EDITH WHARTON: THE AUTHOR AND HER TIMES 

It's hard to imagine a less likely author for Ethan Frome than
Edith Wharton, for this story of a poverty-stricken, lonely
farmer was written by a wealthy, middle-aged member of New York
City's high society. 

Edith Wharton probably never spent a day of her life inside the
sort of poor New England farmhouse occupied by Ethan, his wife
Zeena, and their boarder Mattie Silver.  It's a world she
visited only in her imagination.  Even so, she draws a realistic
picture of the dark, cramped, cheerless rooms of the Fromes'
living quarters.  And her portrayal of poor farm people has the
ring of truth. 

Soon after Ethan Frome was published, a friend of Wharton's
reported that she and the author had once driven around the
Berkshire hills.  They had paused briefly near a run-down farm.
Wharton looked at the battered, unpainted house and littered
yard and said she intended to write a story about a place like
that.  Moreover, Wharton claimed to have spent "an hour" at a
Lenox, Massachusetts meetinghouse observing the speech and
manner of the local citizens, and trying to imagine what their
lives must be like.  But whether Edith Wharton ever spoke with
them, shared a meal with them, or visited them in their homes is
not known.  It's not very probable because the social gap was
just too wide. 

Wharton was accustomed to life on New York's fashionable Fifth
Avenue.  At least that's where she was born Edith Jones on
January 24, 1862.  To avoid the turmoil of the Civil War, her
parents--George and Lucretia Jones took their family to Europe,
where life was safer.  Before she was ten, Wharton had lived in
Rome and Paris.  She had toured Spain and Germany and wintered
on the French Riviera. 

The Jones family returned to New York in 1872 and settled into
their East Side brownstone.  Instead of going to school, Wharton
had tutors.  Instead of a circle of friends her own age, Wharton
had her family.  And instead of the usual toys and amusements of
most children, Wharton had her father's ample library, where she
read hungrily. 

In the 1870s girls of Wharton's social class generally did what
their parents told them to do.  What filled her parents' lives
filled Edith's too:  Parisian fashions, planning dinner parties
and balls, the problems with maids and butlers, where to spend
the holidays--the rituals of a plush red-velvet life. 

One thing that set Wharton apart from other society girls was
her love of writing.  She made up stories and wrote poetry.
Offered the choice of an evening with books and writing paper or
going to a party, Wharton would probably have stayed home.  She
felt shy and uncomfortable with strangers and grew bored with
dinner-table and drawing-room conversation.  Books and learning
delighted her more than the social whirl. 

Soon after her society debut Wharton's father fell ill.  Hoping
to regain his health in a milder climate, he took the family to
southern Europe.  Wharton's time on the continent opened her
eyes to the world.  She met cultured Europeans who talked about
art, books, and ideas.  With them, Wharton felt at home and soon
built a reputation as an intelligent and witty young woman. 

At twenty-three Wharton met and married Edward "Teddy" Wharton,
a friend of her brother.  It's hard to imagine a more mismatched
couple.  He loved the out-of-doors and the life of a sportsman,
while she cared for books, European culture, and scholarship.
Do opposites attract?  Perhaps they do, but in this case the
attraction wore off quickly.  The marriage was a failure, but
divorce was out of the question--too scandalous for people of
the Whartons' stature.  Instead, Edith and Teddy lived in misery
for the better part of thirty years.  At last in 1913, Edith
overcame her sense of duty to her husband.  She cast aside fears
of being considered a "divorced woman," and ended her
marriage. 

Except for a few fanciful romances, Wharton's early works spring
chiefly from her experience and thought.  Many readers have also
noted the influence of the American writer Henry James
(1843-1916) on both the form and content of Wharton's works.
Some of Wharton's writing is set in Europe, where she and Teddy
lived for months each year.  They concern the artist's place in
society and contrast European and American culture.  Others are
tales of cheating husbands, marital conflict, and, in The House
of Mirth (1905), an ambitious woman's struggle to achieve wealth
and position in New York society.  With The House of Mirth
Wharton became a celebrity.  Within two months of publication
the novel broke sales records, and Wharton was assured of a
permanent place among the best American authors. 

In spite of general discord, Wharton and her husband enjoyed a
few periods of harmony.  In 1901 they decided to design and
build a wonderful country house in Lenox, Massachusetts.  They
called it "The Mount," and lived in the house on and off for
several years.  Wharton portrayed the Lenox area when she wrote
Ethan Frome, published in 1911.  Starkfield, the small farming
village in the novel, is much like any of numerous little towns
that dot the New England countryside.  Although much of Ethan's
story takes place in winter, the Whartons never spent a winter
at The Mount.  Wharton never knew firsthand the harrowing cold
and bleak landscape, which weigh so heavily on Ethan and the
other characters. 

But Wharton knew much too well the frustration of a failed
marriage--such as Ethan and Zeena's.  Teddy Wharton was thirteen
years older than his wife and a totally unsuitable mate for her.
She bored him, and he scoffed at her literary and intellectual
pursuits.  Meanwhile, she found Teddy shallow, about as exciting
as a kitchen stool. 

When Teddy's health began to fail, the marriage became still
more strained.  He crabbed and complained much of the time.  In
fits of temper he verbally abused his wife.  Twice he suffered
nervous breakdowns.  For the record Edith Wharton told the story
of her marriage in various writings, including her literary
autobiography, A Backward Glance (1934).  Since Teddy didn't
write, we don't know his side of the story.  If Edith's version
is accurate, though, she wins our sympathy as the wronged
partner in the marriage, just as most readers sympathize with
Ethan Frome for being stuck with Zeena, his sickly, ill-tempered
wife.  But Ethan's is also a one-sided story.  We can only guess
what Zeena thinks about him by reading between the lines. 

It seems certain, however, that Ethan Frome is a product of
Edith Wharton's long and serious contemplation of the mutual
obligations of marriage partners.  Ethan chose to die rather
than stay with his spouse.  That wasn't a satisfactory solution
for Wharton, though.  In 1913, two years after Ethan Frome was
published, she filed for divorce. 

Ethan Frome surprised Edith Wharton's fans because it differed
from all her previous books.  Its heartbreaking story gripped
the reading public, and the book became very popular.  However,
some critics didn't like it.  Many thought that Wharton
shouldn't have strayed from her themes of New York society.
Ethan, they claimed, was not a New Englander, and Starkfield was
not the New England they knew.  Snow in New England is not
somber; it is vibrant and bright and makes your cheeks rosy.
They felt that the forlorn landscape of the novel belonged
somewhere else. 

Nevertheless, Ethan's powerful tragedy has attracted readers
from that day to the present.  The book continues to be widely
read and reread.  It also marked a crossroads in Edith Wharton's
writing career, for she discovered that she could write books
which were different from the novels of manners that had made
her famous. 

In The Custom of the Country (1913) Wharton took her readers to
the Midwest, to New York, and to France, intending to poke fun
at wealthy but coarse people.  Perhaps she had her ex-husband in
mind.  She spent most of the World War I years in Paris, giving
generously of her time and money to care for French children
displaced by the war.  Out of this experience came a book
describing her relief work, Fighting France, From Dunkerque to
Belfort (1915), and two novels, The Marne (1918) and A Son at
the Front (1923). 

Edith Wharton remained abroad after the war and rarely stopped
writing.  She completed dozens of additional novels before her
death in 1937 in France.  One of them, The Age of Innocence, has
achieved the status of an American classic.  Published in 1920,
the book won the Pulitzer Prize.  Here Wharton returned to the
world she knew best, the loftiest circle of New York society in
the 1870s.  Rather than presenting life in old New York
sentimentally, however, she points out its faults.  Despite its
setting, The Age of Innocence is not an old-fashioned novel.
People continue to read it.  Like Ethan Frome it contains a
story that Edith Wharton prepared to write during much of her
life. 

Critics generally agree that the novels Wharton wrote during the
last part of her career fall short of excellence.  Perhaps she
couldn't adapt her craft to the modern American scene.  At the
same time, however, she produced some first-rate short stories.
A collection of Edith Wharton's complete works fills several
library shelves.  While browsing among those books, you'll
surely find some of the best American literature of the
twentieth century. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  THE PLOT 

If you've ever been lonely, even when surrounded by others, you
know just how Ethan Frome felt most of his life.  An intense,
painful loneliness does things to you:  You lose confidence; you
feel sorry for yourself; you blame others for your pain.  And
sometimes, if you hurt as much as Ethan, you consider doing away
with yourself. 

Most of Ethan's story takes place during a winter many years ago
in a small farm community in New England.  In those days it was
easy to be lonely.  Long workdays left little time for fun.
Cold and snow kept you from seeing your neighbors and friends
for long stretches of time. 

When you first meet Ethan, he's fifty-two years old.  From his
looks, though, you'd think he was much older.  His shoulders
sag, he limps, and his face is grim.  Every day he comes to
town, checks the post office for mail (he rarely has any), says
barely a word to anyone, and drives off again. 

Ethan's odd looks and behavior arouse the curiosity of a young
stranger, in town to do an engineering job for the local power
company.  By chance, during a terrible blizzard the man finds
overnight refuge in Ethan's house.  Later, he tells you what he
has discovered about Ethan. 

Ethan, at eighteen, is a bright, eager scholar.  He goes to
college to study physics and natural science, but he drops out
after a year because his father is killed in an accident.  At
that point Ethan loses whatever chances he has to escape the
quiet and solitary life of a poor farmer.  The family farm and
sawmill become his responsibilities. 

In spite of very hard work year after year, he earns barely
enough to support himself and his mother.  As his mother's
health worsens, he neglects the farm and mill to care for her.
But finally help arrives.  Zeena Pierce, a cousin from the next
valley, comes to nurse the old woman during her last illness.
Fearing loneliness after his mother's death, Ethan asks Zeena to
marry him, which she does. 

But within a year Ethan knows that he has made a mistake.  Zeena
becomes chronically ill.  As a semi-invalid, she does little
more than nag and complain.  Despite his return to misery, Ethan
does his duty.  He struggles to keep the farm and mill going.
What money he earns goes to pay for Zeena's doctors and for
medicines that never seem to work. 

After six depressing years something happens to change Ethan's
life forever.  Mattie Silver, a distant cousin of Zeena's, moves
in to help Zeena with the household chores.  To Ethan, Mattie is
a breath of spring--cheerful, kind, and pretty.  Also, she
admires Ethan's knowledge of nature.  He falls for her
immediately. 

Zeena, however, fails to appreciate Mattie's qualities.  In
fact, Mattie just doesn't meet Zeena's expectations as a
housekeeper.  When Zeena threatens to dismiss her, you can
imagine how Ethan objects.  However, he can't speak up for
Mattie too forcefully because he can't let Zeena know how
attached he has become to the girl.  His greatest worry is that
she already knows. 

Although Ethan wants to tell Mattie his feelings, he can't
because he's tongue-tied.  Adding to his misery, he's jealous of
every young man who smiles at Mattie or dances with her at a
church social.  Meanwhile, Mattie conceals her feelings toward
him.  Since neither knows what the other feels, Ethan, at least,
agonizes in uncertainty. 

About a year after Mattie's arrival, Zeena goes overnight to
Bettsbridge to visit a cousin and to consult a new doctor.
Ethan is thrilled to be rid of her, even for twenty-four hours.
One thing bothers him, however.  On her trip Zeena is sure to
spend too much money on medical treatment.  Now for the first
time he wishes Zeena would die. 

That evening at home, alone with Mattie for once, Ethan enjoys
the illusion of being married to her.  But the beauty of the
evening is marred by a slight accident.  Zeena's cat knocks her
mistress' favorite and most valued glass pickle-dish off the
dinner table.  Mattie is horrified because she knows that Zeena
never used the dish, not even for important occasions.  Although
Ethan assures Mattie that he will glue the dish together the
next day, Zeena returns before he can do it.  When she finds the
dish in pieces, she berates Ethan and insults Mattie. 

Zeena brings bad news from the doctor.  Her condition is so
grave that she must do absolutely no work in the house.
Therefore, she announces, she's hired a new girl who will arrive
tomorrow evening. 

Ethan explodes.  Angry words spew from his lips.  He thinks
Zeena's sickness is part of a scheme to keep him in poverty and
to force Mattie out of the house.  He almost hits Zeena, but
holds back at the last instant. 

Mattie must leave.  Of that there is no doubt because once Zeena
has made up her mind, that's it!  Mattie, however, has no place
to go.  The best she can do is return alone to her hometown and
hope to find some type of work. 

Late that night Ethan makes a decision.  He's going to run away
with Mattie the next day.  He'll take her to the West, find
work, divorce Zeena, and start all over again.  He starts to
write a goodbye letter to Zeena but stops cold when he realizes
that he doesn't have the money to go West. 

One last hope to raise money occurs to him.  Mr.  Hale, a
builder in town, owes him for a lumber delivery.  The bill is
due in three months, but Ethan will lie to Hale.  He'll say that
Zeena's illness necessitates immediate payment.  Then, with the
money in his pocket, he and Mattie will escape to the West. 

On his way to collect, Ethan meets Mrs.  Hale, the builder's
wife.  She knows about Zeena's latest illness and praises Ethan
for standing by Zeena through all her years of sickness.
"You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome," she says. 

No one has ever spoken to Ethan like this.  No one has ever
understood his plight like Mrs.  Hale.  He's suddenly overcome
with guilt to think that he was about to deceive Hale.  Ethan
turns toward home, resigned to remain on his farm. 

Now comes the most dreaded time of his life--bidding Mattie
good-bye.  Driving to the station, Ethan and Mattie recall the
good times they've shared during the past year.  Unable to
contain themselves any longer, each confesses love for the
other.  They despair to think of never being together again.  To
delay their moment of parting, they decide--just for fun--to
coast down the town's most perilous hill on a sled.  Down, down
they go, with Ethan steering skillfully past the big elm tree at
a bend in the course. 

At the top again, Mattie turns and cries, "Ethan, take me down
again...  so 't we'll never come up any more." At first Ethan
thinks Mattie is crazy, but the thought of going home to his
hateful wife persuades him he'd rather die with Mattie than live
with Zeena.  They mount the sled and kiss for the last time.
The sled dives down the hill and crashes head-on into the
massive trunk of the elm tree.  But somehow they both survive. 

That concludes the narrator's account of Ethan's past.  Abruptly
the story returns to that snowy night in Ethan's house.  A tall
gray-haired woman serves an unappetizing dinner.  It's Zeena, as
grim as ever.  Sitting hunched over by the stove is a small,
helpless woman, crippled for life with a spinal injury.  She, of
course, is Mattie.  More precisely, she is what Mattie has
become during the twenty-four years since the smash-up. 

The night of the smash-up Zeena rose from her sickbed and never
went back.  All this time she has dutifully cared for Mattie.
It's said that Zeena and Mattie bark at each other constantly.
During their fights the one who suffers most is Ethan.  Is it
any wonder he looks old and worn-out? 

Back in town the narrator's landlady has the last word on Ethan
and his life's burdens.  Maybe it would have been better if
Mattie had died in the crash, she says.  At least then Ethan
could have lived.  Now there's little difference between being a
Frome on the farm and a Frome in the grave. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  ETHAN FROME 

If Ethan Frome could relive his life, what do you think he would
be?  He was miserable as a farmer, so he certainly wouldn't pick
that life again.  But he might not be suited for anything
else. 

Doctor?  He had plenty of medical experience caring for family
members.  He wasn't much good at it, though, because he needed
to summon help during his mother's last illness.  He didn't like
the work, either, because it confined him.  When Zeena was sick
he felt trapped.  Once Mattie became an invalid, Ethan left the
house as much as he could.  Why else did he check an empty
mailbox at the Starkfield post office every day?  He never
talked to anyone there.  Of course, his daily trips to town
might have been his way of keeping in touch with the outside
world. 

Businessman?  Not on your life.  Think how easily Mr.  Hale
weasels out of paying his debt to Ethan.  Besides, a man of
commerce needs self-confidence.  Ethan wavers over the slightest
decisions and constantly changes his mind.  Recall how Ethan
hides in the shadows outside the church, too ill-at-ease to step
forward and take Mattie's arm.  Moreover, to succeed in
business, you need vision, but you can't be a visionary like
Ethan.  Sometimes he mistakes illusion for reality and
vice-versa.  For example, in his fantasy world he travels to the
West with Mattie.  In reality, he doesn't have the money to
go. 

If Ethan tried to be a salesman, he'd be no better off.  People
would scatter.  He's too stiff and grizzled and looks as though
he were "dead and in hell." Even as a young man he had a hard
time with people.  In college they called him "Old Stiff," and
he kept largely to himself. 

That's why he might fail as a lawyer, too.  In fact, he'd
probably be unsuited to any job which required him to speak
articulately more than a sentence at a time.  Words defeated
him.  He could never think of the right thing to say.  Even when
he did--because he had a good mind--the words got stuck.  He
couldn't even tell Mattie that he loved her.  That was a shame,
too, because if she had known sooner, they might have run off
and lived happily ever after. 

