The land has influenced Ethan a lot. Firstly we see how much the land had affected him when he came back from college, because of his rash decision to marry Zeena. Even before that we see how happy he is to have Zeena at their house, tending to his mother – she was a ‘new voice’ that had ‘come to steady him’. Zeena gave him the conversation he desired and feasibly needed. He craved simply for a person to talk to because his surroundings had isolated him. His surroundings had literally and emotionally ‘killed’ the people who he cared about. It, in a way, ‘killed’ his mother. She never spoke to him after his father’s accident and ‘her voice was seldom heard’ .He was not one who enjoyed being alone and living in the stifling cold in the middle of nowhere did not agree with him. He wanted to ‘live in towns, where there were lectures and big libraries and “fellows doing things’”. His marriage to Zeena came out of this fear of being alone – ‘an unreasoning dread of being left alone’. He says himself that he had asked her to marry him ‘before he knew what he was doing’
Poverty goes hand-in-hand with the land as a reason for Ethan’s tragic end. I feel that if Ethan had been more secure financially then his life would have been very different. From the very beginning Ethan’s poverty is stressed. Harmon Gow says that Ethan ‘wouldn’t be sorry to earn a dollar’ again stressing on how poor he was. Like this, Ethan probably didn’t return to his schooling, as he had to take care of farm after his mother’s death. Ethan was left alone to ‘carry the burden of the farm and mill’, perhaps a burden that reduced him to his tragic end.
Determinism can be seen here. Ethan had to return to the farm to take care of his mother. He ended up marrying Zeena because he was afraid of being lost in the loneliness that surrounded him. This loneliness had been brought about by the weather and the surroundings, something Ethan had no control over. Also he mentions that if ‘his mother had died in spring instead of winter’ his life would1 have been much better. Again the controlling factor here is the time of death of Ethan’s mother and this too Ethan had no control over.
From here on Ethan begins to live a life so isolated that it probably would have driven him mad if it had not been for Mattie. Ethan’s actions always seem to isolate him from the people and the world around him. For instance when he comes to care for his mother he is isolated from the outside world and confined to Starkfield. His marriage to Zeena confines him into Starkfield because he can’t go to a bigger city. Tending to Zeena when she gets one of her ‘sick spells’ also confines him from venturing far. And lastly looking after his farm isolates him further from the outside world. We get a glimpse of this when Ethan says that he ‘didn’t know the first word about’ some of the things in the narrators book. Physically, and therefore, emotionally, he is trapped by his wife, his farm, and his poverty. Ethan is in some ways, a piece of the scenery, or as the narrator says, ‘a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of frozen woe.’
Ethan’s isolation can be blamed mainly on the land and his environment. He would enjoy making contact with other people yet with all his miseries and the realities of his life he can’t.
Zeena changes quickly after marriage and life goes back to, as it once was – cold and silent. Zeena and his loveless marriage are possibly what drove Ethan into his relationship with Mattie. He marries Zeena and so begins his tragedy.
His marriage to Zeena was doomed from the beginning as all loveless marriages are. It was brought about by an ‘unreasoning dread of be left alone on the farm’ With Zeena he probably made the biggest mistakes of his tragic life. Zeena has, from the beginning, been portrayed as a sly and nasty woman. The descriptions of Zeena are harsh and unfeeling and convey a sense of extreme coldness and are almost always sickly – ‘her puckered throat’ and ‘high-boned face’. We see no signs of any passion for her husband or, for that matter, anyone else. Instead she resents Ethan for being so poor. Yet when Ethan thinks of moving to better prospects in a bigger city Zeena refuses, knowing that she will be a no-body there. The thought of this forces them to live their lives in discontentment. Already here we see how Zeena has started to work against Ethan. She holds him back in many ways.
However I don’t think that Zeena does this on purpose. She, like Ethan, is, also perhaps, a victim of circumstances and she too doesn’t have the power to change her situation. The lack of love in their marriage proves to be another factor that coerces Ethan into his tragic end. Neither Ethan nor Zeena make any effort to render their marriage happy. They both seem content to live in their own little worlds speaking only when spoken to or, in Zeena’s case – to complain. ‘When she spoke it was only to complain…of things not in power of his remedy.’ This is quite a departure from Ethan’s previous descriptions of her where her voice was ‘music in his ears’ and the ‘she laughed at him’ because of his lack of competence around the house. I think this change in Zeena was more or less because of her environment. Zeena’s cheeriness was drained away by the land.
Perhaps all of the blame should not go on the environment and the circumstances. I have also noted that Ethan’s character does nothing to better his situation. I feel that it actually pushes him away from the goal he is so desperately trying to reach. Ethan’s character is one of the most noble characters I have come across. I feel that his intentions had always been pure and that he never had had any thing to hide. He had the great quality of putting other people’s happiness and feelings before his own – as Harmon Gow said ‘its always Ethan [who’s] done the caring. This quality – however righteous – was sadly one reason for Ethan’s tragedy. It proves to destroy him in the end. For starters, Ethan helped Mattie around the house with the housework. He thought he was doing this behind Zeena’s back but she new. He neglects his farm work for this and in the end has to work extra hard to make up for it.
Also when the cat breaks the pickle dish Ethan does his best to cover it up so that Zeena doesn’t find out and get Mattie into trouble. This incident only hastens the tragic climax of the novel. It brings Ethan’s ‘affair’ to Zeena’ attention and this, perhaps, sparked fear in Ethan’s mind and intensified the need to take action.
