Isolation in Ethan Frome
Ethan Frome is a story of ill-fated love, set during the winter in the rural New England town of Starkfield. Ethan is a farmer who is married to a sickly woman named Zeena. The two live in trapped, unspoken resentment on Ethan's isolated and failing farm. Ethan has been caring for his wife for six years now. Due to Zeena's numerous complications they employ her cousin to help in the house, the animated Mattie Silver. With Mattie's youthful presence in the house, Ethan is awoken of the bitterness of his youth's lost opportunities, and a dissatisfaction with his life and empty marriage. Ethan and Mattie in turn, fall in love. However, they never follow their love due to Ethan's morals and the respect he has for his marriage to Zeena. Ethan eagerly awaits the nights when he is able to walk Mattie home from the town dances. He cherishes the ground she walks on.
After a visit to the doctor, Zeena is told that she needs more sufficient hired help. Thus, she decides to send her incompetent cousin away and hire a new one. Ethan and Mattie are desperate to stay together. However, Ethan's lack of financial means and Zeena's health are factors that will never allow him to leave Starkfield. Unable to find any solutions to this problem, Ethan and Mattie decide to commit suicide by sledding into a tree. They figure it is the only way they can be together. The attempt fails, and the two are left paralyzed. Now Ethan's wife must care for the two for the rest of their lives.
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."
In their own ways, Zeena and Mattie are solitary figures, too.
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".
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.
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.
Everyone, at some time in life, will experience fear. But, often fantasies are created in one's mind to escape that fear. Ethan Frome uses his fantasy as an escape to the entrapment of his marriage and the fear of public condemnation.
Passion: Nora’s passion is to be a real human and not be unreal towards herself, her family, or her husband. She wants to be accepted and human like the rest of the world, and she tries to figure a way to make this possible. “When (Nora) lived with Papa, he used to tell me everything, so that I never had any opinions but his. And if I did have any of my own, I kept them quiet, because he wouldn’t have like them.” Since childhood Nora has not been able to express her own feelings. She has bottled everything up inside, and she has a passion to open up and show her true self.
Albeit not hands on, the exhibit is very interactive. There are some videos included, with one being the beginning synopsis of what is to come.
The denotative definition as per Definition of Intersectionality: On the Intersecting Nature of Privileges and Oppression is “ Intersectionality refers to the simultaneous experience of categorical and hierarchical classifications including but not limited to race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality. It also refers to the fact that what are often perceived as disparate forms of oppression, like racism, classism, sexism, and xenophobia, are actually mutually dependent and intersecting in nature, and together they compose a unified system of oppression.” The term was coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in a 1989 paper titled “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination
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.
After Macbeth discovers the plan of murdering King Duncan he says, “he hath honoured me of late; and I have brought golden opinions from all sorts of people’.
In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House, a drama written in the midst of an 1879, middle-class, suburban Europe, he boldly depicts a female protagonist. In a culture with concern for fulfilling, or more so portraying a socially acceptable image, Nora faces the restraints of being a doll in her own house and a little helpless bird. She has been said to be the most complex character of drama, and rightfully so, the pressure of strict Victorian values is the spark that ignites the play's central conflicts. Controversy is soon to arise when any social-norm is challenged, which Nora will eventually do. She evolves throughout the play, from submissive housewife to liberated woman. It seems as though what took women in America almost a century to accomplish, Nora does in a three-day drama. Ibsen challenges the stereotypical roles of men and women in a societally-pleasing marriage. He leads his readers through the journey of a woman with emerging strength and self-respect. Nora plays the typical housewife, but reveals many more dimensions that a typical woman would never portray in such a setting.
8. Nora's secret crime confessed to Christine Linde, a childhood friend, had been to save her deathly ill husband's life by borrowing money. She borrowed the money from Krogstad, without getting her husband's permission. As Nora and Christine palaver about their lives, Nora explains the financial hardships they had. "...Torvald left his office . . . There was no prospect of promotion . . . during the first year he overworked himself dreadfully . . . but he could not stand it, and fell dreadfully ill, and the doctors said it was necessary for him to go south." Since he was in danger of dying, Nora's explanation was that the doctors urged them to live in the South for a year; yet they thought Helmer should not know how ill he really was.
Torvald explained to Nora that keeping Krogstad on at the bank would appear to others that he is easily swayed by his wife. Torvald has also complained about Krogstad’s use of his first name at the bank. Of course, Torvald’s true feelings about his appearance come out explicitly during his fit of rage in the end. Torvald is excessively consumed with how others view him and has no moral objections to having his wife perform sultry dances in front of other men.
Not only does this movie deal with the issues of society, but it points to biblical scriptures that help lead us in the right direction. The biggest lesson that this film taught me was that if I put my complete faith in God, then no matter what happens, he will provide, watch over, and take care of me. I learned that expressing belief in God is not enough. I have to live everyday believing and trusting him and I have to show my trust and faith through my actions and my words.
Both are willing to sacrifice themselves for values dear to their lives. This act of aiding significant loved ones gives us a better understanding of Nora. It gives us an image of who the character Nora really is.
In "A Doll's House", Ibsen portrays the bleak picture of a role held by women of all economic classes that is sacrificial. The female characters in the play back-up Nora's assertion that even though men are unable to sacrifice their integrity, "hundreds of thousands of woman have." Mrs. Linde found it necessary to abandon Krogstad, her true but poor love, and marry a richer man in order to support her mother and two brothers. The nanny has to abandon her children to support herself by working for Nora. Though Nora is economically advantaged, in comparison to the other female characters, she leads a hard life because society dictates that Torvald be the marriages dominant member. Torvald condescends Nora and inadvertently forces Nora to hide the loan from him. Nora knows that Torvald could never accept the idea that his wife, or any other woman, could aid in saving his life.