All of us have things in our lives we dislike performing, but we must do them on a daily basis because they are part of our existence. Marriage or a relationship with another person should not be a task. It should be a full measurement of enjoyment and pleasure. In Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, the main character, Ethan Frome, is in a marriage that renders little pleasure or enjoyment. He detests his life and his wife, but falls prey to the belief he is in love with someone he cannot attain. Ethan perceived his life to be unsatiated and because of this his life was out of control and near tragic.
             You could call Ethan Frome your average man for his time. He had nothing to smile about. He was fairly poor and was married to a woman he despised. Ethan and his wife, Zeena, were married not for love, but almost as a payoff for Zeena's services to Ethan's ill and dying mother. He hated his bond with Zeena ever since they said "I do." The two had only been married for seven years and positive comments about the couple from the townspeople made him sick. On one occasion Andrew Hale reminded Ethan how it was not too long ago since they fixed up a place for he and Zeena to live. On Ethan's way home from Hale's home, "He reflected that his seven years with Zeena seemed to Starkfield "not so long "" (p.56) Ethan was always complaining about his relationship with his wife. Probably even after their wedding day. He was the root of his own misery, not Zeena. After all, he had married her.
             A miserable wife, a terrible life. What could make it better for poor Ethan Frome? The infatuation with a woman he could never have? Mattie was Zeena's distant relative who stayed with the pitiful couple, and helped around the house. Mattie made Ethan's life so much more worthwhile, or so he thought. "It was the first time that Mattie had ever written to him, and
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