At times words cause Ethan another kind of problem.  He blurts
things out that he'd like to retract the instant the words pass
his lips.  For example, he lies to Zeena about why she must go
to the train without him.  Because of his lie, he realizes too
late that he will need to ask Hale for money.  He knows, too,
that Hale won't pay.  Meanwhile Zeena, believing Ethan has
money, will spend far more in Bettsbridge than he can afford.
Such impulsiveness would keep Ethan from succeeding at any job
that required quick thinking and careful use of words. 

What, then, could Ethan qualify for?  He could do any manual
work very well.  He has a strong back, broad shoulders, and the
drive to work long hours.  For years he's proved himself as a
persevering farmer and sawmill operator.  Unfortunately,
however, Starkfield is an economically depressed place.  No
matter how hard Ethan works, he's never more than a few steps
from the poorhouse. 

While Ethan may lack the personality to succeed at many jobs, he
is intelligent, and he's well informed about the ways of nature.
He studied science in college for a year and probably would have
succeeded as an engineer or physicist had he not been summoned
home to run the family farm and mill.  After that he allowed
himself to be trapped.  His mother's illness, his marriage to
Zeena, his poverty--even the isolated town of Starkfield--eroded
his will to break away.  Soon he stopped trying. 

Nevertheless, Ethan continued to search for "huge cloudy
meanings behind the daily face of things." Despite his troubled
life, he's still one of the "smart ones," according to his
fellow townsman, Harmon Gow.  In other words, Ethan is a
thinker, a philosopher. 

To which school of philosophy does he belong?  Surely it must be
that which silently accepts the world as it is.  That is, Ethan
is a stoic.  He knows he can't change his lot in life, although
he once thought to escape from it.  When he failed he became
silently resigned to it.  Ultimately, that may be the real
tragedy of Ethan Frome. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  MATTIE SILVER 

Scan almost any passage that alludes to Mattie and you will find
images galore that reveal her sweet, pure, and lively
youthfulness.  She may be too good to be true.  Since you see
Mattie through Ethan's eyes, she can do no wrong.  But is she
really as flawless as Ethan believes?  Strip off the
rose-colored glasses and look. 

Mattie can't make the grade as a housekeeper. 

Ethan, who is busy enough all day, needs to help her complete
her chores.  In fact, she has failed at every job she's held.
Back in Stamford, her hometown, she tried stenography,
bookkeeping, and store-clerking, all without success.  When
Zeena sends her away, Ethan fears that she'll end up walking the
streets. 

Passing Shadow Pond during their ride to the train, Mattie is
surprised to learn that Ethan has loved her for months.  But
more shocking is that she didn't know before.  Is she that
insensitive?  For a year Ethan has run to her side at every
chance.  He has helped her, looked starry-eyed at her, and hung
on her every word and gesture.  And she hasn't noticed? 

Mattie confesses her love for Ethan.  Is she saying the truth?
If so, why has she regularly gone to church dances without him
and flirted with Denis Eady, too? 

The pickle-dish broke because Mattie, despite knowing its value
to Zeena, removed it from the closet.  Why?  To please a man
married to someone else.  How much merit is there in Zeena's
charge, then, that Mattie is sneaky?  It's a question for you to
ponder. 

None of these shortcomings matters to Ethan, of course, because
he's blinded by love.  When Mattie compares a sunset to a
painting--as though nature mimicked art--Ethan is charmed.
Someone of another mind would call Mattie just a foolish girl. 

Compared to Zeena, of course, Mattie is a saint.  She's pretty,
sweet-tempered, and affectionate.  Although Zeena's abuse hurts
her, she always bounces back as perky as ever.  When Zeena
scolds, Mattie listens without fighting back.  When pain keeps
Zeena from sleep, Mattie says, "I'm so sorry, Zeena!  Isn't
there anything I can do?" Mattie gives Ethan new life.  For the
first time in his twenty-eight years he has a soul mate.  They
walk together, sharing the beauties of nature.  She's fascinated
by his lectures on the stars and on rock formations.  Like a
schoolgirl, she admires his knowledge with wide-eyed wonder.  At
the same time, she has the ability, with a word or a look, to
send Ethan into a dark mood or somber state of mind. 

Almost every place Mattie appears in the book, images of light
and warmth accompany her.  Words such as fire, star, glow,
shining--a thesaurus of synonyms--indicate why Mattie's last
name is Silver.  She brightens Ethan's life and stands out
luminously against the dark, cold setting of the story.  You'll
also find the color red in Mattie's lips, cheeks, and clothes.
Why red?  For one, it's the color of love.  It also sets Mattie
apart from the blacks, whites, and grays used to depict almost
everything else in the book. 

Although she has a right to be downhearted, Mattie shows no
aftereffects of the trials she's endured.  Just prior to
settling in Starkfield she lost her mother and father.  Her
family turned their backs on her because her late father--not
she--owed them money.  At twenty-one she was an outcast with no
home, no job, and no prospects.  Her only bit of luck was that
Zeena, her distant cousin, needed someone to help around the
house.  Thus Mattie moved in with the Fromes. 

When Mattie arrives, Ethan is ready for love.  After seven years
of marriage to Zeena, he can hardly help falling for Mattie.
And Mattie, after tasting loneliness, needs someone, too.  Each
fills a void in the other's life.  But just a year later,
Mattie's dismissal threatens to cast them into isolation
again. 

During their final moments together Mattie proposes suicide to
Ethan.  Is her love for him so intense that she can't live
without him?  Or does the thought of loneliness terrorize her so
much that she'd rather die?  Perhaps her desperation derives
both from love and fear.  Regardless, the result is shocking. 

It's hard to imagine a more tragic ending.  Mattie could have
died in the sled smash-up.  Unfortunately, fate cannot be
outwitted so easily.  Mattie, who dreaded being alone, must live
as a cripple, forever dependent on others.  Pain transforms her
into an old crone long before her time.  Instead of love, she
offers Ethan woe.  What cruel ironies! 

Perhaps it's tempting to draw a moral from Mattie's
tale--something about the perils of meddling in the life of a
married man.  But Edith Wharton probably had no such moral in
mind.  She intended not to preach proper behavior, but to
explore the tragic possibilities of life. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  ZENOBIA (ZEENA) FROME 

Don't be surprised if you cringe while reading about Zeena
Frome.  Edith Wharton took pains to make her one of the most
unappealing people imaginable--the sort who creates a chill
wherever she goes.  You may know someone like her.  You can
count on your fingers the number of times she smiles in a month.
She rarely opens her mouth except to criticize and complain.
But she doesn't need words to tell you what she thinks, for she
wears a face of perpetual disapproval. 

As you read the novel, be alert to some of Zeena's redeeming
qualities, and try to be a little sympathetic.  She's too
important a character to be one-dimensional.  Remember that
Ethan Frome is a story envisioned by a narrator who is not
altogether impartial.  Although you may also side with Ethan,
you shouldn't turn totally against Zeena.  Think, for example,
of how she has cared for Mattie during the twenty-four years
before you meet Ethan on the steps of the Starkfield post
office. 

By that time, of course, Ethan has endured more than thirty
years of misery as Zeena's husband.  He blames Zeena for ruining
his life.  Ever since their wedding, she has held him captive.
One of the reasons he married her was because he owed her a debt
of gratitude after she had cared for his mother on her deathbed.
Can you expect a marriage born of one partner's obligation to
the other to succeed? 

As Ethan's new wife, Zeena refused to move to the city, although
earlier she had agreed to do so.  As a result, Ethan was forced
to stay on the farm and do his best to make a living there.
Then Zeena developed a chronic illness that permanently ended
Ethan's hope for escape.  Almost every penny he earned went
toward paying for doctors and useless patent medicines.
Finally, she grew silent.  She hardly left the house and talked
to no one, except to nag and complain.  In effect, she severed
her ties with life. 

You will probably notice that almost every time you find a
reference to cold, darkness, sickness, or death in the story,
Zeena, or an allusion to her, will appear.  She walks through
the book like a plague, spreading gloom on nearly every page.
When you first see her--at the kitchen door--she's the picture
of ugliness.  The kitchen itself "had the deadly chill of a
vault." Obviously, the storyteller is stacking the cards against
Zeena for a purpose. 

As a cold, isolated, and grim figure, Zeena embodies her
surroundings.  You can hardly separate her from the wintry
Starkfield landscape.  Like the town, tucked by itself in a
lonesome valley, Zeena has removed herself from society.  She is
consumed by her illness, which she uses to control Ethan.  By
being a semi-invalid, she can tell Ethan what to do.  She can
also use her condition to justify anything she cares to do.
Even so, Ethan doubts the authenticity of some of his wife's
ailments.  For example, he would argue that Zeena went to
Bettsbridge not to see a new doctor but to spend money. 

You might wonder why Ethan doesn't simply walk out on Zeena.
Many modern husbands would, but in Ethan's day most husbands and
wives held to their marriage vows until death.  Still, nothing
in Ethan and Zeena's relationship is worth preserving.  He
despises her.  She's repugnant to him in so many ways from her
false teeth to her asthmatic breathing.  Worst of all, she has
the knack of making Ethan feel guilty about almost everything he
does and thinks, especially after Mattie Silver arrives on the
farm.  A certain look on Zeena's face or an offhand comment
gives Ethan the eerie feeling that she knows what he's thinking.
She haunts him.  Even when he and Mattie are hurtling down the
hill on their fateful sled ride, Zeena appears in his mind's
eye.  He is stuck with her, no matter what.  Ethan's bungled
attempt to escape with Mattie attests to that. 

Although she's easy to scorn, Zeena may also deserve a little
understanding.  Most of her life she has cared for sick people,
first Ethan's mother and then Mattie.  When she ran out of
others to care for, she tended to herself.  True, she may have
brought on her own illnesses, but self-imposed ailments cause
just as much suffering as other diseases.  Also, she bears the
burdens of an unsightly face, and for a year at least, a husband
who would be unfaithful if he had the courage.  Think, too, of
how pathetic she seems during the incident of the broken
pickle-dish.  She weeps over a broken glass dish, her most
valued possession.  How petty, yes, but can't you sympathize
with someone whose life has been such a waste? 

In the end, of course, Zeena comes through.  She rises from her
sickbed, never to return.  For twenty-four years she cares for
Mattie, the woman who tried to steal her husband.  Does she
redeem herself by responding so unselfishly to Mattie's tragedy?
Can she be forgiven, after all, for all the misery she has
spread?  While you may not like Zeena any more than you did
earlier, can you at least admire her charity? 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  NARRATOR 

The nameless narrator appears in the prologue and in the
epilogue of the novel.  He's a young engineer with time to kill
in Starkfield.  Ethan Frome's odd appearance arouses his
curiosity.  With the instinct of a detective, he asks the town
residents about Ethan, and with the skill of an accomplished
writer he constructs Ethan's story from the bits and pieces of
information he has collected. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  DENIS EADY 

Denis is a cheerful young man in Starkfield whom Ethan despises
mainly because he is an eligible bachelor.  Ethan perceives
Denis as an archrival for Mattie's affection.  Years later Denis
becomes the town's "rich Irish grocer." 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  JOTHAM POWELL 

Jotham, Ethan's hired hand, helps take care of the farm and
mill.  He doesn't say much, but he knows trouble when he sees
it.  He slips quietly out of sight when Zeena and Ethan are
about to have the argument of their lives over Mattie's
future. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  MR.  ANDREW HALE 

Mr.  Hale buys lumber from Ethan for building houses.
Unfortunately, he doesn't pay on delivery but waits three
months.  Ethan, therefore, lacks the money to escape with Mattie
from Zeena.  Mr.  Hale is also the father of Ned, who marries
Ruth Varnum. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  MRS.  ANDREW HALE 

Mrs.  Hale is probably the friendliest person in Starkfield.
Her kindness so startles Ethan that he abandons his plan to
collect money from Mr.  Hale.  Ethan's conscience won't permit
him to deceive the husband of someone as understanding as Mrs.
Hale. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  MRS.  RUTH VARNUM HALE 

Ruth is the landlady of the Varnum house, where the novel's
narrator stays during his time in Starkfield.  She was the first
to see Ethan and Mattie after the sled smash-up.  Somewhat more
refined than other Starkfielders, she recognizes the miserable
life Ethan has led since his encounter with the elm tree. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  HARMON GOW 

Starkfield's stage driver, Harmon tells the narrator a little
bit about Ethan.  He knows what too many winters in Starkfield
can do to a man. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  SETTING 

In the summertime the hills of New England now swarm with
tourists.  In winter they're alive with skiers.  But it hasn't
always been that way.  In Ethan Frome's time, around the turn of
the century, the countryside is a cold and lifeless place.  In
fact, Edith Wharton takes pains to show you how desolate it
is. 

She calls Ethan's small farming community Starkfield, and the
town lives up to its name.  It's desolate and its people are
poor.  Some, like Ethan, can barely scrape a living off the
rocky, barren land. 

Life is dreary, and cheerless in Starkfield.  Only an occasional
church social breaks the monotony.  For months every year snow
lies heavily on the hills, fields, and villages.  People stay
indoors and keep to themselves.  Weeks pass between visits with
friends or neighbors.  Surely no place in Massachusetts can
really be as grim as Starkfield. 

Why did Edith Wharton invent such a site for her novel?  You
might find an answer in the character of Ethan Frome himself.
Doesn't the countryside often mirror his own emotional
landscape?  That is, when Ethan feels despair the land and sky
grow dark and oppressive.  When Ethan's mood lightens, there's
considerable beauty all around.  Ethan spends his happiest hours
with Mattie roaming the lovely woodlands and walking under the
stars. 

Because Ethan is melancholy more often than he's merry,
Starkfield seems like a sad and dismal place.  To be sure,
there's life in the village proper, but leave the main street
and you find only battered little houses strewn here and there
among the hills. 

Starkfield afflicts Ethan and helps to shape his destiny.  Like
the town, he is sullen and run-down.  Starkfield sits alone in
its valley, isolated from the world around it.  Ethan is
isolated too.  He left the lonely valley to go to college, but
since returning he has gone scarcely more than a few miles from
his remote farm.  Physically, and therefore, emotionally, he is
trapped by his wife, his farm, and his poverty. 

Not everyone in Starkfield feels oppressed.  For example, Ned
Hale and Ruth Varnum relish their life and their love.  What's
the trouble with Ethan, then?  Why can't he rise above the
oppressive atmosphere?  Possibly he's too sensitive.  He absorbs
his surroundings like a sponge.  He is like a piece of the
scenery, or as the narrator says, "a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of frozen woe." And he lacks the
strength to shake himself loose before it's too late. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  THEMES 

You'd never doubt that Ethan Frome is a somber book after
glancing at the themes listed here.  There's not a reassuring
one among them.  Yes, a tragic story evokes tragic themes.  But
among the tragic circumstances of some stories a faint ray of
hope--a statement about man's nobility, perhaps--sometimes
shines through.  There seems to be no such beacon in Ethan
Frome. 

1.  LONELINESS / ISOLATION 

In college Ethan acquired the nickname "Old Stiff" because he
rarely went out with the boys.  Once he returned to the farm he
couldn't go out with them even if he had wanted to.  Whatever
he's done has kept him apart from others:  tending the farm and
mill, nursing his sick mother, caring for Zeena. 

Ventures outside the bounds of his farm have usually brought
Ethan no luck.  He's inept doing business with Mr.  Hale.  Denis
Eady and his cronies make fun of him.  The one time he plans to
run away with Mattie, the effort fails.  A few kind words spoken
by Mrs.  Hale shock him into realizing that he will never
escape. 

Ethan's isolation is intensified because he is often
tongue-tied.  He'd like to make contact with others but can't.
For example, when he wants to dazzle Mattie with beautiful words
of love, he mutters, "Come along." 

In their own ways, Zeena and Mattie are solitary figures, too.
For years, Zeena rarely leaves the house.  She's consumed by her
illness.  Mattie, on the other hand, seeks refuge from
loneliness at the Fromes' farm.  A year later she chooses to die
rather then return to a world of solitude. 

2.  SILENT "GRANITE OUTCROPPINGS" 

Edith Wharton once wrote that with Ethan Frome she intended to
present a story that told elemental truths about the sturdy,
silent character of life in the New England hills.  She wanted
to reveal New England's "granite outcroppings." 

You need to be tough--like granite--to endure winters like those
described in the novel.  Month after month of dreary skies,
snow-covered lands, and bitter cold can erode your spirit.  You
must fight depression and loneliness.  Above all, you must love
silence.  If you must turn on the radio at every quiet moment,
you'd probably go mad in Ethan's world. 

