Societal Expectations In Ethan Frome

Most of the people in the world’s lives are driven by social and/or familial expectations that they experience in their environment. Expectations can lead you to jobs, marriages, new places, and new experiences. When expectations are allowed to take over and control the outcome of a life, it can become a sad and negative ending. In the novel, Ethan Frome, Ethan let the force of the expectations that he, the world, and the community set on him control his life. He stayed silent and submissive in the times that changed his life for the worse because he felt pressured to remain quiet by the expectations and rules he had set for himself and by the watching community. In the novel Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, the themes of social and familial …show more content…
In the novella, Ethan Frome, the social expectations of the marriage between Ethan and Zeena restricted Ethan's happiness and ultimately led to the pitiful outcome of his life. Ethan was driven to marry Zeena because she had helped care for his mother before she died and he did not want to suddenly be alone on the farm. If Ethan had not felt obligated to marry Zeena, then he have been able to achieve the goals and desires he had. He could have gone off to a bigger city like he wanted to do, so he could be in a place that fit his life better. How it says in chapter four of the novel, “He had always wanted to be an engineer, and to live in towns, where there were lectures and big libraries” (Wharton 63), is the proof of Ethan’s hopes and goals. It states in the novel, “...before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay with him. He had often …show more content…
In the novel, it says that Ethan was at his family’s farm taking care of his mother while she was sick and taking over the farm since she was unable to do so. Ethan did this because he felt bound by the familial bond that they shared. It was expected of him to go and help her. The novel says, “[Ethan] might have escaped into the larger world had he not returned to his family's rocky farm to care for his invalid mother. [Zeena] comes to nurse his mother, and after her death Ethan marries Zeena out of gratitude, loneliness, and duty. Zeena turns out to be a shrewish, sickly, slovenly and domineering wife…” (Asya, Edith Wharton's Dream of Incest: Ethan Frome) This quote is proof of how, since Ethan had the expectation on him to help his family, his life drastically changed and without that expectation his life might have led to a much more successful and happier ending. There are countless examples in the novel where Ethan’s life was drastically altered from an instance of familial