She playfully admits to entertaining Jotham Powell over a cup of coffee, which makes Ethan prickle slightly with jealousy. At supper, the cat jumps up onto the table, upsetting and breaking a pickle dish. Ethan confidently consoles her, balancing the fragments into a convincing whole high atop the closet, where it would be unlikely that Zeena could detect the breakage.
Having averted the disaster, Ethan and Mattie settle back down at the table to finish their supper. As he stares at the gravestone, which memorializes the lives and fifty-year marriage of ethan frome and endurance his wife , Ethan believes his own fate is spelled out before him.
Although Ethan fully recognizes the obstacle that Zeena poses to his happiness, he refuses to act to rectify the situation.
SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols. Important Quotes Explained. Mini Essays Suggested Essay Topics. Summary Chapter iv. Page 1 Page 2. Her jealousy towards Elizabeth for being with Proctor is what drives her to get rid of Elizabeth and take her place. Fust his father—then his mother—then his wife. In a way, Zeena is like a ball and chain clasped on the ankle of Ethan.
As a result, it defines her cold, bitter inner. Wharton specifically characterizes Mattie as summer to display what happens when warmness comes in contact with snow: mud. Mattie takes the reins of the sled and drives the two down the hill.
Ethan longed to possess Mattie, yet all seasons must come to an. When the novel begins, Frome demonstrates his cowardice when confesses that he.
Cinderella wishes to go to the festival, Little Red Riding Hood wants to deliver bread to Granny, and the Baker and his wife want to have a child, even though the witch cursed their lineage.
Janie tries to love Logan, but struggles. When the poem is in the point of view of the man, the poem is more about how the woman is at fault for being unfaithful and she receives consequences for doing so.
When the poem is in the point of view of the woman the poem is about how depressed a woman feels after he left her to be with another woman. In addition, the poems differ in the amount of dialogue present in the poem. By never forgiving his mistake and continually holding him to blame for their boring and unfulfilling marriage, the theme becomes evident.
The theme of Do You Know Where. The snow-flakes on the flowers represent the coldness Paul receives from his teachers because they express their aversion towards him. Similarly, the blossoms are mock by the winter cold Cather.
He now wonders whether or not he would have married Zeena if it had been spring instead of winter. Ethan realizes that his fear of loneliness rather than love for Zeena prompted their marriage. After the death of his father, Ethan had the responsibility of the farm and mill, leaving him little time for establishing relationships with villagers.
When his mother stopped talking, Ethan felt as though the silence would drive him mad. 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.
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