Winter is connected to death in the circle of life. Compared to his mother, Zeena is a shining light in the middle of darkness. Ethan was close to going crazy himself, but Zeena shows up and fills the silence with her voice. He felt that he might have ‘gone like his mother’ if the sound of a new voice had not come to steady him’ (29). The narrator writes, “After the mortal silence of his long imprisonment, Zeena’s volubility was music to his ears. After being stuck in a house with a mother who is mentally unstable, Zeena’s presence fills Ethan with a sense of comfort. Ethan’s dad died, and his mother is sick, so Zeena comes to help. Zeena is brought into Ethan’s life, and he falls for her because it is winter. Edith Wharton portrays Ethan as a victim of his social and physical environments because he acts differently due to the long winters in Starkfield and social situation. We are all affected by how others act, and we learn and grow from the people around us. People grow up learning from the ones around them. His own personal choices have led him to where he is now, but this is not true. Some say that his change occurred within himself. In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, Ethan is a dark character whos past alters how he looks at life.
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