Ethan Frome Essay

Ethan Frome had nonhing alone infirmity and trouble. His vivifi disgorgeion revolves around winning care of one invalid by and by an otherwise, from his father, his mother to his hypochondriac married cleaning woman and finally ending up as a spoil and very image of ruin of a public. He failed to achieve any of his ambitions to leave town and become an prepare and did not succeed all the same in his desire to run onward with Mattie Silver. Aside from exiguity, the rigid moral character of Ethan prevents him from going against the complaisant conventions in favor of his soulfulnessal ambitions and fulfillment.Set in New England, in the sylvan town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, this literary piece was written by Edith Wharton in 1922. The shadowy milieu of beingly endless winter aptly sets the tone of the written report and the fate of Ethan Frome. A cashier who was forced to stay in Starkfield because of a workers strike was instantly fascinated by Fromes appearanc e that looks quite an old for a gentlemans gentleman of fifty-two and disfigured since an accident cardinal years ago when he first saw him outside of the federal agency office.He went on to find out more about him as he had the fable, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story (1). The story of Ethan Frome is a portrayal of a passive and unhappy man who is weighed work through by his duty to his married woman and his bitter existence as a poor farmer. Ethan had been in Starksfield since his youth when his father died and he had to come household to sign on care of his hurt mother and their farm. Prior to this event, he was taking a technological course in Worcester but the lack of money prevented him from realizing his dream to become an engineer.He decided to marry Zenobia Pierce or Zeena, his cousin who came to help him care for his mother, after the burial as he was afraid to spend the winter alone. Tho ugh Zeena was lively and cheerful at first, she later on fell silent and sickly. He woulf often moot that had his mother died in the springtime he would not have purpose of offering uniting to Zeena. Her illnesses became her obsession as she would go on a monthly trip to Bettsbridge to see her doctor. For rural towns like Starkfield, people with unsoundness or complications are common topic for conversations and are singled out for a great fate.Zeenas illness became her weapon that she uses to take manipulate of the household and of Ethan. Mattie Silver actually came to the Fromes to do the household chores in replace for the food and shelter as she was besides destitute after the end of her parents. Since she was not used to doing housekeeping, Ethan would help her out in doing her chores just so she would not incur the wrath of Zeena. Ethan last fell in rage with lively and cheerful Mattie who gave Ethan respite from the isolation and loveless match with a sickly and whi ning woman.The illicit relationship how of all time advances to no more than dimension of hands as both Mattie and Ethan are too afraid to give the forces of social and marital duties. The time came though that Zeena decided to send Mattie out because of a broken red pickle dish that is tokenic in the story of the marriage of Ethan and Zeena. The idea of living apart from each other was un guideable for Mattie and Ethan that upon the wind of the former, they went on to take a sleigh turn on that would crash them into the big elm tree.The attempted suicide failed exit Ethan disfigured and Mattie a paralyzed woman. The irony of the story is that in the end Zeena seem to overcome her illness and became the caregiver of the now invalid, whining Mattie and the lame Ethan. The entire life of Ethan Frome had been a series of dreams destroyed because of the mint of him being poor and his estimation to social duty. His opportunity to leave town and finish education to eventually bec ome an engineer was hindered when his father died and he has a farm and an ailing mother to take care of.Their farm as he tell was side-tracked when the railroads where put up and no more people came to town. He blames this as the cause as to why his mothers condition deteriorated. It could overly mean the lost opportunities for the town and also to him as the place got leftfield behind in the course of development. Ethan was one of the people stuck in Starkfield, a place where just about of the smart ones pull out out(14) as Harmon Gow, the detail driver in the story, aptly puts it. The bleakness that surrounds Starkfield, for one thing, is not an environment that would nurture youth and create a field for dreams to come true.The storyteller in the story noted that although he initially felt stir by the clear blue skies and shocking white of snow, this was soon followed by long periods of cold and darkness that he begun to understand the deadness of the familiarity (15). I n an environment that was neither nurturing nor bountiful, Ethan is further subdued into the tangled meshing of harshness and scarcity. The Fromes practically had to eke living from what little they could get from their farm for their survival. The community between the land and the people is symbolic in the story.The environment do life for the townspeople difficult such as when Ethan and other man had to struggle in the sleet just to be able to run logs. Starkfield is isolation in itself, with the places beyond it seen as a place to get away so as to seek a different result or freedom from the drab and coldness of the place. The limitations of the