Ethan Frome, the main character in the book entitled Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton, has many complex problems going on at the same time. His family has died and he has a wife that is continually sick, and the only form of happiness he has is from his wife's cousin Mattie. This, however, at times proves to be hard because of Ethan's wifes interference. Nothing seems to be going in Ethan's favor. The main theme …showed first 75 words of 648 total…

…showed last 75 words of 648 total…his wife, the injured Mattie, and broken dreams. In these three ways, of marrying the wrong person, not being able to stand up to his wife, and incidents that come from the smash up, proves that the main theme of the book is failure. It seemed that everything Ethan tried to do, worked against his favor. With all the incidents that happened it seemed inevitable that his life would always be a string of failure.