You hear the silence of Starkfield even when people talk.  Sound
issues from their mouths, but the words mean nothing.  On their
night of nights Ethan and Mattie engage in small talk--words to
fill a vacuum, nothing more.  Deep inside, Ethan speaks
eloquently, but no one hears him.  To the people of Starkfield,
he's a silent ghost-like figure who prefers to mind his own
business. 

3.  HOPELESSNESS 

The proverb about trying again when at first you don't succeed
sounds good, but it's hard to live by.  What discourages people
more than repeated failure? 

Ethan is an expert on failure.  In his youth he had hoped to
study science, but family sickness and death dashed his hopes.
After he married Zeena, he intended to sell the farm and move to
the city, but his bride put an end to that dream. 

For years all his time and energy have been put into the farm
and mill.  Yet the monotonous work gives him little
satisfaction.  What money he earns Zeena uses to buy medicines.
He can't escape with Mattie because he can't afford the fare.
His one big effort to break out of his prison--that is, to
destroy his life ends in disaster.  After the smash-up he's
locked forever in a living hell.  As Mrs.  Hale observes,
there's little difference between the grave and the farm for
Ethan Frome. 

4.  "TILL DEATH DO US PART" 

Ethan and Zeena's marriage is built on a flimsy foundation.
After his mother dies, Ethan asks Zeena to stay with him on the
farm because the thought of living there alone terrifies him.
What hope is there for such a marriage? 

Ethan realizes his mistake after only a few months.  But there's
no remedy; he remains bound by his marriage vows.  In fact, he
is virtually enslaved by them. 

Even when Mattie enters his life, Ethan remains true to his
pledge to Zeena.  He's not above wishing that Zeena would die,
however.  And he's more than willing to pretend, at least for an
evening, that he's married to Mattie instead of Zeena. 

Zeena's decision to dismiss Mattie convinces Ethan to desert his
wife.  But as he writes his goodbye letter his conscience
shatters his dream of starting over in the West with Mattie. 

How firmly Ethan is tied to Zeena!  Even his attempt to take his
leave by killing himself fails.  After the smash-up, he is fated
to be with her forever, even in the grave. 

5.  THE TYRANNY OF SICKNESS 

When a chronic illness strikes, the patient is not the only one
who suffers.  Friends and family bear the pain, too.  Ethan
Frome's story confirms how despotic an illness can be.  Because
of others' infirmity, Ethan's ambitions are thwarted.  He drops
out of college, lets his farm and mill fall into ruin, and
remains in poverty. 

Ethan lives in a world dominated by sick people.  His father is
kicked by a horse and dies after a long illness.  His mother
survives as a semi-invalid for years.  And Zeena is an
established sick person, notable in Starkfield for her
"condition." 

Ethan suspects that some of Zeena's symptoms are feigned, but he
has no proof.  If you consider how she uses her illness to
control him, you might suspect she exaggerates her pain
sometimes.  Whether feigned or not, Zeena's ailments keep Ethan
down on the farm.  The one time he almost escapes, Mrs.  Hale
pays him tribute for being so devoted to his sick wife.  Ashamed
of himself for contemplating escape, Ethan returns home,
resigned to his fate. 

The cruelest irony of all, Ethan's attempt to flee, concludes
with a crippling smash-up.  Mattie's spinal injury seals Ethan's
destiny permanently. 

6.  DEATH'S DOMINION 

Starkfield is dead, no matter how you define the word.  It's
dead in the sense of having no action on Saturday night--or on
any other night for that matter. 

Most of the story takes place in the depths of winter, when life
drains from trees and plants, animals hibernate, and water stops
flowing.  Even the people, to escape from winter's deathlike
grip, entomb themselves inside small, wooden, snow-buried
houses. 

Outside Ethan's door lie all his ancestors.  He reads their
gravestones, and the words remind him of his ties to the farm,
the house, and the mill.  He can't escape and he expects to lie
there, too, some day. 

Could you call Zeena alive?  Although she moves and breathes,
she has cut herself off from life.  In a word, she is
figuratively dead.  After the smash-up, Mattie and Ethan join
her in the land of the living dead. 

7.  ILLUSION VS.  REALITY 

What is illusion?  What is reality?  Edith Wharton's book
challenges you to come to grips with these age-old questions.
Can you find the equivalent of Starkfield in the real New
England?  Or are the town and its people merely products of
Wharton's fantasy?  As you get to know them better, you'll be
able to make up your own mind. 

No one can accuse Ethan of being a realist, for he leads a rich
fantasy life.  He has spells of illusion that vanish like
bubbles in the air.  The illusion of being married to Mattie
shatters when the glass pickle-dish crashes to the floor.
Repeatedly, Ethan thinks he's noticed signs of Mattie's
affection for him, but more often than not her smiles and
gestures mean nothing. 

Does Zeena know what Ethan feels for Mattie?  Sometimes she
seems to, but then again, she seems not to.  Ethan sifts her
every word and deed, searching for clues.  When Zeena discharges
Mattie, Ethan can't believe it.  He deludes himself into
thinking that Zeena will change her mind in the morning. 

At the height of his distress Ethan fancies himself running away
with Mattie, divorcing Zeena, and enjoying a prosperous life in
the West.  Reality intrudes, however.  He can't pay for one
ticket West, much less two. 

How appropriate it is that Mattie and Ethan first found love at
a place called Shadow Pond.  Like a shadow, their love is
fleeting.  Now you see it, now you don't. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  STYLE 

You won't find many novels shorter than Ethan Frome in a library
of American classics.  (It's often called a novelette, rather
than a novel.) At the same time you won't find many so carefully
crafted.  Edith Wharton leaves nothing to chance.  She has a
reason for every bit of action and each descriptive passage.
She chooses details with the greatest care--from names of places
and people to the furniture in a room.  If you like digging for
meanings beneath the surface of a story, you've come to the
right place. 

To tell her story of plain country people, Wharton uses simple,
direct language.  At times it's almost "stark"--clipped, clear,
and efficient.  Her characters speak in their native dialect,
and this makes sense.  Who would want to read a story about
country folk who talk like English teachers? 

At first glance Ethan Frome passes as a plain, maybe even dull,
New England farmer.  Up close, however, you discover great
complexity in the man.  Sometimes you can hardly keep up with
him.  For example, one moment he's gleeful, the next he's glum.
The contrasts you find in Ethan's moods appear again and again
in imagery throughout the story. 

Brightness is often set off against gloominess.  You discover
contrasts of light and dark on almost every page.  Of course,
you associate light with Ethan's high spirits, with Mattie (note
that her last name is Silver), and with love.  Darkness, as you
might expect, suggests the opposite.  When you first meet Zeena,
she stands in the dark background of the kitchen. 

The same contrast holds true for cold and warmth.  Everything
about Zeena is cold and harsh.  (Note that Pierce was Zeena's
maiden name.) Mattie, on the other hand, radiates warmth.  She
always has a fire going for Ethan.  Several times you are shown
the same scene twice--once when Ethan is dejected, another time
when his spirits soar.  For example, look at the description of
the land while Ethan walks home, expecting to find Zeena.  Then
compare it to the same view as Ethan passes by on his way home
to Mattie.  You'll probably be struck by the contrast in word
choice between the two passages. 

The novel is also crowded with descriptions containing black
(shadows, spruce trees, gravestones) and white (snow, clouds).
A director filming Ethan Frome would be well advised to use
black and white--as well as red.  Red, suggesting passion,
appears on Mattie's lips and cheeks, and in her hair ribbons.
Also, the forbidden pickle-dish, which Mattie uses to charm
Ethan, is made of "gay red glass." 

Of all the novel's symbols, the one that's most enduring for
many readers is the pickle-dish.  It may stick in your mind
because it's such an unusual object.  But more to the point, do
you see the symbolic importance of the dish?  Why, for instance,
does the pickle-dish have to be broken?  Could it suggest the
end of Ethan and Mattie's love?  If not, what influence does the
shattering of the dish have on Ethan's illusion that he's
married to Mattie?  Might it also foretell Ethan and Mattie's
smash-up near the end of the book?  However you choose to
interpret the incident of the pickle-dish, you can be fairly
sure that you'll remember it long after many other details have
faded from your memory. 

Another striking symbol is Zeena's cat.  The cat intrudes all
through Ethan and Mattie's wonderful evening together.  What
purpose is served by having the cat sit in her mistress' place?
Why should the cat's assault on the milk-jug lead to the
smashing of the pickle-dish?  Notice, too, how the cat ends
Ethan's effort to have a tender moment with Mattie.  Zeena
herself could hardly have been a greater nuisance than the cat.
When she returns from Bettsbridge, Zeena feeds and strokes the
cat.  Why do you think Edith Wharton inserted that scene? 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  POINT OF VIEW 

The words of the novel come to you through the narrator, a young
engineer.  He tells you about the winter he spent in Starkfield,
Massachusetts, several years ago while working for the local
power company.  As a stranger he knows no more than you about
the town and people.  He merely relates his observations.  At
the post office every day he notices a tall, grizzled
customer--Ethan Frome.  Ethan is so curious-looking that the
narrator asks some townspeople about him.  But Starkfielders are
tight-lipped with strangers and reveal only a few odd bits and
pieces.  From these scraps the narrator constructs the story. 

In a snowstorm one night the narrator finds refuge in Ethan's
house.  There he finds "the clue to Ethan Frome," and begins to
sort out the odd bits and pieces he has heard from others. 

The narrator uses his own words to tell his "vision," as he
calls it, of Ethan Frome's story.  Most likely he has altered
details, added a description or two he never heard from a
townsperson, rearranged events.  He says that the story was
different each time someone talked to him about it, and doesn't
pretend that his "vision" is what actually happened, only what
might have happened. 

Edith Wharton puts her own words into the pen of the young
engineer.  Through him she tells her "tragedy," because he is
the only person capable of understanding the whole story.  To
the townspeople, Ethan's story is complicated and mysterious,
but the narrator has the perspective to tell it simply, and to
put it in its rightful place. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  FORM AND STRUCTURE 

Ethan Frome is a remembrance of past events.  (Wharton is said
to have been very impressed by the first volume of the French
writer Marcel Proust's great work, Remembrance of Things Past.)
The most recent event happened several years ago when the
narrator lived for a winter in Starkfield, Massachusetts.
During that time he came to know the story of Ethan Frome. 

The narrator tells you how he found out about Ethan in the
introductory chapter, which serves as a prologue to the main
story.  In the prologue you learn about present-day Starkfield
and its people.  You also become acquainted with the land around
the village, and you hear a few random facts about Ethan.  At
this point you can't tell which facts are important and which
are not.  One detail that impresses the narrator is that Ethan
is fifty-two years old, but looks far older. 

At the end of the prologue the narrator finds himself spending
the night in Ethan's house.  That evening he "found the clue to
Ethan Frome," and in the first chapter begins to relate an
account of Ethan's life between the ages of approximately
eighteen and twenty-eight. 

The narrator uses Chapters I to IX to tell you the story of
Ethan's tragic romance with Mattie Silver, an affair that ended
twenty-four years before.  But throughout the tale you find
additional references to events that happened even earlier.  For
example, in a single chapter you might see Ethan as an
eighteen-year-old college student and then eavesdrop on a
conversation he had last year.  Next you may witness something
that happened last night. 

As you read, you need to stay alert for sudden shifts in time.
You may think that it's easier to read a story told
chronologically.  No doubt it often is, but think why in this
novel it may be more fitting to leap from one part of the hero's
life to another.  Doesn't it resemble the way in which details
of Ethan's life were revealed to the narrator?  The information
was unfolded in bits and pieces, not as a sequential story. 

Chapter IX ends with Mattie and Ethan lying injured in the snow
after their smash-up.  Then comes a concluding chapter, which
you might call an epilogue.  In the epilogue the narrator has
returned to his residence in Starkfield after a night in Ethan's
farmhouse.  The landlady, Mrs.  Hale, tells him what happened to
Ethan and Mattie after the smash-up and finishes the story with
a bitter comment about life in the Frome household during the
last twenty-four years.  At the end you realize why Ethan
appears so much older than he is. 

Edith Wharton called writing Ethan Frome the "construction" of a
picture.  That's an apt description if you think of the prologue
and epilogue as a kind of frame for Ethan's story.  By framing
the story, Wharton helps you to focus on the subject.  From the
very beginning you know what Ethan has become.  You read the
book to find out how. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  PROLOGUE 

One thing that sets Ethan Frome apart from other novels is the
manner in which the story is told.  Edith Wharton doesn't just
start at the beginning and tell you what happens.  Rather, she
introduces you to a narrator who knows no more about Ethan Frome
than you do. 

NOTE:  The narrator, who remains nameless, identifies himself as
a young engineer.  He tells you how he uncovered Ethan's story
bit by bit.  He recounts what people said to him and what he
observed during the months he spent in Ethan's hometown one
winter long ago. 

This opening chapter is a prologue to the main story.  It
introduces the narrator, describes the town and surrounding
countryside, gives you a glimpse at some townspeople, and starts
to build some of the novel's major themes.  But most of all, it
stirs your curiosity about Ethan Frome. 

The narrator pulls you into the book as he might draw a stranger
into a conversation over coffee.  He addresses you directly:
"If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post
office." The post office is where he first laid eyes on Ethan.
Every day at noon Ethan parked his buggy at the curb and picked
up mail at the post office window.  But oddly, he rarely got
anything except the local newspaper and an occasional package of
patent medicine addressed to his wife, Zeena Frome. 

Ethan seldom talked to anybody.  When someone addressed him, he
answered quietly with as few words as possible before mounting
his buggy and driving slowly back to his farm.  What his daily
visit to town meant to him was anybody's guess. 

NOTE:  It's no accident that Ethan's solitude impresses the
narrator.  Ethan appears to be a cheerless, broken man, not the
sort of fellow you'd slap on the back and invite for a beer.
There are many reasons why people withdraw into themselves.
Sometimes it's their nature.  For others, life has been too
hard.  Some people stay out of others' ways so they won't get
hurt.  Which of these applies to Ethan, the narrator intends to
find out. 

Ethan catches the narrator's eye because his looks are striking.
Tall and powerful, Ethan must have been a gallant figure at one
time.  But now he hobbles when he walks, his shoulders sag, and
he has a prominent red gash, the scar of an old wound, across
his forehead.  To the narrator, Ethan looks as though he "was
dead and in hell." Yet he is only fifty-two years old. 

Harmon Gow, Starkfield's former stage driver, explains the
contrast between Ethan's run-down appearance and his age:  It
was the "smash-up," he says, an event that occurred twenty-four
years ago.  (A quick subtraction shows that Ethan was
twenty-eight at the time.) It was a terrible smashup, Gow
recalls, and it should have killed him.  But, he adds, the
Fromes are tough, and Ethan will probably live to one hundred.
Considering his battered looks, the narrator finds that hard to
believe. 

Gow also suggests that Ethan has turned into a stiff and
grizzled old man because "he's been in Starkfield too many
winters.  Most of the smart ones get away." Gow's remark puzzles
the narrator at first, but as time passes he begins to
understand what Gow meant. 

The narrator, it turns out, has spent a whole winter in
Starkfield.  An engineer for a power company, he had been sent
to do a job in nearby Corbury Junction.  A strike delayed the
work, so he had plenty of time to get to know the area.  Winter,
he tells us, "shut down on Starkfield." He paints a grim picture
of an almost lifeless town held in winter's deathlike grip.  For
close to six months the town sags under the weight of snow, its
pulse sluggish, like an animal in hibernation.  Living in such a
place can crush a man's spirit.  Clearly, Harmon Gow knew what
he was talking about when he commented that "most of the smart
ones get away." 

NOTE:  Have you noticed how appropriately Starkfield is named?
It's harsh, desolate, and barren--a tough place to spend a
winter.  Notice how often Starkfield's landscapes are described
as "lonely," "silent," or "gloomy." People's moods and emotions
often swing with changes in the weather.  Also, the climate of a
place rubs off on people.  To some extent that may help to
explain not only Ethan's austere personality, but also the
somber atmosphere of the town and its surrounding countryside. 

You don't know why Ethan couldn't "get away" from Starkfield.
The narrator is curious, though, and tries to find out.  But
people in Starkfield generally don't open up to strangers, so it
takes a while for him to unlock the mystery of Ethan's puzzling
appearance and behavior. 

He tries to construct a few pieces of the puzzle by talking to
Ruth Hale, a widow known as Mrs.  Ned Hale, who owns the Varnum
house, where the narrator stayed during his time in Starkfield.
Ruth Hale gossips endlessly about the goings-on in Starkfield,
but curiously, she won't talk about Ethan Frome.  When pressed
to reveal some information, she murmurs, "Yes, I knew them
both...  it was awful...." 

Mrs.  Hale's reluctance to say more raises further questions in
the narrator's--to say nothing of the reader's--mind:  Who are
"both?" What was "it?" Why was it "awful?" And especially, why
did Mrs.  Hale become upset when asked about Ethan? 

