What choice would you make between lust and moral obligation? The same decision faces Ethan Frome in Edith Whartons novella, Ethan Frome. In the novella, Ethan must choose between staying in his hometown of Starkfield with his wife Zeena, or giving into lust and running away with Zeenas cousin and their housekeeper, Mattie Silver. Ethan knows his obligation to stay with Zeena, but he does not actually love her. She has no positive characteristics and brings nothing but restrain and burden to Ethan. Ethan only married her out of fear of lonliness after his mother died. Mattie possesses everything Zeena does not which makes her so desireable to Ethan. Mattie has vitality, grace and beauty. The conflict between Ethans desire and obligation illuminates the novella by portraying a main theme, obligations obstruction of desire.
Ethans complex decision between honoring his obligation to Zeena or giving into desire and running away with Mattie illuminates a main theme of the novella, moral obligations as an obstacle to individual desire. Ethan wishes to run away with and marry Mattie, but his obligation to Zeena keeps him from doing so. Ethan has too strong of values to abandon Zeena and leave her alone on a farm that probably will never sell and too much for a woman as sick as her to tend to. Wharton makes Mattie seem very desirable by describing her positive characteristics such as grace, vitality, and beauty. Wharton portrays Zeena with no positive traits, Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other held a lamp. The light, on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its rings of crimpling-pins (Wharton, 47). Zeenas portrayal paints a bleak and unattractive picture. She has no curvature, a flat chest, a boney face and an old wrinkled face. The large contrast between Mattie and Zeena makes the choice between the two so much harder. Most decent valued men would stay with their wife as opposed to running away with another woman, but Mattie seems so incredible and Zeena seems like the most undesirable woman possible. Ethans desire for Zeena increases more so by spending an evening alone with her as he receives a taste of life with her, But their evening together had given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he was glad now that he had done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the picture (Wharton, 86). A sample of life with Mattie takes Ethans desire for her to a new level. Thus making his choice between Zeena and Mattie that much harder. Ethan never has wonderful evenings with Zeena that resemble his with Mattie. The evening with Mattie made Ethans desire for her exceed simply exchanging mutual feelings with eachother, but it made him want to leave Starkfield and live a new life with her. Because Ethan wants to move away, his decision between Zeena and Mattie becomes more difficult. The consequences also become larger because if Ethan decides to run away, the impact on Zeena becomes more than just hurting her morally. She faces destitution alone in a state in which she cannot work to take care of the farm. Whartons dramatic portrayal of Mattie and Zeena makes the theme of obligation obstructing desire so much more prominent.
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