Meaningless Existence in Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome - Research Paper Example

15 December Isolation And How It Kills From Within in Ethan Frome People can die from physical and emotional isolation. This is the tragedy of meaningless existence in Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. Ethan Frome could have had a “better” life, by leaving Starkfield and becoming an engineer, or by running away with Mattie and starting a new life. The “starkness” of Starkfield, however, sucks him into a void, where he must stick to his family responsibilities, even when it means giving up the warmth of life and success. His life has been a journey to finding happiness, something he has never attained for a long time and never did until the story ends. Throughout the novel, isolation defines the plot and the characters' destinies. This essay analyzes the theme of isolation in Ethan Frome. Wharton uses setting, characterization, and symbolism to show how isolation emasculated Ethan Frome and affected his relationship with Mattie and Zeena. The setting of the book is Starkfield, a fictional New England village, which shows how physical isolation has resulted to the emasculation of Ethan Frome. Starkfield is an isolated and cold place, which also affects its small-town culture. It is very far from other cities and it often has harsh cold weather. The weather has become a cold blanket that rules over people's emotions and thoughts. The community is also poor, being constantly cold and poor of resources, which is why Harmon says that it is better if people left the village: “Most of the smart ones get away” (Wharton Chapter 1). The weather and geographical location leave people feeling terribly lonely and hopeless. The sadness and hopelessness in Starkfield have been embodied through several images in the novel. For instance: “Beyond the orchard lay a field or two...huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier (Wharton “Ethan”). The whiteness of the field emphasizes the harsh isolation of the people; white means nothingness, because having no colors means having no life. White also means coldness inside humanity. The irony of whiteness in the novel is that the whiteness of Starkfield seems to smother people, as if it is fire that kills them. In addition, the farm houses can stand for the townspeople. They also feel isolated from each other. Gossip is commonplace, but they rarely show acts of empathy and love toward each other. For example, even they feel sorry for Frome after the “smash-up,” they do not offer him any real empathy. Frome must have felt lonelier after the smash-up, because people “guessed” what he and Mattie wanted to truly do. Moreover, the coldness of their environment spills over people's hopes and freezes their ability to dream and pursue their dreams. Ethan once wanted to be an engineer, but because of lack of social and financial support, he did not become one anymore. He also has to take care of his mother. Then, he dreams of being with Mattie, but due to his poverty and the problem of being “judged” by his society, he does not leave Zeena. Ethan wants an easier way out instead of facing poverty and ridicule, but this dream is snatched from him too. The setting also evokes a fairy tale escape and simplification of characters and their isolation. Ammons argues that Ethan Frome can be viewed as a fairy tale, because the novel contains the archetypes of “the witch, the silvery maiden, the honest woodcutter” (Ammons 48). She compares Ethan Frome to Snow White, where Zeena is the witch, Mattie is the silvery maiden, and Ethan is the honest woodcutter. Zeena is the witch, because she is the selfish villain who wants to be Ethan's queen, even when Ethan no longer loves her. Zeena will do everything she can to keep Ethan from leaving her and Starkfield. One of her ways is being constantly sick. If she is sick, Ethan will remember what she did for his mother. She uses Ethan's indebtedness to her to force him into living with her, if not loving her. Another way is keeping Ethan poor. She spends every cent that Ethan makes. She knows that if Ethan is poor, he will not have the means to leave her and start a new life elsewhere. Mattie is the princess; she is Snow White who threatens to take the Queen's throne, because of the former's beauty, charm, and vitality. Frome is the poor woodcutter. He is poor in money, but rich in integrity. He does not leave Zeena, even when he already loves Mattie. He does what is right in society's eyes and not what is right for his heart. Frome, nonetheless did not have a happy fairy tale ending. Stark loneliness and bitterness dash away feelings of fairy tale happiness, when he and Mattie do not die together. Ironically, Zeena wins. She gets a happy ending, not the princess or the woodcutter. This way, Wharton is saying that people cannot always have a happy ending, when they are physically and emotionally isolated. In a way, Wharton must also be telling people that if they cannot change or cannot change their surroundings to achieve their happiness, they will be as cold and barren as Starkfield. Isolation simplifies existence to its bear minimum. Wendt goes to another topic and argues that Wharton uses the body as the primary language of the characters, especially Ethan, so that “simple” characters can depict a “complex” story (Wendt 155). She compares the mute personality of Ethan with the “mute landscape” (Wendt 155). Wendt stresses that the setting has greatly formed Ethan's behavior. The “frozen environment” and demands of “hard labor” makes the body aware of its physical needs more than its mental and emotional needs (Wendt 155). Ethan then focuses on the bare level of his needs