The narrator's quest for information takes him back to Harmon
Gow, whose "uncomprehending grunt" doesn't help much, either.
However, Harmon adds that "it"--presumably, the smash-up--took
place near the Varnum house and that Ruth was the first person
to see the victims after it happened.  Now, years later, she
still can't bear to talk about it. 

A little later, quite by accident, the narrator's life converges
with Ethan's.  Their encounter gives us a chance to meet Ethan
close up, and finally to learn the whole story behind this
unusual behavior and appearance. 

First you're told how the two men made contact.  The narrator
works at a powerhouse in a place called the Junction, a ten-mile
commute from Starkfield.  Each day he takes a buggy or sleigh
provided by Denis Eady, the owner of the town's livery stable.
He is dropped off in Corbury Flats, three miles away, where he
catches a train to the Junction.  One day in midwinter, Eady's
horses "fell ill of a local epidemic." Harmon Gow advises the
narrator that Ethan Frome's horse was still healthy, and for a
dollar Ethan might be persuaded to drive over to the Flats each
morning and back again in the afternoon. 

The narrator expresses wonder that Ethan needs money so badly.
"Well, matters ain't gone any too well with him," replies Gow.
For the last twenty years, he continues, Ethan's had problems
making ends meet on his farm.  Although it's always been tough
for Ethan, things had gotten even worse.  His father got kicked
in the head by a horse, went soft in the brain, and gave away
most of his money before he died.  Then Ethan's mother took sick
with a disease that took years to kill her.  And now Zeena
Frome, Ethan's wife, is sickly, too.  "Sickness and trouble:
that's what Ethan's had his plate full up with, ever since the
very first helping," says Gow. 

Every day for a week after that, Ethan carries the narrator back
and forth to Corbury Flats.  Ethan doesn't say much, answering
questions in monosyllables.  He hardly even looks at his
passenger.  To the narrator, Ethan is like a piece of the "mute,
melancholy" winter landscape, a piece of "frozen woe." 

NOTE:  Even if you read casually, you can hardly miss the
numerous references to winter in the novel.  Winter,
traditionally, is the season when life ebbs from the earth.
It's no accident, therefore, that in scene after scene you will
be reminded of death.  Death, especially death in winter, is one
of the novel's principal themes.  You'll find out why long
before you finish the book. 

Only twice during many trips to and from work does Ethan emerge
from his shell.  Once he reveals that long ago he had briefly
been in Florida, but the memory of it is now "all snowed under."
Another time the narrator misplaces a popular science book on
bio-chemistry.  Later he sees the book in Ethan's hand.  Ethan
says bitterly that the book contains things "that I didn't know
the first word about." Further, he discloses that he used to be
interested in this type of technical book.  When the narrator
offers the book on loan, he hesitates, then says, "Thank
you--I'll take it." 

NOTE:  Ethan's professed interest in science surprises the
narrator.  Could it also explain Ethan's willingness to talk to
him?  Perhaps Ethan needs a soulmate, and the young engineer
fills the bill. 

Ethan may strike you as very odd and remote.  But a sound mind
resides behind that solemn mask.  Remember that Harmon Gow
included Ethan among "the smart ones." Of course, there are
different ways to be "smart." Did Harmon mean clever and alert?"
He couldn't have meant smart in the sense of fashionable, for
Ethan is anything but that. 

One day the narrator is given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to
unseal Ethan's lips.  A heavy overnight snowfall has blocked the
train to the Junction.  Despite the storm, Ethan shows up as
usual in the morning to take the narrator to work.  Since the
train is stuck, Ethan offers to drive clear over to the
Junction.  The narrator says, "You're doing me the biggest kind
of a favour." 

"That's all right," replies Ethan. 

On the way the two men pass by Ethan's land.  The sawmill looks
"exanimate" (that is, it used to be alive and thriving, but is
no longer); the sheds sag under their load of snow.  In the
orchard, apple trees are "starved" and "writhing." The run-down
farmhouse makes the landscape "lonelier." 

Ethan's house looks shrunken, and in fact, it is.  Its "L" is
missing.  For some sad reason that he doesn't explain, Ethan had
to take it down. 

NOTE:  As the narrator explains, the "L" in a New England
farmhouse is a structure usually built at right angles to the
main house.  It links the living quarters to the barn or
woodshed.  Because it's connected to the main house, it could
symbolize the farmer's link to the soil.  Or its importance
might be that it enabled the farmer to get to his work more
comfortably on icy mornings.  Either way, Ethan's house is
diminished, and it's described in such detail that you can't
miss the narrator's point.  The house reflects the diminished
life of its occupants. 

Can Ethan tell what his passenger thinks about the Fromes'
run-down house and sawmill?  It seems so, for he launches into a
partial account of his family's decline.  The road running past
the farm was well traveled at one time, but the coming of the
railroad put an end to that.  Ethan's mother, who suffered
terribly from rheumatism, managed to get by as long as the
traffic on the road distracted her.  When nobody passed by any
more, the old lady didn't understand why.  "It preyed on her
right along till she died," Ethan says. 

For the time being, that's all you learn about Ethan's past.
Although it's not much, it's a start. 

Before the sleigh arrives at the Junction, snow starts to fall
again, obscuring the landscape and silencing Ethan.  That
afternoon on the return trip it begins to snow heavily.  In no
time the road is buried.  The old horse becomes confused and
strays from the path two or three times.  Daylight fades and the
narrator jumps from the sleigh to guide the horse.  It's a
struggle for both men and beast to keep going.  When they are
near exhaustion, Ethan spies his farm's gate.  They've made it
to the Fromes' place, but to go all the way to Starkfield that
night is out of the question. 

Quite by chance the narrator gains access into Ethan Frome's
house, a place no stranger has entered in many, many years.
Approaching the door, he hears a woman's voice inside.  The
quality of the voice tells him that she's complaining about
something.  But as he enters, the droning voice suddenly grows
still. 

That night the narrator says, "I found the clue to Ethan Frome."
When you turn the page to Chapter I, you'll begin to hear the
whole melancholy story. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER I 

Suddenly you're swept back at least a generation to the time
when Ethan Frome is a young man.  You see him walking rapidly
through the empty streets of Starkfield.  It's a clear night and
as usual in the novel, it is wintertime.  Places and names you
already know from the opening chapter are mentioned again, but
this time in a new context. 

NOTE:  In Ethan Frome Edith Wharton "frames" Ethan's story
inside two chapters (the first and last) set closer to the
present than the main part of the story.  The two chapters serve
as a frame through which the reader views the past.  You must
wait until the very last part of the book to learn what the
narrator saw and heard in Ethan's house that snowy night. 

Perhaps you'd expect the story to be told in Ethan's words.  But
Edith Wharton serves up a surprise; she has the narrator tell
the story as he envisions it.  Like a master storyteller, he
relates facts, but also shapes the tale with his imagination.
As you read, try to determine which events might have actually
occurred and which must be the product of the narrator's
inventive mind. 

Ethan walks past Michael Eady's new brick store.  (He must be
related to Denis Eady, whose horses will someday take the
narrator to work.  You'll find out.) Then there's Lawyer
Varnum's house.  (He's the father of Ruth Varnum.  You know that
years from now Ruth will be Ned Hale's widow, and the narrator
will be renting a room from her in this very house.) 

Just outside the Varnum gates lies the road to Corbury, with its
steep slope.  The hill is Starkfield's favorite sledding ground.
Surely you are meant to take note of it because it is mentioned
three times in this opening description of the town.  Straddling
the Varnum's front walk are two black Norway spruce trees, and
just across the street is the church, toward which Ethan is
headed. 

As he strides ahead, a thought flashes through his
head--something about the quality of the atmosphere on this
cold, starry night:  "It's like being in an exhausted receiver,"
he thinks.  Such a notion in the mind of a scientist would be
odd enough, but in Ethan's head it seems downright peculiar.
Then you discover something about Ethan's past that explains why
he might harbor such an idea. 

NOTE:  In Ethan Frome Wharton ignores the usual concept of time
used in most fiction.  She leaves it to the reader to figure out
what comes first, second, third, and so forth.  In an instant
she takes you back years into the past, returns you to the
present, then tells about events that may have occurred a week
ago.  Then just as suddenly she focuses on last winter.  For
example, the action in this opening chapter of Ethan's story
takes only seconds to complete.  But in the few moments it takes
him to reach the church and peer in the window, we catch
glimpses of events that took place last year as well as half a
dozen years ago. 

Ethan had attended a technological college in Worcester, but
because his father was killed he dropped out after a year.  Ever
since, images of what he had learned come to him unexpectedly.
You are told that Ethan has a fanciful mind that seeks deep
meanings in ordinary events.  It's an apt description.  Notice
his thoughts as he looks through the church window and observes
the dancing inside. 

Evidently Ethan doesn't want to be seen outside the church.  He
avoids the rays of light shining on the snow and hugs the
shadows until he finds the window he wants.  It seems clear that
he's done this before. 

NOTE:  The contrast between the brilliant light inside the
church and the darkness outside is drawn vividly.  It couldn't
be accidental.  Look for the motif of light and darkness
throughout the novel.  Why does Wharton stress it?  Could it be
that darkness suggests secrecy?  You already know that Ethan is,
if nothing else, a secretive sort of fellow.  Yet he reveals
many of his most personal thoughts while at the church window. 

Inside the building it looks like the end of a cheerful, noisy
evening of music and dancing.  Suddenly a young man rounds up
the crowd for the last dance, a lively Virginia reel.  In the
darkness Ethan's heart is beating fast, as though he himself is
one of the dancers.  However, his pulse quickens not from the
dance but from the anticipation of finding in the throng a
particular girl with a cherry-red scarf on her head. 

He spies her dancing with Denis Eady.  She's obviously enjoying
herself.  In fact, she's having too good a time to suit Ethan,
who studies her closely and tries to interpret her every smile
and movement.  That she finds pleasure dancing with that no-good
Romeo, Denis Eady, bothers Ethan greatly. 

Clearly love has seized Ethan's heart, but it's not a joyful
love.  Rather, it's more of a plague.  Why else would he be
lurking in the shadows feeling jealous? 

A moment later you learn the reason for Ethan's pain:  He's
already married to someone else.  The story of how he got
himself into such a dilemma starts to unfold. 

The girl is Mattie Silver, a cousin of Ethan's wife, Zeena.  For
the past twelve months Mattie, who is about twenty-one years
old, has been living with the Fromes, earning her keep by doing
housework and aiding Zeena, who is in poor health.  You will
discover later in the story why Mattie came to Starkfield from
Stamford, Connecticut, where she grew up.  All you know for the
moment is that hardship drove her to her cousin's house about a
year ago. 

The moment Mattie stepped from the train Ethan fell for her.  To
him she was "like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth." She
brought laughter and the exuberance of youth into the house.
Most of all, she enabled Ethan to show off his knowledge of
natural phenomena.  He pointed out the constellations and
lectured her on rock formations.  Ethan and Mattie drew closer
to each other because they both delighted in sunsets, clouds,
and the sights they saw together in the fields and woods. 

In contrast, throughout their marriage Ethan and Zeena have
hardly talked to each other.  Zeena spends most of her time
alone, tending to her ailments.  When she speaks it's usually to
complain or scold.  She is dissatisfied with Mattie's work
around the house and grumbles about the girl's inefficiency. 

Actually, Zeena has a point, for Mattie lacks the aptitude for
housekeeping.  Now and then Ethan neglects his own work in order
to help Mattie with hers.  One day Zeena discovered Ethan
churning butter (Mattie's task) and turned away in silence after
giving him "one of her queer looks." 

Did that look indicate that Zeena knows his private thoughts
about Mattie?  Ethan thinks she does.  On the other hand,
perhaps he's just feeling guilty and imagines hidden barbs in
Zeena's actions and words.  He recalls one conversation in
particular.  One dark morning as he dressed and shaved, Zeena
informed him that she'd spoken to her doctor, who told her never
to be without help in the house.  What will she do, she asks
Ethan, after Mattie leaves.  They can't afford to hire another
girl. 

"Why on earth should Mattie go?" asks Ethan. 

"Well, when she gets married, I mean." 

Ethan, noticeably flustered by Zeena's talk about Mattie's
departure, can't continue to discuss it.  "I haven't got the
time now; I'm late as it is," he says. 

She replies sharply, "I guess you're always late, now that you
shave every morning." 

That comment frightens Ethan more than any other because it is a
fact that he started shaving daily only since Mattie moved into
the house.  He thought mistakenly that Zeena didn't notice such
things about him. 

Does Zeena know his private thoughts?  He suspects that she
does.  But if he thought it over rationally, he'd probably
realize that he needn't fret over his suspicion, for Zeena is
caught up in her own woes and lacks the vision to see beyond
them.  But because Ethan doesn't judge others very astutely, he
can't help worrying about what Zeena knows.  Nevertheless, his
worries won't drive Mattie from his mind.  He broods about her
virtually all the time. 

And that's exactly what he's doing as he stands outside the
church window on this chilly winter evening.  He has come to
escort Mattie home, and he's excited by the prospect.  The
two-mile walks that he and Mattie have been taking from the
village to the farm have become precious to him.  Those night
walks have brought him and Mattie together.  With her arm in
his, they have gazed at the stars and reveled in the beauty of
nature. 

The passion he has for Mattie, however, is tarnished by feelings
of uncertainty.  Although she acts as though she's fond of
Ethan, she appears to act the same way with Denis Eady as they
dance together on the other side of the window.  Every time she
smiles at Denis, Ethan grows less sure of himself.  He berates
himself and wonders how his dull talk could ever interest her. 

NOTE:  In just a few seconds Ethan's state of mind has
fluctuated from extreme happiness to terrible despair, then back
again.  His mood swings occur throughout the book, often very
rapidly.  The dark and light images you saw earlier in this
chapter reflect the state of Ethan's emotions.  Because he has
dark thoughts much of the time, dark images, black shadows,
grays, and other muted colors dominate the book.  You'll see
them time and again. 

The dance is about to end.  Ethan stands there confused and
unhappy.  Self-doubt, Zeena's threats, and Mattie's ambiguous
hints of affection cloud his brain as the chapter closes. 

NOTE:  Wharton's personal diary reveals that she wrote Ethan
Frome during a time when she was in love with an American
newspaperman stationed in Paris.  The affair troubled her
greatly, not in a moral sense, but rather because the man's
interest in her was sometimes physical, sometimes intellectual,
but never both.  In short, he kept her off balance.  Knowing
this, you can hardly overlook the parallels between her
experience and Ethan's. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER II 

Poor Ethan!  Without a shred of self-confidence he stays hidden
in the shadows as the dancers pour out of the hall.  Instead of
coming forward, offering Mattie his arm and heading toward home,
he waits behind the door to see what Mattie will do.  Ethan
hasn't felt this shy in a long time.  Mattie's easy manner has
rubbed off on him a little bit, but tonight he feels "heavy and
loutish" again. 

Outside the church Mattie looks around expectantly, but still
Ethan hangs back.  A man approaches her.  It's Denis Eady.  He
offers to take Mattie home in his father's sled.  She needs a
little coaxing, so Denis jokes with her, telling her that he
"kinder knew" she'd want to take a ride tonight.  He brings out
the sled and turns back the bearskin blanket to make room for
Mattie at his side. 

NOTE:  Ethan is repulsed by Denis' flirtatious manner.  In fact,
he has always been disgusted by cheap banter." You will see that
in college he was nicknamed "Old Stiff," presumably because he
couldn't loosen up.  Repeatedly in the novel Ethan will be
unable to say what's on his mind.  His inarticulateness causes
him pain, as you might expect.  It's also one aspect of an
important theme--isolation.  Being unable to express himself
sets him apart from others. 

Watching the scene, Ethan waits in agony, as though his life
depended on what Mattie decides.  Will she get in, or won't she?
Mattie declines Denis' invitation and starts to walk away.
Denis thinks she's just playing hard to get and urges her to
climb aboard, but again she says no.  Denis jumps from the sled
and takes her arm, but she eludes him.  Finally, he gives up and
drives away. 

Ethan scurries after Mattie and catches up with her in the black
shade of the Varnum spruces.  She is glad to see him, but he is
almost bursting with joy that she turned Denis away.  Also, he's
impressed at how clever he's been to spy on her.  Now he wants
to dazzle Mattie with a memorable turn of phrase, but the best
he can do is, "Come along." 

Isn't it sad that Ethan, hoping for a rush of eloquence, can
think only of "Come along"?  How difficult it is for him to
break out of his shell. 

Before starting home they pause at the top of the steep hill on
the Corbury road, where sledders have left numerous tracks.
Ethan and Mattie decide to sled here tomorrow night if there's a
moon.  She tells him news of Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum--soon to
be Mr.  and Mrs.  Hale.  While coasting here, they almost ran
into the big elm at the bottom of the hill. 

