Why ethan marry zeena

After delivering lumber to Andrew Hale and asking Hale for money which Ethan is refused , Ethan drives home and passes the family cemetery where the family tombstone of Ethan and Endurance Frome proclaims that they shared fifty years of wedded bliss. The epitaph seems ironic to Ethan. Recently reminded of seven years' endurance of Zeena, he wonders what people might someday say about the two of them.

More important as a parallel to the previous night's action when he walked by the cemetery with Mattie , Ethan's thoughts show that he now seriously does consider himself married to Zeena, and that he briefly realizes his thoughts of being buried in the cemetery with Mattie were fantasy. The headstone is also ironic because, in the end, it is Zeena who must forego her illnesses and prove herself in the role of "endurance" in anything but peaceful circumstances as she ministers for years to the two crippled victims of the sledding accident.

The events of the night before are paralleled in order to draw attention in a dramatic and climactic moment to the difference between Zeena and Mattie. When Mattie lets Ethan in the locked back door, standing in the same pose that Zeena did the night before, Ethan is struck by the immense difference between the young, warm, and feminine Mattie and his old, cold, and hard wife Zeena.

Wharton structures the events in this way to allow Mattie to demonstrate her feelings for Ethan without oral communication. Mattie shows Ethan how special he is to her by adding a red ribbon to her hair, laughing, and preparing Ethan's favorite foods. During the meal, Ethan and Mattie are uncomfortable mentioning Zeena's name. Wharton uses the cat as a stand-in for Zeena. Mattie almost trips over the cat, the cat sits in Zeena's chair during the meal, the cat causes the pickle dish to be broken and sits in Zeena's chair near the fire.

Breaking the pickle dish is a climactic event in the novel. Mattie uses the pickle dish, one of Zeena's most cherished wedding presents, for one of Ethan's favorite foods and to set a special table for Ethan.

Using the pickle dish is a trespass against Zeena. Neither Ethan nor Mattie want to acknowledge the trespass to Zeena, and to cover up their guilt, Ethan becomes assertive. He deliberately intends to deceive Zeena by gluing the dish back together in order to protect Mattie.

This act enables Ethan to feel a sense of masculine dominance, a feeling he has never experienced with Zeena. After the meal, Ethan and Mattie communicate easily with each other, enjoying the companionship of the other. Ethan allows himself to imagine that Mattie is his wife and this particular night is typical for them. He talks of going coasting and enjoys the sense of masculine superiority by trying to make Mattie admit she would be afraid.

They talk again about sledding, the reference to coasting foreshadowing their smash-up. Ethan and Mattie also talk about Zeena and the fact that she is dissatisfied with Mattie's abilities to perform the household chores. They both agree that Zeena is unpredictable. Wharton foreshadows Zeena's decision to fire Mattie and get a new girl to do the housework.

Wharton associates the imagery of warmth, summer, and natural life with Mattie: her face seems "like a wheat field under a summer breeze"; her pronunciation of the word "married" seems to invoke "a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades"; and the action of her hands over her sewing resembles birds building their nests.

After being startled once again by the cat jumping out of Zeena's rocker, Ethan realizes that the evening has been much like a dream. He and Mattie have done their best to avoid reality and Ethan feels weary and defeated.

Ethan kisses the material that Mattie is sewing as a gesture of the intimacy of the evening. They go off to bed, realizing that they each have feelings for the other. It is the first moment that Ethan and Mattie convey their true feelings to one another.

Previous Chapters After his wife leaves Mattie and him alone for the night, Mattie uses the red pickle dish which wounds up getting broken by the cat that night. Is this a symbol? Symbolism is when an object is used to mean something other than its original meaning. Throughout the romantic struggle, Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome sacrifices himself to be happy with Mattie Silver but in the process he paves his path towards infinite limbo.

Ethan Frome is introduced as a man who is battered and withering. Upon going into his backstory, we discover his true self. A man who is in a marriage with a woman he has little to no feelings for, Zeena. Mattie Silver is the new woman who he has his eyes on and for her he sacrifices everything but just saves enough to withhold his integrity and obligation. How a man goes about dealing with his past experiences portrays not only his character, but also his true inner self. The main character, Ethan Frome, struggles with the consequences of his decision to marry his wife Zenobia following the loss of his parents.

Ethan made this disastrous decision because of a feeling of obligation from societal pressure and ancestral conservatism. Wharton controls Frome like a puppet throughout the story displaying his perpetual contentions with his mistake-ridden marriage and uses it to power the novel as a whole.

Starkfield, Massachusetts stark meaning, hard, bare, difficult really is an environment that is supposed to be a place of eternal hardship. The winters are long and spring and summer come short. Edith Wharton's book Ethan Frome is the tale of a man, his wife and the woman he falls in love with.

Ethan marries Zeena but falls in love with Mattie who is the opposite of his wife in every way. Where Zeena is sedentary and a sickly woman, Mattie is exciting and lively. In an ironic turn of events the woman he falls in love with transforms into a mirror image of his wife.

Ethan married Zeena, out of fear of being alone for the rest of his life and suffers an unhappy and loveless marriage because of it. Ethan Frome. Plot Summary. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.

The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Edition on Ethan Frome can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols.

Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ethan Frome , which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Ethan looks forward to an evening alone with Mattie , and recalls how warm and inviting the kitchen was in the days when his mother was alive.

He remembers that his mother had been a "talker," until her illness, when she fell silent and began to hear voices. When Zenobia Pierce , his cousin, came to help nurse his mother, Ethan was grateful for the company and conversation, and when his mother died, rather than being alone again he asked Zeena to marry him.

Ethan married Zeena because he was afraid of silence, just as his mother was.