Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a great example of this. One theme from the story is that you might not be able to obtain whatever you want in life. Ethan is very unhappy with the way is life is bound. He is very unhappy with his marriage, which was destined to be a failure in the first place. The only reason Ethan marries Zenna is that she had come to take care of his …showed first 75 words of 625 total…

…showed last 75 words of 625 total…with Mattie that he once hoped for. Nothing had changed for Ethan Frome; his life was just as it was before. This situation in this story is also very realistic in real life, people feel trapped in loveless marriages, meet someone they love, but in the end, they are left with less than what they had in the beginning. Ethan Frome personally found out that you can not always have what you desire in life.