When he thinks about running away with Mattie he concludes that he can’t because he and Mattie would have no money and that his actions would leave Zeena in a helpless situation as well.
In all the above situations Ethan’s plans to make every party happy have backfired. Zeena eventually found out about the pickle-dish and Ethan’s helping around the house. She casually slips it in and gives Ethan, who thought she was unaware of all this, a fright. This increases his urgency to do something about Mattie and his relationship with her.
Secondly Ethan’s nobility acts against him. He was an honest man who wouldn’t lie or cheat. He was also a proud man who would not forsake his pride for anything
We see many examples of this throughout the novel. To begin with when Ethan goes to borrow money from Andrew Hale once Zeena left for the Flats he is benignly denied it. Yet in his mind he knows that if he doesn’t get the money he needs to cover up ‘one of Zeena’s therapeutic excursions’. He could have pleaded Hale and got the money out like that, yet ‘pride and an instinctive prudence, kept him from resorting to this argument.’
Also, towards the end we see that Ethan sets out to again ask Hale for some money so that he and Mattie can run away to the West. But on his way there he meets Mrs. Hale who tells him that she feels sorry for him but at the same time is proud of him because he has had ‘an awful mean time’. He feels at this point that asking for some money from the Hales, which they would give, would be deceiving them as they were the only ‘two kindly people who had pitied him’.
Ethan’s sense of responsibility that comes with this nobility is probably one of the key things that lead to his tragedy. His overwhelming sense of responsibility and need to care about the people around him push into doing things he ordinarily would not have done. He goes out of his way to help people and this – generally respectable trait – is the very one that leads to his devastation. For instance Ethan marries Zeena after his mother’s death because he felt a sense of responsibility towards her, as she had nowhere to go after devoting so much time to his mother.
Ethan also refuses to run away leaving his wife to fend for herself. When he is thinking of how he would escape to the West he keeps asking himself about Zeena and how she would survive – ‘and what of Zeena’s Fate?’ , ‘How could she keep the farm going?’ His nobility once again prevents him from doing what he wants even if it means giving up something that would grant him and Mattie a better life. But unlike the other circumstances, this was one that he did have control over. He had the power to swallow his pride and ask Hale for the money yet he doesn’t do so.
I think that Ethan’s actions can best be explained by looking at his and Starkfield’s background. New England was settled by the Puritan Settlers. These were extremely strict and severe people who would not even let the slightest sin be considered acceptable. Wharton wanted her readers to have the utmost sympathy for Ethan. By adding the fact that the Puritan settlers were Ethan’s ancestors she is trying to tell us that Ethan was completely a victim of circumstances. He had no power over who his ancestors were and, therefore, no power over what beliefs were instilled into him. He follows these beliefs blindly because he can’t shake them off. These beliefs are the reason why Ethan is still married to Zeena and probably the reason why he had an illicit affair with Mattie.
I think that if Ethan really wanted he could change, forsake his pride for once so he could live a better life with his love. Yet he refuses to do so on account of the qualities instilled in him because of his ancestry. He probably decide against selling his farm after his mother’s death because he thought this would be, in some way, abandoning it.
Because of these values Ethan’s life has turned into a saga of missed chances and lost potential. His life would have been much happier if he had just grabbed the first opportunity he had to make a better life for himself – getting a sound education after his father’s death and moving to a bigger town after his mother’s death. Yet he misses this chance and many others to come making his tragic end seem more and more inevitable. He is daring as he tries to formulate a plan to get him and Mattie out of Starkfield yet he is not daring enough to take up once-in-a-lifetime chances because he is afraid of what the consequences are. He may be impulsive at the beginning but he quickly looses interest in the idea because of the obstacles that stand in his way like when Zeena refused to go to a bigger town and he just accepted.
In this way he seems easily influenced by what other people say and think. For example he listens to Zeena when she refuses to go with him and settle in a bigger city and to Mrs. Hale when she talks about him having a hard life and how he should be proud of his doings. Lastly and most importantly he listens to Mattie when she decides that they should commit suicide. He does not take charge of any of these situations and they in the end force him into doing the things he would not have done if he were a stronger person.
I cannot help but think that, maybe, Ethan’s tragic end was not so inhuman and cruel. I feel that it was a sinister type of poetic justice; that Ethan probably deserved what he got because he was wrong for not doing anything about his circumstances. There was actually a lot Ethan could have done to change his situation and make life better. Yet he lacks the strength to do so – the strength to escape from the harsh realities of his life. His actions, of not grabbing opportunities to escape from this life when they come are distressing. That is why I feel that maybe his life with Zeena and the paralysed Mattie are a sort of punishment for this. ‘If she’d ha’ died, Ethan might ha’ lived.’
However, I still to feel that Wharton has presented this character beautifully and in a very believable manner. She managed to draw my sympathy for Ethan and his situation. She skilfully uses the settings to explain the turmoil going on in Ethan’s mind. His character is one of the most noble I have seen as he rises above his fears and realities to help other people. He appeals to the sorrows and grief that we face every day. I don’t feel that he was completely responsible for his Fate. In the end everyone is responsible for his or her actions and deeds yet there are some things that you just cannot change and, perhaps, Ethan Frome’s life was filled with much of the latter.
