Ethan Frome Character Analysis Essay

In everyday life, people are put under many pressures and are expected to be perfect to society. In Edith Wharton’s, best-known and most popular novel, Ethan Frome, this idea is highlighted, showing the protagonist’s breakdown. Ethan Frome struggles against the customs and rules of society, fighting a battle within himself between what he wants in order to be happy and what he feels he must do to satisfy his family and society. Frome struggles between his desire for Mattie and his sense of duty toward Zeena, his wife. The pressures that come from the responsibilities in the Frome household lead to Ethan Frome’s emotional breakdown, showing how societal pressures can lead to harmful self-doubt. Ethan is blind to Zeena’s perspective. He seems to think that if Mattie and he are not speaking or showing their love for one another, they are not betraying Zeena. In the novel, “His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of attracting attention to the girl’s inefficiency” (Wharton
Frome’s duty is to Zeena; to be loyal and to honor his vows, but he desires to be with Mattie. Frome’s unwillingness to act is typical of the passivity that prevents him from getting happiness. Mattie’s response brings up the idea that death might be the solution to their problem of not being able to be together. At the end of the novel, Frome’s life has gotten worse, because it seems like he is now taking care of two wives. Mattie has changed from a sweet girl to a bitter woman. Mrs. Hale describes Frome’s life as him as living death. By never making a choice, by either not following his duty and ignoring societal rules and living his life with Mattie or to give up who he desired and follow his duty, he has destroyed