Loneliness In Ethan Frome, By Edith Wharton

Improved Essays
Research Paper Ethan Frome Often times in literature, characters are depicted being lonely. Edith Wharton compelling novel, “Ethan Frome” is one such piece. Wharton’s portrayal of Ethan suggests that loneliness cause people to be heartbroken and isolated. Such illness can lead to physical and mental health issues. Throughout the novel, Wharton focuses on loneliness as a major theme. Ethan Frome is a very complex man. Ethan was aggravating to make a living for himself through farming, while tending to his ungrateful, grasping and unappreciative wife Zenna. Ethan is a very hard working man with much dreams that need to be fulfilled. Ethan Frome is described in the novel as a tall man with solid shoulders. Ethan has a powerful look in …show more content…
Over 60 million Americans today are affected by loneliness. Sometime in life everyone will feel lonely. People can experience loneliness for many reasons and life cases. Loneliness typically includes anxious feelings about loss of connection or communication with others around. Lonely people don’t expect things to go well for them, and therefore, they generally don’t. Some characteristics of loneliness are closed or small minded, fearful, very nervous, shy, antisocial and much more. Having hundreds of friends to talk to isn’t as same as having one friend to watch a movie or share a cup of coffee. Lonely may mean not having a romantic partner or not having someone to be with on the holidays. Loneliness serves as a precise to change behavior in a relationship that needs more attention. Loneliness can come from experiencing lack of love as a young child or having physical difference and suffering from a mental disorder. Loneliness has destructive effects on our mental and physical health. “Loneliness can weaken our immune system functioning and it can increase inflammatory, which can lead to cardiovascular diseases and small percent chance of Alzheimer disease” (Winch …show more content…
Loneliness is mostly prevalent throughout marriages, relationships, families and more. Evidence show that loneliness is increasing in society (Firger 2015). Once a person starts to incoherent, the loneliness commences to drain into their lives, and make them feel muddle and unloved. Loneliness in marriage generally develops slowly, as the parting is felt from a spouse deliberately increases as time goes by. Most often loneliness has to do with feeling disconnected from a partner. “If a person seems to be lonely chances are there partner is also loney” (Winch 2013). Some of loneliness characteristics in a marriage are, not caring, a spouse that doesn’t hear their partner, feeling that they are going on there own way, and having attitudes of “who cares” or “we 'll talk more tomorrow.” Various studies show not only loneliness can run in a gene but also if the surrounding were strong by social network, would less likely express the trait. The environment can be linked and play a role in this situation. “Researchers believe that loneliness could have major effects on someone’s life span” (Hillin

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Mia Pollini AP 11 Literature Scene Analysis: Ethan Frome In Edith Wharton’s novella Ethan Frome, certain elements from Chapter 5, where Ethan and young Mattie spend a romantic night alone at home in Ethan’s wife’s absence, emphasize the theme of desire versus morality. These elements, such as the domestic setting where the two face the conflict of whether Ethan will act on his affectionate feelings towards Mattie so the two can be together despite both society and Ethan’s strict sense of morals highlight the idea that being ethical is more important than personal wants. For example, as they sit in “the lamplit room with its… implications of conformity and order” Ethan feels that Mattie is “farther…and unapproachable” compared to when they’d…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ethan Frome is a novel written by Edith Wharton in 1911. Ethan is caught between love and morality as he is married but is in love with another woman. He is being treated horribly by his wife Zeena, and sees her cousin and caretaker Mattie as his only chance at love. The broken pickle dish, the cat, and the sled all symbolize the war Ethan was facing between love and responsibility.…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edith Wharton, author of “Ethan Frome,” wrote a twisted love story that ends tragically. Mattie Silver moves to Starkfield MA with her cousin, Zeena Frome and her husband Ethan Frome. She moves in with them in after her father dies. After a while, Mattie and Ethan fall in love. They try to commit suicide together and are unsuccessful and are permanently disabled.…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The novel Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, chronicles the life of a mysterious crippled hermit by the name of Ethan Frome as a flashback to his star-crossed relationship from his youth. In the process of relaying this story, Wharton characterizes Frome’s constantly ill-stricken wife as a villainous dead weight to his free spirit. Wharton uses imagery and dialogue in order to paint a lucid picture of Zeena Frome as an older, nagging wife who over-extends Ethan’s patience; additionally, Zeena’s unrelenting ill health serves as a metaphor for her enduring pestilence upon her husband. Wharton’s use of imagery and descriptive language establish a relaxed, wistful atmosphere throughout the novel.…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel Ethan Frome whom is written by Edith Wharton, isolation plays a big role in why and what the character’s do in the novel. * Zeena is the character that is isolated in the novel. Through out Zeena’s life during the novel, she goes through two major changes. She experiences herself stuck within isolation and does not know who to get herself back.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There is much more to Ethan Frome than simply an unhappy love story. In fact, Wharton offers the reader a complex story through the adequate use of literary devices to find the deeper meaning. Whether it is told directly or it is integrated in between the lines, all written pieces have the sense of a deeper meaning. While Edith Wharton tells the story of Ethan’s desperate hopes and attempts to leave his dreary life, she employs different themes, symbolism and foreshadowing to convince the reader that his doomed fate was fixed from the start. Silence was quite eminent in the lives of the three main characters.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The protagonist of the novella, Ethan Frome, values feelings or ideas more than physical objects. Ethan is desperately lonely, experiencing a disconnection from the outside world by living on a remote rural farm. Wharton sets Ethan in the secluded farmhouse to show the…

