Ethan Frome's Sympathetic Zenobia - Essay Sample

Introduction

Edith Wharton wrote the novel, Ethan Frome, in 1911. Wharton has set her novel in a fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts, in an era where cousin marriages were legal. In the earlier days before the industrial revolution, people used to marry their cousins. It was a norm purposing to increase the same bloodline; thus, people could not travel far from home searching for marriage partners. With industrialization, the Americans developed the railway and other forms of development that necessitated marriage outside their families as a form of geographical dispersal. The shift in social norms led to legalities in some states such as Massachusetts, making cousin marriages illegal and immoral.

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In her novel, Wharton has narrated the story of Ethan, a former stagecoach driver who had dreams of becoming an engineer but the death of his father and mother’s illness shattered them. Ethan marries Zenobia (also known as Zeena), the nurse looking after his mother, and realizes that he does not have any affection towards her. He starts struggling in his marriage life, losing focus in life until when he meets Mattie, Zenobia’s cousin, and he falls in love with her. The love is illegal and immoral, necessitating them to commit suicide by crashing their sled to a tree. They survive the fatal accident but end up as disabled people and rely on Zenobia for their wellbeing. Thus, many characters in the novel have shown sympathy for their friends and family members, including Ethan, Zeena, Mattie, and the Hale family. In the case of Zeena and Mattie, the former is more sympathetic than the latter because the circumstances that Zeena undergoes through in the novel are devastating, yet she manages to remain sympathetic to those who wrong her.

Zeena as a Sympathetic Woman

Zeena depicts sympathy when she decides to become the nurse of Ethan’s mother. After the death of Ethan’s father, his cup of trouble began to fill up with the sickness of his mother and him dropping out of school. Ethan was lonely and had no slightest idea of the sick-bed duties. Zeena, his cousin, then decides to come over and help him in nursing his mother. It takes much sympathy to travel from one valley to another to offer nursing services to your aunt without pay. When Zeena arrives, she tells Ethan to go for a walk instead of straining with his mother’s sick-bed duties since she could manage them all. It is Ethan’s mother who is sick, and when she tells him to leave his responsibilities, it portrays the deep sympathy she had on Ethan. She relieves Ethan’s troubles and brings the sense of life back to him, where the narrator says that “he felt that he might have “gone like his mother” if the sound of a new voice had not come to steady him” (Wharton 3). Therefore, Zeena decides to marry Ethan because she sympathizes with him rather done loving him. Zeena realized that her presence gave Ethan life, and her absence could break him with several sick-bed and household responsibilities.

Zeena also sympathizes with Mattie when she asks Ethan to give her a chance to exercise dancing. Before Mattie comes to stay with the Fromes as an aide to the sickly Zeena, she used to stay alone in their Starkfield farm after losing her parents. She was ever lonely, and when she comes to help Zeena, of course, without payment, Zeena feels that it would be nice of them to let her spend the evening practicing dancing with other dancers. Thus, Zeena sympathized with her young cousin’s lonely life. Zeena did not want her to feel obliged to all the responsibilities in their home without any pleasure. Furthermore, Zeena shows sympathy when she asks Ethan to carry Mattie home after every dancing session. Zeena knew that Mattie was a young woman and much danger lurking in the dark for her; thus, she needs a person to give her company during the journey back home.

Furthermore, Zeena, in her sick condition, depicts sympathy when she takes care of Ethan and Mattie after their accident. After the death of Ethan’s mother, Zeena becomes sickly, and it becomes the responsibility of Ethan to look after her. However, despite being in her critical condition, Zeena sympathizes with her husband because of the injuries he gets from the accident and goes to stay with him at the minister’s house. She wants to look after her husband because she possesses medical skills even though she lacks the physical ability to help him. Mrs. Hales states that:

“…I never knew myself what Zeena thought—I don’t to this day. Nobody knows Zeena’s thoughts. Anyhow, when she heard o’ the accident, she came right in and stayed with Ethan over to the minister’s, where they’d carried him. And as soon as the doctors said that Mattie could be moved, Zeena sent for her and took her back to the farm” (Wharton 5)

Furthermore, Zeena sent for Mattie when she heard that her condition had improved, and she could move to come and stay with them at their farm. Zeena sympathizes with her young cousin, thinking that she could not stay alone at her Starkfield farm. She had lost her parents, meaning that she had to stay alone, and as a disabled person, she needed help. It is out of compassion that she decides to stay with her and Ethan.

On the other hand, Mattie is also a sympathetic individual because of the critical decisions in the novel. Mattie leaves her farm to come and take care of her sickly cousin, Zeena. It is the sympathy that she has for her suffering that makes to travel and leave her privileges behind to act as an aid for her cousin. She also works without payment because her purpose was to help and not financial gains.

Conclusion

To sum it up, Zeena is a more sympathetic woman in Wharton’s Ethan Frome than Mattie. Zeena takes care of Ethan and Mattie after the accident because of sympathy and love. It is hard for a suffering person to put aside their pain and look after their ailing family members. She sympathizes with them and wants to help them because she had nursing skills.

Work Cited

Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome. Project Gutenberg. 2010. http://gutenberg.org/files/4517/4517-h/4517-h.htm