environment coupled with poverty further intensified the lost potentials of Ethan Frome. There was the poignant scene where the narrator accidentally left his biochemistry script in the sleigh and later on sees it in Fromes hand.Ethan was both fascinated and humbled by the book as he exclaimed, There are things in that book that I didnt know the first word about (18). It shows that Ethans rarity and intellect had very few outlets in that kind of environment. For a fifty-two year old man who found excitement in a book, it is painful to think of what he could have been had he got the chance to search his potentials. The conflict between personal passion and social convention is another theme portrayed in the story. The character of Zeena and Mattie were so different that the reviewer would readily understand the choice of Ethan between them.Mattie symbolizes beauty and energy in her ways, in the colors that she uses from the ribbons in her hair to the dish that she illicitly uses whereas Zeena possesses the baneful and sickly qualities in life. The sexual and emotional frustration in the marriage of Zeena and Ethan is symbolized by the unused pickle dish. Though shown as Zeenas most prized possession, it remains at the topmost of the china closet left and unused. The double-dyed(a) relationship that they h ave is further portrayed with them not having children and hardly ever sharing a conversation.Ethan fell in love with Mattie and had come to hate Zeena but his strong sense of marital duty prevents him from deciding to be with Mattie. He acts with uncertainty and frustration under the looming shadow of his obligation to Zeena that it created a conflict in him. Ethan is also hesitant to leave his sickly wife for he believes that if he went away it would leave Zeena alone and penniless. Even in the moment when Zeena went away, her presence was greatly felt in imagined visions and in the symbol of the cat.Conventionally, the partnership upholds marriage as a sacred bond and is, in fact, at the apex of the set social grazes. A man and woman are joined in marriage it is protected by the norms of the society to keep the union intact. The critical eyes of the society is so that it could even permeate walls of intimate moments like the evening that Ethan and Mattie spent together when Ze ena went away from the town to see a doctor. Their excitement though withered when the cat broke the dish and the looming figure of Zeena in their minds.Zeenas absence fag out more weight that her presence that conversation became impossible. The circumstance does not allow in them to attempt to recreate a fantasy of life together, spending an evening as a husband and wife would. Their passion was shrouded by iniquity and the unseen eyes of the society that both of them felt in the situation. As Ethan noted in the warm lamplit room, with all its ancient implications of concurrence and order, she (Mattie) seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable (54).Conformity and order in the living room reminded Ethan that it belongs to Zeena and Ethan and could never be Mattie and Ethan. And when Ethan crossed the pull in when showed the slightest act of passion by kissing a piece of stuff that she was sewing, Mattie was spurred into retreating, scared of the repercu ssions with the transgression made. Poverty also limited the illicit rooters from taking serious step in pursuing an adulterous affair. Mattie, for one, was in a very precarious condition being dependent on the Fromes for her perfunctory sustenance.Having nowhere else to go, she is also afraid of going into that kind of relationship with Ethan that could take away the refuge that she now has. Ethan, on the other hand, his duty to his wife and even to the Hales prevents him from acting on the situation like the loan that he planned to take from the Hale in able to elope with Mattie. Ethan did not only sacrifice his chance on love but he also sacrificed his ambitions just so he can fulfill his social duties.He had to give up his dream to move out of Starkfield and of enough an engineer to care for his father, his mother and the farm. And upon the death of his mother, he end up in frustrated desire to fulfill his dreams for he was trapped in a marriage with a sickly wife whom he can not bear to leave because of her condition. Though a sympathetic character, Ethan Frome can be also frustrating because of his lack determination to change the course of his life. He allows circumstances to take over him and did not decidedly pursue his interests and ambitions.Like the epitaph of the schoolmaster Ethan Frome in the graveyard with his wife Endurance, he endures rather than act on his fate in pursuit of happiness and fulfillment. In his relationship with Mattie, sooner of finding the courage to address his dilemma he opted for suicide with his lover, which he did not even decide on but took on upon the suggestion of Mattie. This was his only bold decision in the entire novel but this too ended up as a failure leaving him ruined and destined to live his entire life with an invalid lover and a controlling wife.Though Ethan is a sensitive and decent person he lacks emotional strength and determination. Instead of mustering enough courage to control conventions, he cho se not to take decisions and face the consequences of it, The deadened vitality of Ethan Frome from the decades of frustrations and his inability to rise up beyond the circumstances had left him in a situation where is not much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard.