<p>I think I'm about to blow a gasket, seriously. I hate when I spend an entire day writing an essay and think it sounds like crap. Advice and harsh criticism is needed on how I can revise my essay to assess all parts of the prompt. Thank you.</p>
<p>Choose a literary work in which a character confronts the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his/her responsibilities. In a well written essay, show clearly the nature of the conflict, its effect on the characters, and its significance to the work.</p>
<pre><code>Our vision of true happiness and contentment lies in our ability to communicate our true feelings to others and follow in the direction which our hearts lead us. When we are unable to achieve joy, it is because we have risked war; a battle between our sacred passions and claimed responsibilities. In Edith Whartons Ethan Frome, protagonist Ethan Frome endures a conflict which can offer him utmost happiness. However, Ethans vision for happiness is blurred by his commitment to his wife Zeena and compounded by his own inarticulateness.
Ethans vision of true happiness lies in his wifes younger cousin, Mattie. He passionately loves Mattie but is stuck in a loveless marriage to his ailing wife Zeena. The author often contrasts both women using light and dark images. When Ethan views Zeena, he sees her flat breast, puckered throat, and the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face. Not only is Zeena physically unattractive to Ethan, but she is also emotionally disconnected, for Zeena, herself, from an oppressive reality, had faded into an insubstantial shade. However, in Mattie, Ethan finds human contact and companionship. He feels that the coming to his house of a bit of hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth. Mattie gives Ethan the attention which his wife doesnt give, and offers him youth and vitality which his wife lacks. When Ethan walks Mattie home from a dance in Chapter 2, he is filled with a vision of him and Mattie living happily together and dying by each others side, for the wave of warmth that went through him was like the prolongation of his vision. When Zeena overnights at the doctors and Ethan and Mattie are left alone, his struggle to acquiesce to his feelings is tested. He does not, however, articulate his feelings to Mattie. Instead, he avoids the topic. While at the dinner table, the two sit relatively in silence until Zeenas cat breaks the red pickle dish. This incidence is symbolic of Ethans shattered marriage, not simply because of his love for Mattie, but also because his guilt of being unfaithful to his wife and not admitting his genuine emotions to her begins to imprison him.
As the novel progresses, Ethans vision begins to blur. He is unsuccessful in his attempt to mend the broken red pickle dish, symbolic of his own thwarted desire to mend his marriage. The atmosphere around him darkens as he [gazes] blankly about the kitchen, which [looks] cold and squalid in the rainy winter twilight. He begins to see what life will be like if no changes take place; he wants to leave Zeena but cant bring himself to do so. Ethans passiveness takes a toll on his wife. Unable to bear her own loneliness and presumptions about Ethan and Matties affair, Zeena announces to Ethan that [Dr. Buck] wants I should have a hired girl. In essence, Zeenas announcement is a cue for Ethan to confess his passion for Mattie. Yet again, hes stifled by his own inarticulateness. When Zeena expresses her reasoning for letting go of Mattie, that [shes] kep her here a whole year: its somebody elses turn now, Ethan acquiesces to her wish simply because Mattie is Zeenas blood relation, not his. Ethan continues to make excuses for his cowardly acts and even begins to blame Zeena saying that, she had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all others. With hatred welling for his wife, Ethan settles to write her a letter in which he explains, Im going to try my luck West, and you can sell the farm and mill, and keep the money However, Ethan is plagued by his own compassion and empathy for Zeena. Though he wants to live happily with Mattie, he cant visualize abandoning a penniless and sick Zeena at the farm who could never carry such a burden alone. Ethan knows that his responsibility lies with his wife, but this thought imprisons him. He is, after all, a prisoner for life, whos one ray of light [is] to be extinguished.
Only at the novels end does Ethan finally attempt to take charge of his life and his feelings for Mattie, but the effects are damaging. On the day Mattie departs, Ethan offers to drive her to the train station, an act that certainly displeases Zeena. He and Mattie finally admit their feelings for one another but unable to part with each other, Mattie proposes a suicide pact to coast into the big elm. At this point, Ethans vision is completely lost, for he strained his eyes through the dimness, and they seemed less keen, less capable than usual. Ethans depression and hopelessness embodies him, and he can no longer see a way out of his situation. Once again, Ethan becomes compliant with lifes events, closing off all possibilities for his own happiness. Rather than looking at the alternatives that Zeena may grow strong without him or that in the West, Mattie and he may be able to make enough money to send to Zeena, Ethan simply endures his own fate. As Mattie and Ethan coast into the elm, Ethans vision of seeing Zeena instead of the elm is symbolic not only because Ethan is haunted of his own infidelity, but also because Ethan is formally introduced to a truth: he will never attain that which he always wanted true happiness.
The accident leaves Mattie paralyzed and Ethan disfigured. Zeena, however, is the only one whose health restores. This taunts Ethan because he now has a clear vision and can see that he must live the rest of his life in misery with his newly recovered wife, and her now sick cousin. Ethan is haunted everyday by his inability to express his love for Mattie to his wife. Perhaps he wouldve been vindicated. Perhaps he wouldve been relieved of his struggle. But now he's lost the battle and has become a prisoner of his own inarticulateness; a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe.
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