NOTE:  The description of Corbury hill may be of interest
because it shows you a section of Starkfield.  But later the
site will assume much greater importance in the story.  By
having Ethan and Mattie notice the tracks and the elm tree, the
author is preparing you for a return visit much later in the
novel.  You might not notice Wharton's use of foreshadowing the
first time you read the book.  When you are well along in the
story, however, think back to these early chapters.  You won't
find many details in this carefully designed work that are
included by chance. 

The thought of Ned and Ruth being killed is especially chilling
because, as Mattie declares, "They're so happy!" To Ethan,
Mattie's words sound as if she had been thinking of herself and
him. 

NOTE:  You've just been introduced to a pattern in Ethan's
behavior that you will encounter again and again.  Ethan has
momentary illusions often, but not always, relating to Mattie.
Why he suffers from spells of self-delusion is not altogether
clear, but it's not uncommon for a person who is unhappy with
reality to escape to a fantasy world once in a while.  We all do
it, but perhaps not as frequently as Ethan. 

Ethan relishes the moment, but his joy is short-lived.  A few
seconds later Mattie speaks to him indifferently, and his
spirits sink.  The slightest change in Mattie's look and tone
can buoy Ethan's mood or send him into despair.  Tonight he
tends toward desperation.  He needs some assurance that Mattie
cares for him.  As they walk he tries to draw out her feelings:
"I suppose...  you should be leaving us." She thinks Zeena plans
to send her away, but she tells Ethan indignantly that she won't
go unless "you want me to go too-" 

Unless he wanted her to go!  Her response thrills him.  As far
as he's concerned, Mattie will stay with him forever.  Again he
gropes for words that will express his feelings.  Again he can't
find them, and settles for a feeble "Come along." 

Nearing the house Mattie and Ethan pass through the Frome family
graveyard.  For years the sight of the headstones has reminded
Ethan that like his ancestors he was doomed to live and die
right here on his Starkfield farm.  On this night his urge to
flee the farm has vanished.  He thinks that staying here with
Mattie is all he'd ever want, and when they die, they'll lie
together in this cemetery. 

What can be said about a man who dreams of dying during his
brightest moments?  Certainly he's a morbid fellow.  But beyond
that, Ethan knows that happiness with Mattie is just not meant
to be.  He can't face the fact, however, so he deludes himself
with a dream that can't come true. 

When Mattie stumbles, he steadies her and slips his arm around
her.  She doesn't resist.  What bliss!  Triumphantly they walk
across the frozen snow "as if they were floating on a summer
stream." 

Suddenly the thought of Zeena intrudes.  In his mind's eye Ethan
sees Zeena "Lying in their bedroom asleep, her mouth slightly
open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...." What a
letdown!  From bliss to bitterness in an instant.  Ethan notices
a dead cucumber vine on the porch, dangling like a black
streamer tied to a door to signify a death.  He wishes such a
streamer had been hung there for Zeena. 

Standing outside the door, Ethan tries one more time to tell
Mattie what he feels.  "Matt-" he says.  And that's all.  The
rest of the words remain unsaid. 

NOTE:  "A GRANITE OUTCROPPING." What did Ethan want to say?  You
could probably finish his sentence without difficulty.  Most
people can say something like "I love you" to someone they
adore.  But Ethan, for the time being at least, doesn't know
how.  His passion is trapped inside.  Have too many years with
Zeena and too many winters in Starkfield encased him permanently
in a rock-hard shell?  Further along in the story you're bound
to find out. 

Wharton, in describing her intention to create a "New England"
character, calls Ethan a "granite outcropping." There is a great
deal of granite in the New England states, but more to the point
is that granite is a hard, sturdy rock that doesn't break or
erode easily. 

Ethan thinks that as usual Zeena has probably been in bed since
just after supper.  The door key will be under the mat.  But
Ethan can't find it.  A wild thought tears through him:  Some
tramps have been seen in the neighborhood.  What if they....  He
never finishes the thought, but you can finish it for him.
Remember that cucumber vine on the front porch?  Ethan has
thoughts of death--and maybe even murder--constantly in his
mind, although nothing you've seen so far ought to suggest he
could kill another person--except perhaps in one of his
illusions. 

Ethan hears movement inside the house.  Again he thinks of the
tramps, but it's Zeena who has come down to open the door.  Now
you catch your first glimpse of Zeena in the flesh.  Until now
you've only heard about her.  Edith Wharton intends us to see
Zeena as particularly ugly--sort of an old crone.  Ethan
notices, as though for the first time, her "flat breast," her
"puckered throat," and the deep "hollows and prominences of her
high-boned face." What a contrast to Mattie who has "the colour
of the cherry scarf in her fresh lips and cheeks." 

NOTE:  You're seeing here one of Wharton's favorite stylistic
techniques--the use of parallel descriptions.  First she
presents the unsightly Zeena in all her ugliness.  In striking
contrast she shows Mattie a line or two later.  Keep this scene
in mind.  You'll see a parallel scene later in the story, but
instead of Zeena, Mattie will be standing in the kitchen door. 

Entering the house is like going into "the deadly chill of a
vault." Why wasn't Zeena in bed?  To explain, she says, "I just
felt so mean [sick] I couldn't sleep." Is she telling the truth?
Or has she stayed up to haunt him and Mattie, as Ethan suspects?
Although there's no way to tell just yet, what's your guess? 

Zeena lives up to her reputation as a crank:  She turns a cold
shoulder to Mattie and scolds Ethan for tracking snow into the
house.  Then she walks out of the kitchen expecting them to
follow her up the stairs to the bedrooms. 

Ethan hesitates.  He doesn't want Mattie to see him following
Zeena to bed, especially on this night of nights.  He offers a
lame excuse for staying downstairs in the cold, unheated
kitchen.  Mattie flashes Ethan a look which he interprets as a
warning.  Perhaps Mattie, too, thinks that Zeena has become
suspicious of them.  To play it safe, Ethan ascends the stairs
behind his wife and disappears into the bedroom. 

Have you noticed that since Ethan's story began, no more than
two hours have passed? 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER III 

Early the next morning you find Ethan and Jotham Powell, the
hired man, in the woods cutting and hauling lumber.  Ethan plans
to sell the lumber to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder.  He
likes being out in the fresh morning air, where he can do his
clearest thinking. 

Ethan's thoughts turn back to last night.  He and Zeena had gone
silently to bed.  For a while he had lain awake listening to
Mattie moving about her room across the hall.  He had stared at
the crack of Mattie's light shining under his door.  Doesn't
Ethan seem like a teenager in love?  He's so infatuated with
Mattie that he wouldn't sleep until she turned off her lamp. 

NOTE:  While Ethan lies in the darkness with Zeena by his side,
his eyes are glued to Mattie's light.  You've seen the
dark-light motif before, but never so clearly.  Images of
light--sun, fire, Silver (Mattie's last name) materialize almost
every time Ethan looks at Mattie.  Note, too, that light is akin
to warmth.  Whenever Mattie appears, the temperature rises, and
you may find a reference to summer.  Similarly, Zeena brings on
the darkness and creates a chill wherever she goes. 

Then all was silent except for Zeena's asthmatic breathing.
What keeps coming back to him now is the memory of Mattie's warm
shoulder pressed against his.  He regrets his failure to kiss
her when he had the chance. 

How Mattie has changed since she came to Starkfield!  So thin
and pale at first, so fresh-faced and pretty now.  Ethan recalls
how Mattie had shivered during the first cold winter.  But she
had never complained.  According to Zeena, Mattie had to make
the best of it because she had no place else to go.  (You can
always depend on Zeena to strike a low blow.  If she has a
sympathetic streak in her, Edith Wharton keeps it well hidden.)
In any case, family misfortune had, in effect, bound Mattie to
them, much like an indentured servant. 

Mattie's fate, it seems, was determined by her late father's
recklessness with money.  Orin Silver, Zeena's cousin, left the
Connecticut hills for Stamford, where he married and took over
his father-in-law's "drug" business.  (Notice that Wharton puts
drug in quotes, suggesting that Orin's business was slightly
shady.) Orin had ambitious plans.  From his wife's relatives he
borrowed large amounts of money, which he promptly spent or
lost.  He died young.  When his wife found out the real nature
of the business, she died too, leaving Mattie a pauper. 

NOTE:  Money--or its absence--shapes the lives of the
characters, determining what they can and cannot do.  Many
important decisions are based on money, and it is a major theme
in the novel.  In addition, Ethan worries about it constantly.
While he suffers from a shortage of money, his story is rich
with allusions to it.  Note also that Mr.  Silver's first name
means "gold." 

To earn a living Mattie tried stenography and sales, but her
health broke.  Her relatives declined to help.  They took out
their anger with Orin on his poor daughter, giving her nothing
but advice. 

When the doctor advised Zeena to look for household help, Mattie
fit the bill.  What Zeena liked especially was that she could
scold and find fault with the girl to her heart's content.
Mattie had to take it; she couldn't quit. 

On the surface the Frome household appears peaceful.  As a
stranger, you probably wouldn't notice Ethan's tension.  And you
surely would not observe his vague dread about the future.  But
what happened last night--especially Mattie's sudden look of
warning in the kitchen--has alarmed him.  It has triggered a
feeling that something quite awful, perhaps a blow-up between
Zeena and Mattie, will soon take place. 

Ethan trudges home from the sawmill, to be on hand if a fight
starts.  To his surprise, he finds Zeena wearing her best dress
and bonnet, with a suitcase packed.  Her pain is so severe that
she's going to consult a new doctor in Bettsbridge, where she'll
spend the night with her Aunt Martha Pierce. 

Ethan's reaction is a little surprising.  Wouldn't you expect
him to feel ecstatic?  Zeena will be gone for a day or so, and
he'll be left alone in the house with Mattie.  Instead, his
reaction is relief.  He's relieved to know that last night Zeena
had spoken the truth.  She was in pain, and she had not stayed
up to harass Mattie and him, after all. 

Even though Ethan can breathe easier now, he's not altogether
happy, for he's worried about the cost of Zeena's trip.  Two or
three times she has traveled to see a doctor, each time bringing
home expensive but useless remedies and health devices. 

But Ethan's worry is promptly chased from his mind by one
overwhelming realization:  Mattie and he will have a night alone
in the house.  He wonders if the same thought has occurred to
Mattie. 

Before you look in on Mattie and Ethan spending a night
together, Zeena must be taken to the train.  She expects Ethan
to drive her, but he can't wait to be rid of her.  He arranges
for Jotham Powell, the hired hand, to take her.  His excuse is
that he intends to collect cash for the lumber delivery he'll
make to Mr.  Hale that afternoon. 

As soon as Ethan speaks these words he regrets them.  Not only
is he lying, but he knows that Hale won't pay cash.  He never
has.  Moreover, to let Zeena think that he has money on hand is
a terrible mistake, for now she's bound to go on a spending
spree in Bettsbridge. 

NOTE:  Here's an instance of still another problem with words
that plagues Ethan.  As you've seen, words sometimes fail him.
At other times, he says things that he regrets later.  Ethan
seems too stiff to blurt words out without thinking, but he does
so.  Moreover, he possesses an impulsive streak that leads him
repeatedly into trouble.  Notice the irony of his predicament:
He can't find words which will help him but he is able to phrase
those words which will get him into a fix. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER IV 

If you've ever entertained a terribly irritating guest for a
long time, you can appreciate Ethan and Mattie's relief after
Zeena drives off.  Suddenly they can relax.  Mattie hums in the
kitchen, and Ethan prepares to haul lumber to town.  He'd like
to stay near Mattie, of course, but he also wants to be home
before nightfall.  After a casual "So long, Matt," he is off. 

All the way to Starkfield he envisions their evening together:
He'll smoke his pipe; they'll talk and laugh while sitting by
the stove like a married couple. 

Ethan's spirits soar in anticipation.  How odd to see this
ordinarily silent and somber man whistling and singing.  It's
been years since his mood has been this cheerful. 

Ethan can be affable, but he's had few chances recently to show
it.  Ever since college he's led a solitary, more or less
silent, life.  After his father's fatal accident Ethan carried
alone the burdens of the farm and mill.  He had no time to
linger in town with other young men.  Then his mother fell ill.
Although she could talk, she rarely did, so Ethan lived in a
silent house.  In fact, "the loneliness of the house grew more
oppressive than that of the fields." And the long silent winters
didn't help, either. 

NOTE:  The quiet of country life appeals to many people.  But
the kind of profound silence that Ethan has endured tends to be
excruciating.  It's more than mere absence of sound, for it
connotes loneliness and isolation.  You can't break the silence
even if you try, for no one will hear you.  The heavy snow of
winter intensifies the hush and keeps people apart. 

In Ethan you find a human counterpart of the silence and
isolation of a Starkfield winter. 

Ethan's imprisonment in a silent world ended when Zenobia
Pierce, a cousin, came from the next valley to help care for his
mother during the last stages of the old woman's illness.  If
you can imagine it, Zeena's voice was "music in his ears." Not
only that, Zeena took charge of the sickbed and household
duties.  At once, Ethan was set free.  He started tending the
mill and farm full-time again. 

Out of gratitude and the fear of being left alone on the farm
after his mother's funeral, he asked Zeena to stay and marry
him, which she did.  They made plans to sell the farm and mill
as soon as they found a buyer, for Ethan was eager to live in a
large town, where he might work as an engineer.  Zeena also
wanted to leave their isolated farm. 

But no one would buy their place.  And, as Ethan discovered to
his dismay, Zeena needed to be noticed.  She couldn't tolerate
being one of the crowd in a large town.  What was worse,
however, was that a year into the marriage Zeena took sick.  Her
"sickliness," observed Ethan, gave her just what she wanted--a
reputation in the community.  Zeena became a famous sick
person. 

Sickness silenced her, but maybe Ethan was partly at fault, too.
Zeena didn't say much because, as she claimed, Ethan "never
listened." But who can blame him?  Zeena spoke only to
complain. 

Zeena's silence troubled Ethan just the same.  Could she have
turned into one of those sad, deranged women known to inhabit
certain lonely farmhouses in the area?  He wondered whether
Zeena kept still to conceal suspicions about Mattie and him. 

Except for one gnawing thought, his mind is at ease as he rides
to town.  He regrets telling Zeena he'd get cash for the lumber.
No doubt she'd nag him to pay for a new patent medicine or a
wonder drug for her ailments.  But far more important, the money
might renew her interest in hiring a girl to replace Mattie. 

Andrew Hale and his wife were longtime acquaintances of Ethan's
family.  Zeena occasionally called on Mrs.  Hale, who in her
youth had cared for many sick people.  For Zeena, visiting Mrs.
Hale was next best to seeing a doctor.  Hale himself ran a
fairly prosperous construction business, but the demands of a
large family kept him from becoming wealthy.  Indeed, he was
always a little "behind" in paying his bills.  In the past he'd
waited three months before paying Ethan for the lumber he
bought.  Obviously, it won't be easy for Ethan to pry the cash
from Hale for this delivery, and he knows it. 

After Ethan unloads the logs he sits down in Hale's office.
Embarrassed, he asks Hale for an advance of fifty dollars.  As
expected, Hale says no, he can't pay.  He treats Ethan's request
almost humorously.  In fact, Hale says, he had hoped for a
little extra time to pay this debt because business is off
slightly, and he's fixing up a little house for Ned and Ruth,
who will soon be wed.  Ethan could cite his own need for prompt
payment, but he's too proud to plead poverty.  He leaves the
office empty-handed. 

While attending to other business in Starkfield, Ethan hears the
jingle of sleigh bells.  It's Denis Eady, who dashes by with a
hearty greeting for him before heading his sleigh out of town,
maybe toward the Frome farm.  Ethan suspects the worst.  He
thinks that Denis, hearing that Zeena has gone to Bettsbridge,
plans to visit Mattie for an hour or so.  Jealousy storms in
Ethan's heart, just as it did last night. 

Before he leaves Starkfield he is stung by jealousy again.  As
darkness falls Ethan passes the Varnum spruces.  In the shadows
he sees and hears Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum kissing.  The two
young lovers separate when they realize they've been spotted.
Ethan finds momentary pleasure in having interrupted Ned and
Ruth at the very place he and Mattie had stood less than
twenty-four hours before.  But he realizes enviously that Ned
and Ruth don't have to hide their happiness. 

NOTE:  As Ethan goes about he utters hardly a word to anyone,
yet through his thoughts you become better acquainted with him.
Edith Wharton favored revealing her thoughts by means of long,
inner soliloquies.  Her friend, Henry James, encouraged her to
use dialogue sparingly and to write it only when the
conversation would bring out significant and distinctive
qualities of the speaker.  The reason:  people are usually
honest in their thoughts.  In conversation with others, you can
never be sure. 