    • 612 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The novella, Ethan Frome, was written by Edith Wharton depicting the story of love equipped with tragedy. Marxist criticism is predominant throughout the novella because of the unfulfilled desires or dreams of the characters on behalf of social circumstances. Poverty led to the end of Frome’s education, and Mattie being obligated to live in her cousin’s home. Fromes infatuation with Mattie Silver progressed and intensified daily, however, he was unable to convey his emotions because of his wife’s sickness which led to Mattie being forced into marriage. Lastly, the theme of isolation is illustrated through Zeena’s sickness, and the influence of winter on Frome’s character.…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What are the effects of loneliness? Some people become depressed, some people find ways to not be lonely anymore, but some people are so used to being lonely that they choose to live that way. Loneliness can change people by causing them to become depressed, angry, and mistreat others. Of Mice and Men takes places during the Dust Bowl in America. During this time, things like racism, sexism, and discrimination against mentally handicapped people was very common.…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Born in New York City, Wharton’s most famous works center around uncomfortable and unaccepted circumstances of society in the late 1800s (Anderson). Ethan Frome follows suit by telling the unfortunate life story of a man named Ethan Frome. Frome is surrounded by misfortune his whole life, starting with the death of his father. Putting his entire life on hold, he goes home to his mother only for her to fall ill shortly after. After his mother dies, Ethan turns to the arms of his mother 's caretaker,…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mohan states that “relative mortality [in heart patients] nearly tripled among those who had neither a partner nor a confidant, compared with those who had confidants…” (Mohan, 2013). For years, loneliness has been known to lead to poor health when compared with those who do not consider themselves segregated from their peers. Known related illnesses include higher blood pressure, heightened reactions to stress, and altered immune responses, all of which lead to higher mortality risks (Mohan,…

    • 639 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When individuals experience something they do not like, they tend to run away from their problems because they do not have anyone by their side, no matter how hard they try it is hard to face situations alone as one person. Loneliness plays a big role in life, it can greatly affect how an individual…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The article I wrote my essay on, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely” argues the effects of social media sites and how it has caused people to separate farther apart instead of coming together. The author believes “We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier. In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less actual society.” (pg.3). I think that the article gives several statistical analysis to show the reader that the current society is slowly becoming less and less real.…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I have been saying that I’m “lonely” but after researching deeper I became to know that may not be the case at all. “The newest behavioral-science research suggests that this way of thinking is actually a mistake, because interestingly enough, loneliness is not a true emotion. An emotion is a set of distinct feelings that have observable and consistent physiological…

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome is structured specifically to create an aura of suspense and thrill. The prologue acts to give a fleeting insight to the mysterious character of Ethan Frome, but intentionally neglects to offer an explanation as to why he is in his current condition, thus keeping the audience on their toes. Such strategies used by Wharton create an overall effect of mystery and confusion until the very end. The switch of point of view to third person omniscient puts readers in a front row view of the lives of Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena, but prohibits them from knowing the characters’ true thoughts, keeping the level of suspense high. Wharton establishes a sorrowful mood in the novella by paralleling the weather with Ethan’s feelings and situation.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays