The Passive and Pitiful Ethan Frome Ethan Frome is a man torn between what he wants to do and what he should do. Life in a rural town can be tough, but when faced with complications it can become almost unbearable. When Ethan decides to marry his distant cousin, Zeena, his life takes a long and lonely road. Ethan's lack of assertiveness and decisive action only makes his already lonely and stressful life worse. Although he is too smart for rural life, Ethan finds himself in the shoes of an average man. Leaving any opportunity to become someone in life, Ethan returns to Starkfield to care for his ailing mother and tend to their farm (Wharton 29). Rather than live a lonely life after his mother's death, Ethan asks Zeena to stay with him, which turns out to be his first mistake (Wharton, 29). As soon as his mother died, Ethan was supposed to ask Zeena to leave and sell her farm. His love of learning and passion for engineering could have led Ethan to a much better life. Unfortunately, he feels forced to stay with Zeena, thus ending any hope for a better life. Zeena's disturbances were nothing more than a way to get the attention of Ethan and everyone else in Starkfield. Zeena wastes precious money to buy an electric battery to help her overcome her "disease", but can never figure out how to use it (Wharton, 26); He spends too much money buying unnecessary medicines when he knows money is hard to come by. Being the man of the house, Ethan should have expressed the fact that his ailments were a factor in his poverty. Instead Ethan goes on day after day doing what he has to do and what Zeena tells him. Unfortunately for Ethan,...... middle of paper...controllable circumstances brought him home, he was the one who chose to stay and risked losing all hope for the life he had dreamed of. Ethan's decision to be with Zeena only made his already terrible life worse. When Mattie finally arrives, it's almost as if a small weight has been lifted from Ethan's shoulders and he is almost allowed to live again. Lacking the ability to make decisions, Ethan makes his life worse by letting things pass; and by not resisting Zeena, the result leaves Ethan more desperate and alone than before. Works cited and consulted: Bell, Millicent. Edith Wharton's Cambridge Companion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Springer, Marlene. Ethan Frome: a nightmare of necessity. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome. New York: Penguin Group, 1993.