With spirits ebbed again, Ethan starts home.  He listens for
Eady's sleigh bells, but the lonely road is silent.  Near the
farm he notices the light in Mattie's room and he guesses that
she's dressing for supper.  He recalls how on the evening of her
arrival, Mattie appeared for supper with smoothed hair and a
ribbon at her neck, and how Zeena stared at the girl
sarcastically. 

As always, Ethan passes his family graveyard.  He glances
briefly at the headstone of an ancestor also named Ethan Frome,
buried with his wife, Endurance.  The inscription says that the
pair had lived together "in peace" for fifty years.  Bitterly,
Ethan wonders if he and Zeena would have the same epitaph. 

In the barn, Ethan is relieved to see that Denis Eady's horse is
not there.  Perhaps he didn't come this way, after all. 

The kitchen door is locked, just as it had been the night
before.  He calls out to Mattie, who comes to open the door in a
minute or two.  Ethan (and perhaps you, too) is struck with how
similar tonight's homecoming is to last night's.  Instead of
facing Zeena's witchlike countenance, however, he is greeted by
Mattie's shining face.  Last night the kitchen had seemed like a
chilly vault; tonight it's warm and friendly.  The table is set
and a bright fire is lit.  Ethan is almost overcome with a sense
of well-being. 

Unable to contain himself, Ethan wants to know for sure if Denis
Eady had paid a call on Mattie.  "Any visitors?" 

"Yes, one," answers Mattie.  A blackness settles on Ethan, but
it vanishes instantly when Mattie says the visitor had been
Jotham Powell.  Since Jotham had driven Zeena to the train,
Ethan asks instinctively if she got there on time.  Immediately
he regrets mentioning Zeena's name, for it throws a chill
between him and Mattie. 

All through supper they feel Zeena's presence in the room.  The
cat jumps between them into Zeena's empty chair.  (You're not
told whether it's a black cat, but it probably ought to be.)
Zeena's name keeps coming up in their conversation; it's almost
as though she has cast a spell over them.  Ethan has things to
say to Mattie.  He wants to be eloquent.  At the mention of
Zeena, however, he becomes inarticulate and talks about the
weather. 

This evening was meant for celebration.  Why can't they enjoy a
pleasant supper together?  Are they so guilt-ridden by illicit
thoughts? 

NOTE:  Guilt has long been associated with the New England
personality.  It probably originated in Puritan days, when rules
about how to conduct your daily life were very strict.  If you
broke the rules you were punished severely, but physical
punishment wasn't enough.  In fact, the pain inflicted on you
served to cleanse your wrongdoing.  If you could be made to feel
guilty, too, then you suffered more and were less apt to break
the rules again. 

From Zeena's chair the cat jumps onto the table and heads toward
the milk-jug.  Ethan and Mattie reach for the jug at the same
time.  Their hands meet and clasp for a moment longer than
necessary.  Unnoticed, the cat backs off and knocks the
pickle-dish onto the floor.  The dish shatters. 

"Oh, Ethan, Ethan--it's all to pieces.  What will Zeena say?"
Mattie cries out. 

Ethan says to blame the cat, but Mattie knows Zeena won't be
satisfied.  Zeena had kept the dish safely on the top shelf of
the china closet for the past seven years.  It had been a
wedding gift, so special that it was not meant to be used.  (In
a sense the dish was like Zeena herself--tucked away uselessly
in the dark.) The dish can't be replaced, either. 

When Mattie begins to cry, you realize how strongly she fears
Zeena.  But Ethan comes to the rescue, taking the fragments of
the dish and reassembling them on the shelf.  From below you
can't tell the dish is broken.  Months might pass before Zeena
discovers the break.  In the meantime Ethan will check nearby
towns for a duplicate dish. 

What confidence Ethan shows here!  For a few moments forlorn
Frome gives way to firm Frome.  It's a side of his personality
you haven't seen before.  And what inspires his burst of
self-assurance?  A weeping Mattie and an opportunity to outwit
Zeena.  Or perhaps it's panic:  He's so intimidated by Zeena
that he'll do anything to avoid her wrath.  Regardless, his
performance impresses Mattie.  She calms down, and he feels
proud of how he handled the crisis of the pickle-dish. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER V 

Supper is over.  You'll now see whether Ethan's dream will be
realized--whether he'll have a cozy evening by the fire with
Mattie. 

Mattie sits by the lamp with a bit of sewing.  Feeling content
after a good day's work, Ethan stretches his stocking feet to
the fire and lights his pipe.  He asks Mattie to sit closer, for
he wants to look at her.  When she settles in Zeena's rocker,
Ethan has a momentary shock.  He sees Zeena's face instead of
Mattie's. 

NOTE:  This domestic scene is never as blissful as it seems.
You saw at supper how Mattie and Ethan feel Zeena's presence in
the house.  She haunts this scene, too.  Symbolized by the cat,
Zeena has a firm hold on Ethan's conscience.  Her grip will
tighten as the book goes on. 

Uneasy in Zeena's place, Mattie moves back by the lamp.  The
cat, like a stand-in for its mistress, jumps into the vacant
chair and through narrowed eyes watches Mattie and Ethan
converse. 

They talk naturally and simply of everyday things:  the weather,
Starkfield gossip, the next church social.  Eavesdropping on
them, you'd think this is just another evening in a long string
of evenings they have shared.  Ethan knows they're pretending to
be married, and he'd like to continue the illusion as long as he
can. 

At length he says to Mattie, "This is the night we were to have
gone coasting." His tone suggests that they'll go another time.
"We might go tomorrow if there's a moon." Seeing Mattie's
enthusiasm, he becomes bolder.  He describes the perils of
coasting down the Corbury road, especially at the corner down by
the big elm.  "If a fellow didn't keep his eyes open he'd go
plumb into it," he says.  Neither Mattie or Ethan wants to be
frightened half to death on Corbury road, so they agree that
maybe they're better off staying home. 

NOTE:  You heard them talk of the menacing elm tree earlier in
the story.  Why should this big tree demand so much attention?
Later you can count on the presence of the elm tree to touch the
lives of the principal characters. 

Mention of the Corbury road emboldens Ethan to reveal what he'd
been thinking about all evening.  He says to Mattie that under
the Varnum spruces "I saw a friend of yours getting kissed."
Ethan hopes that talking about Ruth and Ned's kiss might somehow
lead to some small intimacy between him and Mattie.  But as soon
as he has spoken the words, he wishes that he hadn't, for they
were too vulgar and out of place.  And they make Mattie blush to
the roots of her hair. 

NOTE:  Why might Mattie turn crimson so quickly?  In the era
when the story takes place, etiquette forbade talk in mixed
company of virtually every bodily part and function.  To talk of
kissing or more intimate matters in the presence of unmarried
girls was especially improper.  Like any social practice, the
custom was probably ignored as often as it was honored.  But
Mattie is either too scared or too naive to break the rules. 

Mattie's embarrassment forces Ethan to keep his distance.  He
alludes to Ruth and Ned's impending marriage, a thinly disguised
effort to talk to Mattie about her future.  Does she want to
marry?  He could ask her directly, but he won't dare.  "It'll be
your turn next," he suggests.  Slightly annoyed and a bit
nervously, Mattie wonders whether Ethan has raised the topic
again because Zeena has something against her.  "Last night she
seemed to have," she explains.  Again, Zeena intrudes. 

To talk openly of Zeena's attitude toward Mattie has suddenly
moved Ethan and Mattie's relationship to a new stage.  They've
never spoken as candidly to each other as they do now.  Feeling
like conspirators who have gone too far, they agree to stop
talking about Zeena.  They understand each other with perfect
clarity, it seems, a rare moment of two minds in perfect
harmony.  Ethan slides his hand cautiously toward Mattie, and
his fingertips touch the end of the fabric she is sewing.  The
tension between them is electric. 

All of a sudden, a sound!  The cat jumps after a mouse, sending
Zeena's empty rocker into a ghostly movement.  Ethan is struck
with a painful thought that Zeena herself will be rocking there
at this time tomorrow, and he'll never have another dreamlike
evening such as this.  His body and brain ache with his sudden
return to reality.  A terrible weariness takes hold of him.  He
doesn't know what to do or say.  Unaware of what he's doing, he
stoops his head and kisses the bit of cloth in his hand.  Mattie
has already begun to roll up her work, and the cloth glides
slowly from his lips. 

So ends Mattie and Ethan's evening together.  They arrange the
room for the night, say good night, and go upstairs separately.
When Mattie closes her bedroom door Ethan remembers "that he had
not even touched her hand." 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER VI 

Consider the high hopes Ethan had for his evening with Mattie.
Wouldn't you expect him to be sullen with disappointment the
next morning?  But at breakfast he's irrationally happy.  Why?
Nothing in his life has changed.  He had not even touched
Mattie's fingertip.  His cheerfulness mystifies even him. 

He reasons that last night he had tasted life with Mattie, and
he'd done nothing to spoil it.  He feels good about that. 

NOTE:  Ethan feels proud to have resisted temptation.  He could
have thrown himself at Mattie.  Had she resisted--which is very
likely--the evening would have been spoiled.  Moreover, she
might have told Zeena about his advances, or she might have
packed her bags and run away.  In short, Ethan felt he had
nothing to gain from giving in to his impulses.  Therefore, he
kept a cool head.  Bravo, Ethan! 

Later, setting off to work, he's tempted to tell Mattie, "We
shall never be alone again like this." Again he resists, aware
that a deeper involvement with Mattie can go nowhere.  Instead
he says matter-of-factly, "I guess I can make out to be home for
dinner." (By "dinner" Ethan means the midday meal.) 

He has a tight schedule for the day's chores:  He must haul
lumber to the village, buy glue, and repair the pickle-dish
before Zeena returns.  If all goes well he'll complete his tasks
and still have time left to spend alone with Mattie.  But all
does not go well.  A sleet storm has coated the roads with ice.
The logs are slippery and take twice as long to load onto the
sledge.  One of his horses slips and falls, injuring a knee
which Ethan must wash and bind. 

Because of the delays Ethan postpones his trip to Starkfield
until after dinner.  He must hurry to be back before Zeena
arrives.  In the village he works frantically to unload the
logs, then hastens to Michael Eady's shop for the glue.  Ethan
finds Denis Eady lounging with friends around the stove.  Denis,
clerking for the day, doesn't know where the glue is kept.
Impatiently Ethan waits for Denis to search the shop.  To Ethan,
who's in a dreadful hurry, Denis seems to dawdle deliberately.
The search is in vain. 

NOTE:  Have you noticed that each time Denis Eady shows up,
Ethan feels as though he's been slapped in the face?  Denis is
probably a fine fellow, but to Ethan he is a threat, for Denis
is a legitimate suitor for Mattie's hand.  Furthermore, Denis'
heartiness and cheerful personality make Ethan squirm.  He can't
return Denis' warm greeting or a slap on the back. 

Ethan rushes to Mrs.  Homan's shop, where the widow Homan hunts
down her last bottle of glue, asking Ethan questions about his
need for it and talking all the while.  Glue in hand, Ethan
dashes out and quickly mounts his sled.  The widow calls after
him, "I hope Zeena ain't broken anything she sets store [values]
by." Mrs.  Homan's words are lost on Ethan, but not on you.  You
might almost guess that Ethan's purchase won't remain a private
matter very long, and that somehow Zeena is bound to find out. 

Ethan drives home as quickly as he can, again thinking of what
Mattie might be doing.  There's no sign of Jotham, who's been
sent to pick up Zeena at the train.  As Ethan enters the house,
he shows Mattie the glue and heads straight for the pickle-dish
in the china closet.  She grabs him by the sleeve and whispers,
"Zeena's come." They stand and stare at each other like culprits
caught in the act.  Has their plan been foiled?  Not if Ethan
can help it.  He assures Mattie that he'll come down to mend the
dish that night. 

"How is she?" Ethan wants to know.  He's curious about Zeena
because after her trips away from home, she usually comes back
"nervous." That is, she's even more snappish than usual.  Mattie
can't tell because Zeena said nothing when she came in.  She
hurried straight to her room. 

In the meantime Jotham returns.  Ethan invites him to supper,
thinking Jotham will serve to keep things calm at the table.  He
turns down the invitation.  Since Jotham won't walk away from a
free meal very often, Ethan senses that there's a message in his
refusal.  Is it that Zeena didn't see the doctor?  Did she
dislike his advice?  Or is it some other news?  Ethan feels
apprehensive about the approaching meal, even though Mattie has
prepared the room and table as attractively as on the previous
night. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER VII 

Ethan goes cautiously to greet his wife. 

Zeena sits in the darkened bedroom, bolt upright, still wearing
her traveling clothes.  Something is wrong.  Ethan's effort to
be friendly falls flat. 

"I'm a great deal sicker than you think," she announces, an edge
of pride in her voice.  The words sound ominous, but not to
Ethan, for Zeena has cried "wolf" too often.  She and her
husband have held this conversation before.  This time, however,
Ethan thinks:  what if at last Zeena's words are true? 

You know immediately what Ethan is thinking.  He may long for
Zeena's death, but he says kindly, "I hope that's not so,
Zeena." 

"I've got complications," says Zeena, which means that she is
not just sick, but seriously sick.  In fact, she just might die.
Ethan is suddenly tossed between waves of jubilation and pity
for Zeena.  She wants his sympathy, but she looks so hard and
lonely sitting in the darkness that the best Ethan can do is
question the reliability of her new doctor. 

"Everybody in Bettsbridge knows about Dr.  Buck," says Zeena.
She cites the case of Eliza Spears, a woman Dr.  Buck brought
back from near death. 

NOTE:  You're not told what's wrong with Zeena, but she and her
doctor think it's grave enough to require surgery.  Medical
practices in Ethan's day were still fairly primitive, and
operations were often performed only as a last resort.  Besides,
people shunned operations, regarding them as "indelicate."
Zeena, of course, disdains operations.  After all, what violates
your privacy more than a surgeon's knife?  Ethan can be
grateful, for he saves a great deal of money in surgeons'
fees. 

More or less convinced--or perhaps only resigned to Zeena's
trust in Dr.  Buck--Ethan asks what treatment the doctor
prescribes.  Notice that he is more curious about the treatment,
which will cost him money, than about the diagnosis. 

"He wants I should have a hired girl," says Zeena, and "I
oughtn't to have to do a single thing around the house." 

What news could hit Ethan harder?  Any treatment would be
cheaper than hiring a full-time, live-in housegirl.  Still worse
is that the matter has already been settled.  Zeena's Aunt
Martha has found a girl who will arrive in Starkfield by train
late tomorrow afternoon. 

Anger and dismay seize Ethan.  He doubts that Zeena is as ill as
she claims, and is convinced that she had gone to Bettsbridge as
part of a scheme to force a servant on him. 

Enraged, he asks, "Did Dr.  Buck tell you how I was to pay her
wages?" Just as furiously, Zeena shouts back, "No, he didn't.
For I'd 'a' been ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the
money to get back my health, when I lost it nursing your own
mother!" 

The two fling biting criticism and charges at each other "like
serpents shooting venom." This is the first time open anger has
raged between them in seven years of marriage.  When their wrath
is spent, Ethan feels ashamed over stooping to such senseless
savagery.  Moreover, lashing out at Zeena won't solve the
practical problem of having a new girl on his hands the next
day.  "I haven't got the money...  You'll have to send her
back," he tells Zeena.  He even vows to do everything around the
house himself.  Zeena scoffs at that and asks about the fifty
dollars Ethan collected from Andrew Hale for the lumber. 

Yesterday Ethan was right.  He should not have lied about Hale's
cash payment, and again regrets words he has spoken impulsively.
He stammers that the whole thing was a misunderstanding.  He
doesn't have the money, and won't get it for at least three
months. 

How will they work out their differences?  Ethan pledges to work
that much harder to please her and Mattie.  Zeena's solution
stuns him:  she plans to send Mattie away. 

At the look on Ethan's face Zeena laughs out loud.  (He can't
remember ever hearing her laugh before.) Ethan has
misunderstood.  She never intended to keep two girls in the
house.  No wonder he worried over the expense. 

Zeena's laugh is so wicked, you can't avoid the sensation that
it signals her triumph over Ethan.  She has successfully dealt
him a blow below the belt. 

Ethan can't believe it.  "Mattie Silver's not a hired girl.
She's your relation," he says.  But Zeena regards Mattie as a
pauper who's outstayed her welcome, and "it's somebody else's
turn now." 

No sooner has Zeena finished condemning Mattie when the young
girl's cheerful voice calls them to supper.  When Zeena refuses
to go down, Mattie gaily offers to bring food up. 

NOTE:  You can't ignore the contrast between Zeena's
coldheartedness and Mattie's innocent goodwill in this and
several following scenes.  Your sympathies lie with Mattie, of
course.  Yet bear in mind that Zeena is the wronged partner in
the marriage.  After all, it's not she who becomes involved,
however innocently, in an extramarital relationship. 