ant not his intellectual, social, and emotional needs. Viewing it from Maslow's hierarchy needs, Ethan can hardly meet his physiological needs because of the land's isolation. As a result, he cannot move up Maslow's triangle and have the energy and motivation to meet his love and esteem needs. He becomes imprisoned by the basic needs of his life. In addition, the cold environment also impacts how people communicate with each other. Instead of conversations, people share silence and brevity (Wendt 157). Thus, the environment indeed has affected people's thinking and behavior. This paper will now turn to the characterization made in the novel. This essay proceeds to explaining the impact of isolation on the characters. Ethan Frome is a dynamic character, who changes from an ambitious dreamer to a caregiver to the dead living “patient.” Frome has wanted to be an engineer in his youth. He is fascinated with and good at subjects related to engineering. Because his family is detached from family relations, however, he has become the primary caregiver to his parents. He has to take care of his mother, who got sick because of isolation. Before she used to look out to the train, but when the train is removed, she has nothing and she died thereafter. During this time though, they employed Zeena. Zeena used to take care of Ethan's mother, and so Ethan falls for her, but only superficially. Starkfield is that cold to project emotional feelings in the most fleeting sense. It can be argued then that because of isolation, Zeena enters Ethan's life. Further isolation ensures that Ethan loves her, but not in a romantic way, but a companionship way. Isolation turns into a curse when Ethan learns he does not love Zeena, but he cannot get rid of her, when he falls in love with Mattie. Harmon also knows how isolation acts like a curse to Ethan: “I guess it's always Ethan done the caring” (Wharton 1). Isolation glues Ethan to his caring role, which further breaks Ethan's heart and spirit, because he can never do what he wants to do or be what he wants to be. Also, Wharton indicates that the setting is Ethan Frome himself, where he is “an incarnation of the land’s frozen woe with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface” (Wharton 1). Carroll asserts that Ethan is as “mute and melancholic” as Starkfield, as if he is “one of the outcroppings of slate that push up through the snow” (2). He is like a slate, especially when he pushes up the snow that his life represents. In his marriage, Zeena undermines Ethan's masculinity by constantly consuming his money and time. Ethan regains his manhood with Mattie, however, since she follows his orders: “Except when he was steering a big log down the mountain to his mill he had never known such a thrilling sense of mastery” (Wharton 4). He does not feel powerful with Zeena at all. He realizes that “she had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others” (Wharton 7). Unfortunately, Ethan cannot leave Zeena, because he finds integrity in helping his family. In order to break free, he and Mattie try to commit suicide, but situational irony occurs, when they are not wounded enough to be killed. Ethan suffers from a permanent limp, while Mattie becomes an invalid with a broken spine. Zeena seems to have become stronger after the accident and turns into the primary caregiver. Mrs. Hale understands the meaning of Zeena's recuperation and the new role she plays in their lives: “...and the way they are now, I don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard...” (Wharton 9). Ethan and Mattie live together, but they are dead, since they are emotionally and sexually isolated from each other. It is an ending that depicts “Wharton’s universe, a death-in-life” (Carroll2). He finds “eternity” with Mattie, but it is eternity without bliss. Mattie also finds isolation as the pill that will end her exuberance for life. Mattie loses everything when her parents died and she becomes a household help for Zeena. To make matters worse, she falls in love with Ethan, which is hard for them both, since their culture highlights family responsibilities over individual happiness. Harmon Gow tells the engineer: “Somebody had to stay and care for the folks... guess it's always Ethan done the caring” (Wharton “Ethan”). This goes back to the small-town thinking of Starkfield that defines life in simple and curtailed terms. Have a family and take care of them. Those are the main functions of living for Starkfield. Mattie realizes this and she knows that they cannot be happy in Starkfield. Hence, physical isolation and its conservative culture ensure the snowed-down future for Ethan and Mattie. Ethan and Mattie change from being confident of their identities to losing that because of isolation. Ethan has once personally managed the farm and the saw mill without much help, because he was once young and strong. After the smash-up, Wharton uses changes in physical appearance to indicate the internal changes within Ethan and Mattie. Before the accident, Ethan attends to his physical looks. Even Zeena notices that he shaves “every morning,” since Mattie arrived in their lives (Wharton 1). After the accident, he is aptly described as “the ruin of a man” (Wharton “Ethan”). This image shows that Ethan died from within. Mattie is also different; before the accident, she manifests the freshness and happiness of life when she dances: “...The face she lifted to her dancers was the same which, when she saw him, always looked like a window that has caught the sunset....” (Wharton 1). Mattie also enjoys prettifying herself: “...on the evening of her arrival [she came down for supper with] smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck” (Wharton 