleeping in to make up for the student’s lack of sleep. Even more interesting is the affect a lack of sleep has on high school students after they
My morning always begins around seven o'clock when I am awakened by a sweet, gentle, little voice calling . . . "DADDY, I GO F'RIDE!" This is followed by a dainty smack of tiny lips on my cheek, then another smack of Mom's lips on my lips. A few minutes later, the front door slams shut and I slip back into a slumber. The next thing I hear (a few hours later) is the bloodcurdling, screaming caw of a pterodactyl about to swoop down and pluck me right out of my bed. Actually, it's only my alarm clock. I don't dare hit the snooze button, as I do not even want to hear that again.