Ethan was in a way foolish in thinking that he had to "please" everyone. Thoughts like those ones were what led to his ending up the way he did, as a miserable man. Ethan made many wrong choices for example marrying Zeena just out of compromise for her help doesn't seem like too good of a reason to end up marrying another person. What is a tragic hero? In fact, a tragic hero is indeed the protagonist of a tragedy, but the more important part is that they always have one flaw that leads them to their unhappiness.
The novel Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton can be considered a tragedy because the main character, Ethan, has one tragic flaw. Ethan Frome's antisocial behavior makes it impossible to express his feelings. Ethan Frome became lonely because he was not an affable person. Ethan Frome: A Tragedy? Ethan Frome became lonely because he wasn't an affable person.
Likely he never felt this emotion where Zeena was concerned. More importantly, though, Ethan is "only gay [as in happy, lighthearted, lively] in her presence" 1. Being with her allows his inner happy-guy to come bursting out. Practically speaking, Mattie and Ethan make a good pair, and in many ways she would be an ideal person for Ethan to pursue his dreams with.
They are able to talk to each comfortably and naturally, and quickly form a connection over their strong mutual interest in nature. Mattie is also constantly telling Ethan she is brave and fearless, and is game for anything. These characteristics stand in contrast to Zeena, whom Ethan thinks would fall apart if removed from Starkfield and her current life.
Like Ethan, Mattie is active, and almost never complains about anything. Ethan also finds her beautiful. Interestingly, they are about the same difference apart in age as Ethan and Zeena — some seven years — but they both seem to be youthful, whereas Zeena appears aged. Here's the question to ask yourself: is Ethan really in love with Mattie , or is he in love with the idea of Mattie? Since Mattie is so different from Zeena, she represents the possibility of a different kind of life for Ethan.
Is he in love with the actual girl, or the life she represents? In either case, Ethan despairs when confronted with losing the thing he loves either Mattie or his dream of a different life , and goes along with Mattie's suicide plan. Because Ethan is secretly in love with a woman who is not his wife, he is now living a life of deceit.
When Ethan and Mattie have their night alone together, he concerned with how to keep on seeing Mattie romantically , while making it look like business as usual around Zeena. Ethan is also deceiving himself by pretending that because he and Mattie haven't had sex, they aren't doing anything that Zeena would consider a violation of the marital contract.
He had never before been convicted of a lie […]" 7. Apparently, lying to Zeena about getting money from Andrew Hale so that he could see Mattie is Ethan's first lie. Lying for this first time in one's life is evidence of a significant transformation. And now, of course, we are back to the physical.
Death wasn't ready to claim Ethan, and left him in the world, broken and marked. But, the narrator doesn't fill in the year gap between the end of Chapter 9 and the beginning of the Epilogue. We can see that Ethan is now no longer living a life of deceit. His life is on show for anyone to see.
What we don't know is if he is still suicidal, or if he's still in love with Mattie. What's your take? Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide.
By Edith Wharton. Previous Next. Ethan Frome Ethan is our tragic hero, a man of many faces. Ethan the Tragic Hero As writers through the ages, from Sophocles to Shakespeare to Edith Wharton, have known, everybody likes a good tragedy from time to time.
As a child, Frome was expected to care for his sickly mother and later in life had to stay and care for his sickly wife despite his passions for Miss Mattie Silver. In a desperate attempt to escape from his societal obligations, Frome and Silver enter in a suicide pact that leaves Silver paralyzed and Frome disfigured. After Frome recovers, he stays to dutifully care for his mistress and his ungrateful wife. Frome is a modern tragic hero who could not achieve happiness with his love due to the judgemental eye of society and his own moral code.
Modern tragic heroes, unlike their classical counterparts, are usually average people with average traits — people the audience can relate to and are not deeply flawed like classical tragic heroes. Modern tragic heroes like Ethan Frome are good people who are barred from their goals by society or, as in the present case, the conventions of society. He was a poor man, the husband of a sickly woman, whom his desertion would leave alone and destitute; and even if he had the heart to desert her he could have done so only by deceiving two kindly people who had pitied him.
At the climax of the story, when Zeena is about to send Mattie away and Ethan is rushing to get an advance from one of his customers so that the two can elope, he realizes that his plan violates his moral code in too many ways for him to truly be happy.
He cannot lie to his friends. He cannot leave Zeena without a caretaker. He cannot elope with Mattie. Because Frome is a tragic hero, the audience understands all of his motivations and understands that without such rigid social conventions, such as that of marriage, Frome could be happy. He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence.
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