4). The smash-up transforms the dancing beauty into a “shapeless dress her body kept its limp immobility, and her dark eyes had the bright witch-like stare that disease of the spine sometimes gives” (Wharton 9). She is shapeless, because without her dancing and hope of being with Ethan, her happiness is also shapeless. She has also turned into a witch, whose bitterness can be seen from her eyes. Isolation further affects Zeena who affirms her ownership of Ethan. Zeena changes from being a sick patient to being the dominant caregiver. Non-traditional gender roles in the story ensure the upper hand for Zeena. Zeena emasculates Ethan with her overbearing attitude. She knows that Ethan only stays with her, because it is his way of showing gratitude for helping him take care of his mother. But her control over him weakens when Mattie arrives. Zeena finds strength after the smash-up because she finds a complete way of forcing Ethan to stay with her. She can help him take care of Mattie, whom of course, he would never leave. She can also take care of Ethan. Thus, what is tragedy to Ethan and Mattie is ironically, the source of happiness for Zeena. Indeed, she is as cold as Starkfield. She does not care if the means to her happiness is unfair and brings coldness to others. She only wants to be happy, no matter what the consequences may be. Physical and emotional conditions isolate Ethan and Mattie and push them to hopelessness. Physically, they are weaker and they have to depend on Zeena's perpetual assistance. Emotionally and psychologically, they are dead. Life cannot be more bitter than being together and yet be separated. Because of these conditions, Ethan has changed from being reserved to deadly “detached” because the worst has occurred: “By nature grave and inarticulate, he admired recklessness and gaiety in others and was warmed to the marrow by friendly human intercourse” (Wharton 4). He cannot be happy again. Winter is also a symbol for Ethan’s personality and existence. Winter is cold and bleak like Ethan’s life and personality. The narrator says that “[Frome] 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” (Wharton “Ethan”). Ethan knows that cultural norms have trapped him to his life. He is frozen to the core, when he realizes how cold their future has become. Mattie used to be full of hope, before the smash-up. The shattered pickle glass, however, stands for her shattered hopes too: “It seemed to [Ethan] as if the shattered fragments of their evening lay there” (Wharton 4). They can put the glass together, but the damage has been done. Other people also respect Ethan for his miserable and hopeless life. Mrs. Hale wishes that Mattie had died: “And I say, if she'd ha' died, Ethan might ha' lived...” (Wharton 9). She knows what is worse than death. It is living without love and hope, for without them, they will never be happy. Isolation de-sexualizes characters. Hattenhauer analyzes Ethan Frome from a psychoanalytical perspective. She argues that Wharton has used “sexual symbolism” (226) to illustrate the initial diverging sexualities of Zeena, Mattie, and Ethan. Hattenhauer says that the red pickle dish in the novel symbolizes sexuality. When Zeena does not use this dish, it refers to her lack of sex life. She puts it in a shelf and keeps it away from others. She also does not want to share it with other people. This means that she does not want sexual behaviors anymore. Her “sickness” has isolated her from her sexual desires. On the contrary, Hattenhauer emphasizes that the redness of Mattie's cheeks means that she is replacing Zeena's sexual role as a wife in Ethan's life. Mattie will be the new sexual object for Ethan. Hattenhauer adds that the cucumber in the brine also suggests Ethan's sexuality. Like Zeena, he has been isolated from human loving for a long time that he no longer wants sex, until he meets Mattie. But since the isolation is a pervading theme, it appears later on that no one can enjoy sexuality. After the smash-up Mattie and Ethan are both de-sexualized, since they are already physically deformed. Desire is no longer desirous, so to speak. The setting, symbolism, and characters in Ethan Frome entail that isolation seeps life from the human soul. An isolated environment disables Ethan from being rich and emotionally strong enough to pursue all his dreams. Irony also shapes the plot. Ethan keeps on trying to escape his life's emptiness. Mattie offers a glimpse of hope and Ethan tries hard to keep her in his life. When Ethan ensures his happiness by committing suicide with Mattie. Ironically, they live to die together in misery instead. Hence, Starkfield's cold environment serves as the heartless depiction of the characters' lives. Though blood courses in their veins, their physical, sexual, and emotional isolation ensure them of a graveyard existence. Works Cited Ammons, Elizabeth. “Elizabeth Ammons on Ethan Frome as a Fairy Tale.” Bloom's Major Novelists: Edith Wharton (2002): 48-50.Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center. Carroll, Emmett H. Ethan Frome. Masterplots (Nov. 2010): 1-3. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center. Hattenhauer, Darryl. “Wharton's Ethan Frome.” Explicator 51.4 (1993): 226-228. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center. Morton-Mollo, Sherry. Ethan Frome. Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series (Mar. 1995): 1-3.Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center. Wendt, Tracy. “Body as Mentality in Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome.” Atenea 25.2 (2005): 55-171. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. Literary Reference Center. Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. . Read More