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
to”(144). Ethan realizes then, that with no way to leave Zeena without being judged by the public, and not being able to bring himself to leave there is only one way to escape her and all of his pressures. Ethan and Mattie make an attempt to kill themselves, ultimately succumbing to the pressures that society places on people. If divorce had not been so un-common, and looked down upon during this time period, Ethan and Mattie may not have gone to the extreme that they did. Society’s pressures on Ethan did not stop there, in fact they started when he first met Zeena. Zeena had cared for Ethan’s mother during the time of her death, and when she did pass Ethan was scared of the taciturnity he was to face. Ethan married zeena out of the fright of being alone and there after realized what he had done was wrong. The narrator stated “After the funeral, when he saw her preparing to go away, he seized with an unreasoning ahead of being left alone on the farm; and before he know what he was doing he asked her to stay with him. He had often though since that it would not have happened if his mother died in the spring instead of winter” (62). Ethan made a spontaneous decision to have zeena stay with out truly loving her, causing him to be linked to her permanently. Ethan couldn’t leave zeena because of societies constraints, and there strict views on marriage. Had Ethan’s predicament been in the 21st century, he would have had a very different outcome, and wife. Along with society’s pressures, Ethan’s issues stemmed from himself as well. Ethan’s intrinsic kind heartedness and incapability to lie ultimately led to his inability to have Mattie.
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
life. The theme of Societies pressures and Moral beliefs is scattered heavily throughout this novel, and also in common day life. People face the issue of judgment in there communities, and the fight between what is right and wrong everyday. Ethan faced these obstacles, and ultimately was unsuccessful. This only goes to show how heavily these can weigh on ones mind, and how it affects there decisions and there life to a great extent.