Feeling Humiliated And Degraded, Jews Have Fought For Freedom During The Holocaust Even Now, Albanians Are Fighting For Freed

Feeling humiliated and degraded, Jews have fought for freedom during the Holocaust. Even now, Albanians are fighting for freedom from Serbians in the Middle East. Fighting for freedom is a ubiquitous scene that pivots from a will to gain liberation of one’s body, mind, and soul. Despite all the effort, many fail when faced with stagnation, and often never dream of being free again. The main characters Ethan Frome and Janie Crawford, in the novels Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, serve as exemplars of the fight for freedom. Both characters lead dismal and unsatisfied lives and struggle against their fate, spouses, and society, to be with their “true love”. Immersed in guilt, Ethan fails to achieve his dream, while Janie, with her selfishness, breaks free from two spouses and lives in utopia for a short while.

In the two novels, Ethan Frome and Janie Crawford are born with unpropitious fates. Janie has trouble identifying herself as a black girl because she “was wid them white chillun so much”, and strives to build a prosperous life for herself (Hurston 8). Reality, in which “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world”, has made Janie’s Nanny a materialistic woman, who wants her grand daughter to be affluent (Hurston 14). In these adverse conditions, Janie continues to struggle for her dream. Ethan Frome also faces fateful dilemmas in his youth. “His father’s death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature end to Ethan’s studies”(Wharton 21). Ethan’s mother soon follows her husband to death, and Ethan becomes perplexed and miserable with the burden of the farm. “Before he knew what he was doing he had asked her [Zeena] to stay there [on the farm] with him. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter…”(Wharton 35). By fate Ethan marries the cold and indifferent Zeena, and Janie finds herself struggling against her Nanny’s wishes.

Another hindrance in the characters’ struggle for liberation is their lack of love for their spouses. Janie’s first husband had “stopped talkin in rhymes to her. He has ceased to wonder at her long black hair and finger it”(Hurston 25). Despite all the effort, Janie is unable to love her first husband Logan Killicks, with whom she was forced to marry. When Janie meets Joe Starks, her second husband, she runs away from Killicks believing that Starks is her true love. However, Janie learns that Starks had married her for her beauty and does not care about the fiery person inside, but is rather oppressive. Once again Janie struggles for freedom from her domineering husband, and is able to leave only after his death. Having married Zeena because of his fear of being lonely, Ethan faces identical problems as Janie does. Ethan fails to fall in love with his wife, and when she too becomes sick, as his mother had been, Ethan is encumbered financially and at heart. When Zeena realizes Ethan’s fondness of their helper Mattie, she threatens to send Mattie away. Ethan tries “to think of such things without a revolt of his whole being,” but cannot, and Zeena mashes his determination (Wharton 61). At the end, Ethan with Mattie, and Janie with Tea Cake, both experience happiness that is quickly crumpled by the tragic accident, and the death of Tea Cake.

The societies that Janie and Ethan live in also play a part in stopping the characters from pursuing their happiness. Janie’s society “chewed up the back part of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with question, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty” (Hurston 2). The townspeople also mock Janie for being idealistic and are jealous of her beauty. Instead of helping Janie out of her misery, women try to make her life harsher to endure. Ethan’s case was the same. Ethan’s neighbors think “there was something bleak and unapproachable in his face” (Wharton 3). Ethan’s bleak appearance scare off the neighbors who are detached from his desperate need for help. Having been isolated, Janie and Ethan learn to become independent and sagacious. Janie uses this wisdom to marry Tea Cake and fulfill her dream. However, Ethan is suppressed by society and his own conscience, and fails to run away from his agony, ending up in a situation that is more miserable.

Ethan Frome and Janie Crawford have distressing lives that are caused by fate, spouses, and society. They both have an inauspicious fate followed by cold-hearted spouses and society. Although Janie finds happiness for a while, both characters exemplify those who fight arduously for freedom, but fail to succeed. However, their losses and failures are not brought on by themselves, but only by other natural causes, which is why they are still hopeful at the end, knowing that “the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She [they] knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up” (Hurston 24). Through this one can infer that one should persevere to achieve one’s dreams, and that giving everything to seize the goal, as Janie did, will be worthwhile, whereas not making one’s own decisions, as Ethan did, will lead to living in misery, never to gain freedom.

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