Society's Inevitable Pressures In Ethan Frome By Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome Essay
Society’s inevitable pressures and ones own moral standings can affect life greatly. In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton social pressures and personal morals affect Ethan’s chance at happiness. This theme plays a prominent role in Ethan’s unfortunate circumstances during the novel. Ethan cannot leave his sickly wife Zeena due to the prejudice that would be placed by his community, and his own personal beliefs. Stemmed from social constraints Ethan lacks the mental strength to continue forward. When Ethan is supposed to drop Mattie off for there final goodbye, they take a detour and go sledding and with that detour, they finally acknowledge there love for each other. The narrator states “The words were like fragments torn from his heart. With them comes the hated vision of the house he was to go back to-of the stairs he would have to go up every night, of the woman who would wait for him there. And the sweetness of Matties avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too, made the other vision more abhorrent , the other life more intolerable to return …show more content…
Ethan planned to move west, and borrow 50$ from the Hales. In order to get the fifty dollars to start a new life Ethan would have had to lie to the Hales, unable to bring himself to do this; he came to terms with the fact that he will never be able to leave zeena, due to constraints he places on himself. The narrator states “The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison warders- handcuffing a convict. There was no way out-none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of sunlight was to be extinguished” (116-117). Ethan placed Moral restraints on himself, like many do in everyday life, and ultimately ended up a prisoner in his own home, and
Society’s inevitable pressures and ones own moral standings can affect life greatly. In the novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton social pressures and personal morals affect Ethan’s chance at happiness. This theme plays a prominent role in Ethan’s unfortunate circumstances during the novel. Ethan cannot leave his sickly wife Zeena due to the prejudice that would be placed by his community, and his own personal beliefs. Stemmed from social constraints Ethan lacks the mental strength to continue forward. When Ethan is supposed to drop Mattie off for there final goodbye, they take a detour and go sledding and with that detour, they finally acknowledge there love for each other. The narrator states “The words were like fragments torn from his heart. With them comes the hated vision of the house he was to go back to-of the stairs he would have to go up every night, of the woman who would wait for him there. And the sweetness of Matties avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too, made the other vision more abhorrent , the other life more intolerable to return …show more content…
Ethan planned to move west, and borrow 50$ from the Hales. In order to get the fifty dollars to start a new life Ethan would have had to lie to the Hales, unable to bring himself to do this; he came to terms with the fact that he will never be able to leave zeena, due to constraints he places on himself. The narrator states “The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison warders- handcuffing a convict. There was no way out-none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of sunlight was to be extinguished” (116-117). Ethan placed Moral restraints on himself, like many do in everyday life, and ultimately ended up a prisoner in his own home, and