Ethan sweeps to Mattie's defense.  "You ain't going to do it,
Zeena?" But Zeena holds firm.  Then follows one of the longest
speeches Ethan makes in the book.  Although it's only four
sentences, it's spoken with great passion and intensity.  It's
clear to Zeena that Ethan is frantic to hold on to Mattie.  "If
you do a thing like that what do you suppose folks'll say of
you?" he asks her.  She shoots back a cutting reply:  "I know
well enough what they say of my having kep' her here as long as
I have." 

NOTE:  Zeena's answer implies that village people have been
talking about Ethan and Mattie, although you won't find evidence
of such gossip in the book.  Also, where could Zeena have heard
such talk?  She rarely sees anyone from Starkfield.  Then what
does she mean?  Was her comment just a lucky stab in the dark?
Don't you wish that Ethan would call her bluff and say, "Now
what is that supposed to mean?" But Ethan is scared, and
couldn't bear to have his relationship with Mattie exposed. 

Ethan scowls at Zeena.  This evil, brooding woman has robbed him
of a happy life.  Now she intends to deprive him of the one
thing that could make up for every hardship he has suffered.
Violence wells up inside him.  He takes a wild step toward her
and clenches his fist.  But suddenly the flame of hatred goes
out, and like a lamb he goes downstairs to tell Mattie the
news. 

Mattie serves Ethan his dinner, but he can't eat.  He rises from
his chair and walks around the table to her side.  She looks at
him, frightened.  In terror she melts against him.  "What is
it--what is it?" she stammers.  In answer, he presses his lips
against hers.  For an instant she's swept away by the intensity
of his passion.  Then she backs off. 

Ethan says, "You can't go, Matt!  I'll never let you go!" 

"Go--go?" she stammers.  "Must I go?" 

Ethan breaks the news to Mattie, who droops before him "like a
broken branch." 

NOTE:  You might wonder why Ethan doesn't put his foot down and
declare himself boss.  A coup d'etat would spare himself and
Mattie a good deal of heartache.  Does he have the strength to
defy Zeena?  He's yet to stand up to her.  Is he likely to start
now?  In addition, because Zeena is kin to Mattie and Ethan
isn't, Zeena technically has the right to determine Mattie's
fate. 

Ethan knows that when Zeena makes up her mind, that's it!
Mattie must go.  But where?  She has no home, no family, no
prospects for work.  She's hopeless in the truest sense of the
word.  Ethan despairs to think of her facing the world alone.
He's reminded of tales of unfortunate girls seeking work in big
cities and, in the process, losing their decency. 

Ethan springs up suddenly.  "You can't go, Matt!  I won't let
you!  She always had her way, but I mean to have mine now-" He
stops in mid-sentence, hearing Zeena's footsteps behind him--and
says not another word.  So much for Ethan's rebellion. 

Zeena takes her place at the table.  Grim-faced as always, but
unusually chipper, she heaps food on her plate, adjusts her
dentures, and digs in.  Her conquest of Ethan must have improved
her appetite.  She has a scrap of meat and an affectionate word
for the cat.  (A reward for being a faithful stand-in, perhaps?)
Matter-of-factly she answers Mattie's questions about her visit
to Bettsbridge.  She cheers up--and even smiles a little--when
describing the "intestinal disturbances among her friends and
relatives." She addresses her cousin as "Matt," something she
rarely did.  What she says to "Matt," however, is that the pie
she served for dinner "sets a mite heavy" in her stomach.  In
other words, it gives her indigestion. 

Zeena has some rarely used heartburn medicine stored somewhere,
and presently leaves the table to fetch it.  In a few moments,
she returns, "her lips twitching with anger, a flush of
excitement on her sallow face." In her hands she carries the
pieces of the red glass pickle-dish. 

"I'd like to know who done this," she says, visibly upset.  In
fact, she's more distraught than angry.  Tears hang on her
eyelids.  Her voice quavers as she explains how she put her
precious pickle-dish on the top shelf of the closet to keep it
safe. 

NOTE:  Zeena is obviously shaken by the discovery of her broken
pickle-dish.  But what causes such distress?  Doesn't she seem
to overreact?  The dish has sentimental value because it came
from her Aunt Philura in Philadelphia.  But does Zeena seem like
the sentimental type?  Perhaps she is terribly hurt by Ethan and
Mattie's deception.  All we know for sure is that Zeena's
response to the breaking of her treasure is way out of
proportion to its monetary worth.  For a moment she seems like a
poor pathetic soul, perhaps deserving a little pity. 

Ethan responds, "The cat done it," which is true to a point.
But Zeena scoffs.  Mattie then speaks out and accepts the
blame. 

"You got down my pickle-dish--what for?" Zeena wants to know.
When Mattie explains, Zeena thunders, "You wanted to make the
supper-table pretty, and you waited till my back was turned....
You're a bad girl, Mattie Silver, and I always known it." 

If Zeena had any doubts or pangs of conscience about letting
Mattie go, she's free of them now.  She feels perfectly
justified in casting Mattie out to her fate. 

To cap her outburst Zeena leaves the room carrying the
pickle-dish as if it were a dead body.  She thinks aloud that
this tragedy would not have occurred if she had listened to
folks and sent Mattie away long ago. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER VIII 

That night, after Zeena falls asleep, Ethan comes downstairs to
a small room which he sometimes uses as a study.  He has some
thinking to do. 

As he lies down on the sofa-bed, a hard object jabs his cheek.
It's a needlework cushion, the only one Zeena ever made.
Cushions are usually soft, but not this one.  Remember, it's
Zeena's.  Ethan flings it across the room, and props his head
against the wall instead. 

What to do about Mattie weighs on his mind.  Earlier in the
evening she had left a note on the kitchen table.  "Don't
trouble, Ethan," it read--the first words she had ever written
to him.  How dismaying that in the future he would reach Mattie
only with dead words on cold paper. 

But Ethan does want to "trouble" about Mattie.  He can't let his
hopes die.  He's only twenty-eight.  Why should he give his life
to Zeena?  She's a hundred times meaner and more discontented
now than when he married her. 

Ethan thinks about a man much like himself who had lived over
the mountain.  The man escaped from his miserable wife by going
West with the girl he loved.  There followed a divorce, a
remarriage, even a baby girl.  The abandoned wife had sold the
farm and opened a thriving lunchroom in Bettsbridge. 

The story fires Ethan's thoughts.  He'll do the same--leave with
Mattie, take her West, and try his luck.  He begins to compose a
good-bye letter to Zeena, which she'll find on the bed after
he's gone.  "Zeena, I've done all I could for you," he writes.
"...Maybe both of us will do better separate...  you can sell
the farm and mill, and keep the money-" 

NOTE:  You probably know Ethan well enough to speculate on why
he decides to write a letter to Zeena instead of telling her and
walking out.  Would she call him ludicrous and laugh in his
face?  Is he a coward?  Is this another of Ethan's
self-delusions?  Or is he simply avoiding another vicious
argument? 

The word money gives him pause.  What money will he use to carry
out his plan?  The farm and mill are mortgaged to the limit.  No
one would lend him a dime.  In the West he'd surely find work,
but it costs money to go West.  Alone he would take a chance,
but with Mattie in tow...? 

And Zeena?  Ethan frets about her, even as he plans to run from
her.  She'd be lucky to earn a thousand dollars by selling the
farm--if she could even find a buyer.  When Ethan worked day and
night, the farm provided only a meager living.  Well, he thinks,
she can leave the farm and try her luck with her family.  See
what they can do for her.  Give her a taste of the bitter
medicine she was trying to force on Mattie. 

Ethan's eye falls on an advertisement in an old newspaper in the
room.  The ad announces "Trips to the West:  Reduced Rates."
Eagerly he reads the list of fares, and in a moment realizes the
truth.  There's no need worrying about how to live in the West
because he doesn't have the fare for the trip.  There is no way
out--none.  He is a prisoner for life, and he knows it.  Lying
back on the sofa-bed he weeps and gradually falls asleep. 

Waking at dawn, he feels chilly and stiff.  He's jolted by the
thought that Mattie leaves today.  What he'll do without her, he
can't imagine.  Suddenly Mattie enters the small study and tells
Ethan that she had lain awake all night listening for him to
come upstairs. 

Although this is her last morning, she starts the day like any
other, doing her chores.  With the daily routine begun, Ethan
thinks he may have exaggerated Zeena's threats last night.  He's
hopeful that in the light of a new day, she may come to her
senses.  But he must wait until Zeena awakens to know if his
hunch is right. 

Outside, Ethan sees Jotham Powell arriving for work as usual.
All is so ordinary, Ethan can't believe that this will be an
exceptionally sad day in his life.  Jotham, however, reports
that Dan'l Byrne will be taking Mattie's trunk to the train at
about noon.  According to instructions from Zeena, Jotham plans
to take Mattie to the station afterwards--in time to catch the
six o'clock train to Stamford. 

"Oh, it ain't so sure about Mattie's going-" suggests Ethan.
But Jotham--and maybe Ethan himself--knows that Zeena clings to
her decisions.  When the two men go inside for breakfast, they
find Zeena unusually alert and active, the way you'd expect a
child to be on a special day.  She announces the day's schedule,
laying to rest any doubt that Mattie will leave today. 

Now it's the eleventh hour for Ethan.  He's got to do something,
but what?  One thing he's sure about, he's not going to sit
around the house and look on helplessly as Mattie is banished. 

He starts to town, being reminded as he walks of happy moments
he shared with Mattie at this tree or that bend in the road.
Suddenly it occurs to him that he still has one chance to raise
funds for his trip West.  Andrew Hale might pay his debt if he
knew that Zeena's poor health required Ethan to hire a new
servant.  Pride wouldn't keep Ethan from asking Hale for payment
this time.  Just this once, Ethan thinks, he might resort to
lying.  His best tactic, he knew, would be to enlist the help of
Mrs.  Hale, a kindly person, who could be persuaded to help
Ethan plead his case to her husband. 

NOTE:  This is the first time you see Ethan plotting something
openly dishonest.  Would you call him a dishonest man, however?
Do you think that his affair of the heart is dishonest?  You may
find it worthwhile to ponder the state of Ethan's morality. 

Near town he catches sight of Hale's sled, with Hale's youngest
son in the driver's seat, his mother beside him.  What good
luck!  Just the person Ethan wants to talk to. 

Mrs.  Hale greets Ethan cordially.  Immediately you see why
she's considered a kind person.  Her face has "pink wrinkles
twinkling with benevolence." No one else in the book resembles
her even faintly. 

Mrs.  Hale has already heard about Zeena's trip to Bettsbridge
to see the doctor.  She wishes Zeena well, and adds, "I always
tell Mr.  Hale I don't know what she'd 'a' done if she hadn't
'a' had you to look after her; and I used to say the same thing
'bout your mother.  You've had an awful mean time, Ethan
Frome." 

At that Mrs.  Hale nods sympathetically and drives away.  Ethan
is left standing in the middle of the road, struck dumb with
shame and astonishment.  Never in his twenty-eight years has
anyone spoken so kindly to him.  No one has understood his
plight so well.  Until this moment, no one has admired him like
Mrs.  Hale. 

Ethan is not only surprised, he's overcome with guilt.  To think
he was going to take advantage of the Hales' sympathy to obtain
money!  To think he was going to lie to the only people around
who pitied him!  A scoundrel might deceive his friends, but not
Ethan. 

Slowly Ethan returns to the farm.  He has suddenly recognized
who and what he is:  a poor man with a sick wife, "whom his
desertion would leave alone and destitute." 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  CHAPTER IX 

Can you doubt that Mattie will leave before the day is out?  Can
you doubt that something drastic will happen in this, the
climactic chapter of the book? 

Ethan acknowledges that Zeena has won a victory.  In defeat, he
enters the kitchen to find his wife reading a book called
"Kidney Troubles and Their Cure," an undeniable clue to her
condition. 

NOTE:  Zeena shows signs of suffering from a kidney problem,
most likely a kidney stone.  It would certainly be appropriate
for her to have a hard, gritty rock growing inside her.  On the
other hand, doesn't she deserve sympathy, too, because the pain
caused by a kidney stone is reputed to be excruciating?  It can
turn the gentlest soul into a tiger. 

He goes upstairs to help Mattie with her trunk.  There is no
answer when he calls outside the bedroom.  Opening the door he
finds out why.  She sits on her trunk, sobbing. 

"Oh, don't--oh, Matt!" he says to comfort her.  Startled to see
him there, she clings to him.  He puts his lips to her fragrant
hair.  At that moment Zeena calls from downstairs to hurry up
and bring the trunk, for Dan'l Byrne won't wait much longer. 

Ethan hoists the trunk onto his shoulders and carries it down
the stairs.  Zeena, absorbed by her book, doesn't even look up
as he goes by.  Mattie helps him lift the bulky trunk onto the
sleigh, which drives off in haste. 

Each minute pushes Mattie and Ethan another step closer to the
moment that neither can face.  To put off the time when he must
say good-bye to Mattie, Ethan decides that he--not Jotham
Powell--will drive her to the Flats to catch her train.  After
the noon meal Ethan declares his intention to Zeena. 

"I want you should stay here this afternoon, Ethan," his wife
says.  "Jotham can drive Mattie over." Zeena has plans for Ethan
to repair the stove for the new girl.  Ethan is determined to do
as he wants, however.  "If it was good enough for Mattie," he
says, "I guess it's good enough for a hired girl." His temper
surging, Ethan storms out of the house.  He'd rather face
Zeena's anger later than give up his last precious hour or two
with Mattie.  While hitching the horse to the sleigh he recalls
that the day he first met Mattie, just over a year ago, was soft
and mild, just like this one. 

When he re-enters the house the kitchen is deserted.  He finds
Mattie, dressed to go, looking around his small study where he
had slept last night.  Is this the last time he'll see her
standing here?  Ethan refuses to believe it, still clinging to a
hope that this is all a mistake.  He shudders at the thought of
returning home alone only a few hours from now. 

Zeena won't bid Mattie good-bye.  She's gone to her room and
left word not to disturb her.  So it's final!  Zeena has
achieved her goal.  As far as she's concerned, it's good
riddance to Mattie.  When she comes downstairs again she will
find a new girl in Mattie's place. 

Although it's early, Ethan says it's time to go.  He plans to
take a detour to Shadow Pond on his way to the Flats.  He wants
Mattie to see the place where they once had picnicked together.
During a church outing last summer he had come upon her
surrounded by a group of young admirers.  When she saw him
approach, she broke from the group and gave him a cup of coffee.
Then they sat by the pond on a fallen tree.  He found a locket
she had lost.  Each remembers the lovely summer afternoon as a
time of supreme happiness. 

The pond is frozen now, but still beautiful.  Seeing the place
again gives Ethan a fleeting illusion that he is a free man, and
that he's wooing the girl he intends to marry.  For a few
moments they spill out their hearts to each other.  He'd like to
whisper sweet words into her ear, but can't.  In spite of loving
feelings, he's never learned how to express his love. 

NOTE:  How fitting that the place where Ethan and Mattie began
their fleeting romance be named Shadow Pond.  Like a shadow,
their love cannot last. 

Like all pleasant dreams, this one ends too.  The sun sinks
behind the hill, turning the landscape gray again.  They must
resume their journey to the train. 

"What do you mean to do?" Ethan asks. 

Mattie doesn't know.  Work in a shop will damage her health
again.  Relatives won't take her in, even if she were willing to
ask them. 

"You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you if I could," he
says. 

"I know there isn't," she says.  To prove it, she pulls from her
dress the good-bye letter that Ethan had begun to write to Zeena
last night.  Mattie had found it in Ethan's study. 

He is at once astounded and overjoyed that she read the letter.
Would she have gone West with him?  "Tell me, Matt!  Tell me!" 

"I used to think of it sometimes, summer nights..." she
answers. 

Ethan's heart reels with the thought that Mattie has loved him
since last summer--since Shadow Pond. 

At this point can anything good come from such news?  Won't it
make their parting all the more painful?  Perhaps, but knowing
the depth of Mattie's feelings helps Ethan declare his love
openly.  For once his tongue sings without restraint:  "I want
to put my hand out and touch you.  I want to do for you and care
for you.  I want to be there when you're sick and when you're
lonesome." Rather than have her married to someone else, he
adds, "I'd a'most rather have you dead...!" 

"Oh, I wish I was, I wish I was!" she sobs. 

What he has said suddenly shames him.  "Don't let's talk that
way," he whispers. 

By the time the sleigh nears the edge of the village, daylight
has surrendered to darkness.  Ethan and Mattie hear the shouts
of children.  Some village boys have just finished their
coasting for the day.  Mattie reminds Ethan that he was to have
taken her down the hill last night. 

