Zeena seems to be the character that changes the least — from beginning to end she is healthy when she has sick people to care for, and unhealthy when she doesn't.
We also get the idea that from beginning to end she doesn't have the best bedside manner. The question is why did she decide to take care of Mattie and Ethan? Was it out of sympathy, love, vengeance, shame, or duty? Or was it for some other reason? Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By Edith Wharton. Previous Next. Zeena Frome Zeena and the Narrator's Bias We know that the narrator is entirely biased and that he portrays everything the way he imagines Ethan must have seen it see " Narrator Point of View " for more specifics.
Nurse or Patient? What's Up With the Ending? Tired of ads? Join today and never see them again. He felt that he might have "gone like his mother" if the sound of a new voice had not come to steady him.
Related Themes: Determinism and Free Will. Page Number and Citation : 37 Cite this Quote. He recalled his mother's growing taciturnity, and wondered if Zeena were also turning "queer. Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the pathological chart of the whole region, had cited many cases of the kind while she was nursing his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely farm-houses in the neighborhood where stricken creatures pined, and of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence.
At times, looking at Zeena's shut face, he felt the chill of such forebodings. At other times her silence seemed deliberately assumed to conceal far-reaching intentions, mysterious conclusions drawn from suspicions and resentments impossible to guess. Page Number and Citation : 39 Cite this Quote. She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child's.
Then, striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows. Page Number and Citation : 43 Cite this Quote. Chapter 5 Quotes. It was almost as if the other face, the face of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder.
Page Number and Citation : 48 Cite this Quote. Chapter 7 Quotes. She was no longer the listless creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding. It was the sense of his helplessness that sharpened his antipathy. There had never been anything in her that one could appeal to; but as long as he could ignore and command he had remained indifferent.
Now she had mastered him and he abhorred her. All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred his way. She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others. Page Number and Citation : Cite this Quote. Chapter 8 Quotes. Must he wear out all his years at the side of a bitter querulous woman?
Other possibilities had been in him, possibilities sacrificed, one by one, to Zeena's narrow-mindedness and ignorance. And what good had come of it? She was a hundred times bitterer and more discontented than when he had married her: the one pleasure left her was to inflict pain on him. Page Number and Citation : 72 Cite this Quote. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Chapter 1. She now helps Ethan's sickly wife Zeena with household chores in exchange for room and board.
To make the transition from city Recently, however, Zeena pointed out to Ethan how inefficiently Mattie does the housework.
Ethan tried to cover up Chapter 2. Mattie will be leaving the Frome household. Mattie, however, thinks that Ethan is referring to Zeena 's dissatisfaction with the way she does the housework.
Mattie is clearly distressed at the prospect A dead cucumber vine dangling from the porch reminds Ethan that if Zeena were to die, he and Mattie would be free to marry. The key that Zeena normally leaves under the doormat isn't there, and the guilty lovers experience a moment of Chapter 3. The red sunrise reminds him of the rosy color of Mattie's cheeks.
In contrast to Zeena 's constant discontent, Mattie's positive attitude seems remarkable to him, considering how difficult her life has The next morning, Zeena informs Ethan that she is going to Bettsbridge to consult a new doctor and stay At the last minute, in order to buy more time with Mattie, Ethan lies to Zeena —he says he needs to collect payment for the delivery of lumber from his mill to Chapter 4.
When Zenobia Pierce , his cousin, came to help nurse his mother, Ethan was grateful for the company She suppresses her husband in everything; she is simply a house tyrant. Zenobia manipulates her husband with the help of her illness. On the other hand, she is completely egoistic and negative. Zeena kicks out Mattie knowing that she has nowhere to go.
Zenobia is a silent, reserved, and perceptive person. She is always unhappy and boring. However, we see her need to care for others. She carried the mother of her husband.
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