The novel "Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton expresses that the influence of circumstances can affect aspects of a person's life, just as was the case with the Ethan Frome's character. For example, Ethan inherited the family farm and sawmill while facing the adversity of maintaining farming while remaining true to his family traditions. Second, Ethan will experience his parents' unhappiness, self-sacrifice, an unpleasant marriage, and the emotions of human desire; furthermore, test his character. The novel will have symbolic meanings throughout the story to symbolize events in American society shared in its history and based on the life experiences of individuals. For these reasons, Ethan's life is unique, it resembles the different types of experiences that America and its society faces. The Frome family farm did not have a reputation as a wealthy plantation that thrived with many fields of cultivation, nor did it have a reputation as a wealthy plantation. wealth of animals grazing on the property. For example, Starkfield's neighbors viewed the farm as "always an empty milk pan when the cat was around" (Walton, par. 19) and this analogy provided the history of the Frome farmlands. The farmland of a family with a reputation of this magnitude is extremely negative, as American farmers' expression of "an agrarian-capitalist ideology" (Sweet, par. 3) corresponded to their mercantile relationships for social stability and politics. Ethan would work hard and struggle being so poor; however, his work at the sawmill “barely paid enough to support his house through the winter” (Walton, para. 18). No matter the difficulties, Ethan would face what he had inherited and remain humble in the face of what he had to work with. The Fromes family was dysfunctional; he...... middle of paper......to achieve this. In conclusion, Ethan Frome's unique life resembles different turbulent experiences that America and its society share. Works Cited Jacoby, Dan. "Looking Back at Labor in the United States." Working in America 3.5 (2000): 27. ProQuest. Internet. April 9, 2014. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/docview/236486399?accountid=8289Sweet, Timothy. “American Pastoralism and the Market: Eighteenth-Century Agricultural Ideologies.” Early American Literature 29.1 (1994): 59. ProQuest. Internet. April 24, 2014. Thumé, Elaine, MSc, et al. “The use of home care by older people in the primary health care system of Brazil.” American Journal of Public Health 101.5 (2011): 868-74. ProQuest. Internet. April 26, 2014. Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome. Project Gutenberg by Ethan Frome. January 8, 2013. Web April 9, 2014. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4517/4517-h/4517-hh