At the crest of the steep hill on the Corbury road, he asks,
"How'd you like me to take you down now?" Mattie hesitates.  Is
there time?  Ethan promises her that there's all the time they
want.  He'll do almost anything, it seems, to postpone the
moment of parting. 

Under the Varnum spruces they find a sled that probably belongs
to Ned Hale.  They prepare to coast, Mattie in front and Ethan
steering.  It's very dark, but Ethan laughs away the danger.  "I
could go down this coast with my eyes tied," he boasts. 

Down they fly.  Approaching the perilous elm tree near the bend
in the road, Mattie shrinks back against Ethan for safety.
"Don't be scared, Matt!" he cries as they make the turn and
speed down to the bottom of the slope. 

They start the long walk up.  Ethan wants to know if Mattie had
been afraid of the elm tree.  "I told you I was never scared
with you," she answers. 

At the top of the hill they return the sled.  Standing in the
shadows of the Varnum spruces Mattie asks, "Is this where Ned
and Ruth kissed each other?" She flings her arms around Ethan.
Two nights ago he had seethed with envy of Ned and Ruth.
Tonight others might envy him and Mattie.  Breathlessly, they
kiss. 

"Good-bye--good-bye," she stammers. 

"Oh, Matt," he cries, "I can't let you go." 

They cling and sob like children.  "What's the good of either of
us going anywheres without the other now?" he says. 

"Ethan!  Ethan!  I want you to take me down again!" she cries,
her tearful cheek against his face.  "...So 't we'll never come
up any more." She wants Ethan to steer the sled right into the
big elm so they'd "never have to leave each other any more." 

Ethan can't believe her proposal.  "You're crazy!" he says. 

NOTE:  You might agree with Ethan that Mattie's urge to destroy
herself and take Ethan with her proves that she is "crazy." But
that's part of the tragedy.  In a classic tragedy the hero ends
up dead.  Usually the hero yearns for death as a release from
the suffering of life.  Is Ethan better off dead?  Mattie thinks
so.  She begins to list all the things wrong with life.  Ethan
listens and is convinced. 

Mattie uses flattery to persuade Ethan to take a suicide run
with her.  No one in the world, she says, has ever been as kind
to her.  Then she pleads with him, conjuring up an image of life
in his house with a new hired girl.  He envisions the house and
thinks of Zeena, the intolerable woman he would see every night
for years and years. 

These are powerful arguments, too strong for Ethan to repel.
They cling to each other.  He finds her mouth again.  In the
distance the train whistle blows.  "Come," Mattie whispers,
tugging him toward the sled. 

The slope below them is deserted.  All of Starkfield is at
supper.  They mount the sled.  Suddenly, he springs up.  "I want
to sit in front," he says. 

Mattie protests.  "How can you steer in front?" 

"I don't have to.  We'll follow the track." 

NOTE:  Ethan adds that he's going to sit in front because he
wants to feel her holding him on the way down the slope.  That's
a fair reason.  But you can't help wondering if that's the only
reason.  By sitting in front, wouldn't he receive the full force
of the impact with the tree?  Or does he want to make sure he
dies because he can't live without her?  Has his
self-destructive urge become stronger than hers?  Deep inside,
does he perhaps want her to survive the suicide attempt? 

On the sled Mattie clasps Ethan.  He leans back, and their lips
meet one last time.  The descent starts.  It seems to Ethan that
they are flying.  The big elm looms ahead.  "We can fetch it; I
know we can fetch it-" he says, determined to hit the tree trunk
squarely. 

All of a sudden he thinks of Zeena's twisted, ugly face.  For an
instant he's distracted, and the sled swerves slightly from its
deadly course.  But he rights it again and drives it into the
black mass of the tree.... 

The story pauses for a moment.  Have Mattie and Ethan "fetched"
it?  Ethan survives, of course.  In the prologue of the novel
you've already seen him many years after the smash-up. 

And Mattie?  You discover her fate at the same time as Ethan.
Lying dazed on his back, he sees a star through the branches of
the elm.  Is it Sirius?  he wonders.  Too tired to think, he
closes his heavy lids to sleep.  The silence is profound.  Is
this like the moment of death? 

Ethan hears a little animal squeak under the snow.  It sounds
like a frightened field mouse in pain, pain so intense he feels
it in his own body.  The sound seems to come from something soft
and springy under his outstretched hand.  Slowly things come
into focus.  His hand is resting on Mattie's head; the cries of
pain come from her lips. 

Faintly she speaks his name. 

"Oh, Matt, I thought we'd fetched it," he moans in grief and
agony.  But both, to their regret, have lived through the
smash-up. 

What becomes of them afterward you will find out in the
epilogue-that is, in the untitled last chapter of the book. 

NOTE:  Death pacts between lovers who cannot bear to part occur
in both life and literature.  Greek mythology tell of Baucis and
Philemon, whose wish to die at the same moment is granted by the
gods.  In Dante's Inferno the lovers Paolo and Francesca kill
themselves, but death brings them no relief from suffering.
They are doomed to spend eternity in the second circle of hell,
their punishment for yielding to desires of the flesh.  Then
too, Romeo and Juliet inflict death upon themselves, although
technically not as a result of a prearranged agreement.
Regardless of the time or place, stories of lovers' suicides
almost never fail to stir the emotions. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  EPILOGUE 

The epilogue begins precisely where the prologue ended,
twenty-four years after Ethan and Mattie crashed into the elm
tree. 

Ethan and his overnight guest, the narrator of the story, step
into the Frome farmhouse.  Two women in the kitchen stop talking
when they notice the stranger. 

Even before he's introduced the narrator is struck by the room's
shabby appearance.  The meager furnishings are soiled and worn
from use. 

Now that Ethan has come home one of the women--a tall, bony,
gray--haired figure--starts to prepare the evening meal.  The
other woman remains huddled in an armchair near the stove.  She
can't get up because her body is limp.  She can move her head,
but that's all.  She has the bright witchlike stare of someone
suffering from a disease of the spine. 

NOTE:  Although the narrator needs to be told who these women
are, you don't.  You've met them before and know them well:
Mattie and Zeena. 

However, you're probably not ready for the shocking change that
has taken place since you last saw them. 

When Ethan comments that the room feels cold, the small woman in
the chair explains in a high, thin voice that the stove has just
been refilled with wood.  She adds that her companion had taken
a long nap and had neglected the fire.  "I thought I'd be frozen
stiff," she complains. 

Ignoring the accusation, the tall woman returns to the table
with dinner--the cold leftovers of a mince pie.  As she sets the
battered pie dish down, Ethan introduces her:  "This is my wife,
Mis' Frome." 

"And this," he says, turning toward the shriveled figure in the
chair, "is Miss Mattie Silver...." 

NOTE:  The gap between the "first acts of the tragedy," as
Wharton put it, and the moment when you meet Zeena and Mattie a
generation later, has provoked a good deal of literary
commentary.  Henry James called it "peculiar." In response,
Wharton said the book had to be organized this way to achieve
the dramatic impact she sought.  If the book had been longer,
she may have structured it differently.  But Wharton
deliberately turned Ethan's tale into a novelette rather than a
full-length novel to create a stark effect in both the story and
its telling. 

Back in Starkfield the next day, Mrs.  Hale and old Mrs.  Varnum
can hardly believe that their young boarder, the narrator, had
spent the night under Ethan Frome's roof.  Mrs.  Hale tells him,
"You're the only stranger has set foot in that house for over
twenty years." 

The fact that he gained admittance to Ethan's house makes the
narrator something of a celebrity to his landlady.  Now she can
trust him with more information about what happened to Ethan,
Mattie, and Zeena after the smash-up.  In fact, Mrs.  Hale seems
almost relieved to spill out the painful memories she's kept
bottled inside her these many years.  Her loosened tongue brings
Ethan's story up to date. 

After the collision with the elm tree Ethan was carried to the
minister's house to recover.  Mattie, much more seriously hurt,
was brought up the hill to the Varnum house.  Ruth (now Mrs.
Hale) was with her when she awoke.  Mattie, seeing her good
friend at her bedside, broke down and told Ruth everything. 

Word of the accident spread around town, of course.  But only
Ruth knew why Ethan and Mattie had been coasting that night when
they should have been on their way to the Flats to meet Mattie's
train. 

What Zeena thought nobody knows.  To this day she's said
nothing.  Zeena had hurried to Ethan's side after the smash-up.
Later, when Mattie was well enough to be moved, Zeena took her
back to the farm, too.  The crippled girl has lived there ever
since. 

"It was a miracle," says Mrs.  Hale.  Before the accident Zeena
had been so sick, she couldn't even care for herself.  But when
the call came "she seemed to be raised right up." For over
twenty years now she's had strength enough to care for both
Ethan and Mattie. 

Not that it's been easy, adds Mrs.  Hale.  Quite the contrary,
in fact.  Suffering has turned Mattie sour, and Zeena has always
been a crank.  Sometimes the two women torment each other.  To
see Ethan's face when Mattie and Zeena do battle would break
your heart, for he's the one who suffers most. 

On pleasant summer days Mattie can be moved into the yard, and
there's some relief in that.  But in winter the three of them
are shut up in one small kitchen.  New England winters last a
long time.  Can you understand now why Ethan goes to the
Starkfield post office each noontime to pick up mail that almost
never comes?  No wonder, too, that his shoulders are stooped and
his face is grim.  Do you recall that Ethan's gaunt figure makes
him appear as though he's "dead and in hell?" In a way, he is.
As Mrs.  Hale intimates, she doesn't see "much difference
between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the
graveyard; 'cept that down there they're all quiet, and the
women have got to hold their tongues." 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  GLOSSARY OF PEOPLE AND PLACES 

ANDREW HALE Starkfield's builder.  Ethan delivers a load of
lumber to him the day Zeena goes to Bettsbridge.  Andrew is Ned
Hale's father. 

AUNT MARTHA PIERCE Zeena's aunt in Bettsbridge.  Zeena spends
the night at her house. 

AUNT PHILURA MAPLE Zeena's aunt from Philadelphia.  The red
glass pickle-dish was her wedding gift to Zeena and Ethan. 

BETTSBRIDGE A town some thirty miles from Starkfield, where
Zeena goes to consult a new doctor. 

CORBURY FLATS The closest railroad stop to Starkfield. 

CORBURY JUNCTION The site of the powerhouse where the book's
narrator, a young engineer, works. 

CORBURY ROAD The road to the Flats.  In Starkfield the road has
a very steep hill, down which Ethan and Mattie take their final
sleigh ride. 

DANIEL BYRNE The sleigh driver who takes Mattie's trunk to the
station. 

DENIS EADY A young man in Starkfield whom Ethan considers a
rival for Mattie's affection.  Eventually he becomes a rich
grocer and the owner of the local livery stable. 

DOCTOR BUCK Zeena's physician in Bettsbridge.  Because of his
diagnosis of her ailments, Zeena hires a new girl to replace
Mattie. 

ETHAN FROME The main character.  The novel tells of Ethan's life
from his days as a young man until his early fifties. 

HARMON GOW Starkfield's stage driver in pre-trolley days, he is
one of the narrator's informants about Ethan Frome. 

JOTHAM POWELL The Fromes' hired man. 

LAWYER VARNUM The town lawyer, he owns the Varnum house and is
the father of Ruth Varnum, who marries Ned Hale. 

MATTIE SILVER Zeena Frome's cousin who comes to stay with Ethan
and Zeena.  She and Ethan fall in love, which leads to the
story's tragic ending. 

MICHAEL EADY Starkfield's Irish grocer, he's a clever
businessman and also the father of Denis Eady. 

MRS.  ANDREW HALE Mother of Ned Hale, she speaks sympathetically
to Ethan, kindling such guilt in him that he cannot carry out
his plan to go West with Mattie. 

MRS.  NED HALE During part of the story she is Ruth Varnum,
fiancee of Ned Hale.  Later she is Ned's widow and owns the
house where the narrator stays during his time in Starkfield.
She was the first to see Ethan and Mattie after the smash-up. 

NED HALE Son of Andrew and Mrs.  Hale, he married Ruth Varnum. 

ORIN SILVER Mattie's father, whose death left Mattie
destitute. 

RUTH VARNUM Daughter of Lawyer Varnum, she marries Ned Hale.
See Mrs.  Ned Hale. 

SHADD'S FALLS Closest large town to Starkfield. 

STAMFORD Mattie's hometown in Connecticut. 

STARKFIELD Site of the story; its name suggests the kind of
place it is--cold, desolate, and dreary. 

VARNUM A well-known family in Starkfield.  In front of the
Varnum's house stand two large spruce trees that figure in the
story. 

WORCESTER Site of the technical college that Ethan attended for
one year. 

ZEENA FROME Ethan's sickly wife, she is the odd person in the
love triangle that blooms in the story. 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF ETHAN FROME 

Because Edith Wharton came from a level of society so far
removed from the poor country people who populate Ethan Frome,
critics have regarded her so-called "New England folk tale" with
considerable skepticism.  A highly regarded scholar, Alfred
Kazin, wrote: 

[Ethan Frome] was not a New England story and certainly not the
granite "folk tale" of New England its admirers have claimed it
to be.  [Mrs.  Wharton] knew little of the New England common
world and perhaps cared even less.  The world of the Frome
tragedy is abstract.  She never knew how the poor lived in Paris
or London; she knew even less of how they lived in the New
England villages where she spent an occasional summer. 

-On Native Grounds:  An Interpretation of 

Modern American Prose Literature, 1942 

Not all critics are as harsh as Kazin.  Grace Kellogg, for
example, agrees that Ethan Frome is not a New England story.  In
her opinion, the story was probably based on a French folktale,
which Edith Wharton tried to transplant to Massachusetts.  If
the setting were the Alps, 

Ethan's character, which has been called too much of "granite"
for the New England scene, orients itself at once on a bleak,
isolated mountainside.  Zeena's extraordinarily narrow,
impervious nature finds a natural habitat there.  As for Mattie,
with her light gaiety, her innocence and purity and evanescent
sweetness--she is the star-shaped blossom of edelweiss. 

The feeling of isolation which obtains, basic to the story
despite all statements of country dance, village slide, friendly
neighbors, a city not too far away, is now accounted for.... 

hat Starkfield "bobsled" has struck in many a critical craw....
[It's] a clumsy almost ludicrous vehicle, this New England
bobsled, devoid of tragic dignity.  The toboggan of the folk
tale offers no such embarrassment. 

-The Two Lives of Edith Wharton, 1965 

^^^^^^^^^^
ETHAN FROME:  ON STYLE AND SYMBOLISM 

Critic Blake Nevius writes with admiration of Edith Wharton's
use of vivid details: 

hey arise directly and easily, and always with the sharpest
pertinence, from the significant grounds of character and
situation....  Every reader will recall some of them:  Mattie's
tribute to the winter sunset--"It looks just as if it was
painted"; Ethan's reluctance to have Mattie see him follow Zeena
into their bedroom; the removal of Mattie's trunk; the watchful,
sinister presence of Zeena's cat disturbing the intimacy of the
lovers' evening together by appropriating her mistress' place at
the table, breaking the pickle-dish, and later setting Zeena's
rocking chair in motion.  Zeena may not be a sympathetic
character, but there is a moment when she makes us forget
everything but her wronged humanity.  As she confronts the
guilty lovers, holding fragments of her beloved pickle-dish, her
face streaming with tears, we have a sudden and terrible glimpse
of the starved emotional life that has made her what she is.
The novelist's compassion can reach no further. 

-Edith Wharton:  A Study of Her Fiction, 1953 

The broken pickle-dish has attracted considerable critical
comment.  It has been viewed symbolically in many different
ways.  This idea from Richard H.  Lawson: 

The warmth of the evening is brought to an apprehensive end by
the accidental breaking of one of Zeena's sacred, never-used
pickle-dishes.  That the pickle-dish, a wedding gift, has never
been used makes it a strong symbol of Zeena herself, who prefers
not to take part in life.  The depth of Zeena's reaction to its
being broken is revealed by her angrily twitching lips and by
"two small tears...  on her lashless lids." 

-Edith Wharton, 1977 

Critic Margaret B.  McDowell considers the pickle-dish an ironic
symbol, closely related to other ironies in the book: 

Zeena is not seen simply as part of Ethan's curse...  but as a
deprived woman who grieves over lost beauty when the cherished
red pickle-dish she has saved since her wedding is used by
Mattie and broken. 

The book is fraught with such ironies:  the dish that is
treasured is the one that is broken; the pleasure of the one
solitary meal that Ethan and Mattie share ends in distress; the
ecstacy of the coasting ends in suffering; the moment of
dramatic renunciation when Ethan and Mattie choose suicide
rather than elopement ends not in glorious death but in years of
pain.  The lovely Mattie Silver becomes an ugly, querulous woman
cared for by Zeena, who, again ironically, finds strength and
companionship by caring for her former rival. 

-Edith Wharton, 1976 

                               THE END