Ethan Frome

“That Frome farm was always ’bout as bare’s a milkpan when the cat’s been round; and you know what one of them old water-mills is wuth nowadays.” 

Ethan Frome rarely refers directly to industrialization, but its impact is everywhere in the novel. One of the more obvious examples is the depreciation of the Frome family’s property; with industry increasingly reliant on cheap, efficient electricity, a hydro-powered sawmill isn’t an attractive investment. Ethan’s problem is therefore twofold: He isn’t equipped to compete in the industrial economy, but he’s also unable to sell the farm and mill that are holding him back.

“He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.” 

The idea that Ethan embodies rural New England’s “mute melancholy landscape” reflects the novel’s naturalism; not only Ethan’s life but also his very personality is the product of forces beyond his control—in this case, the environment in which he lives. The passage also links this situation to another theme—the problem of authentic human connection—by attributing Ethan’s “moral isolation” to these conditions. Finally, the association between Ethan and Starkfield is relevant to the novel’s depiction of industrialization, with Ethan’s fate symbolizing the fate of rural America more broadly.

“The girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.

It was during their night walks back to the farm that he felt most intensely the sweetness of this communion.” 

Ethan’s feelings for Mattie flow partly from his sense that she’s similar to him in a very fundamental way. This feeling of “communion” is all the more powerful given Ethan’s longstanding fear that he’s alone in his sensitivity and curiosity; it’s a relief to find someone else who “tremble[s] with the same touch of wonder” at the world around her (23). At the same time, the fact that the novel depicts Mattie only as Ethan sees her underscores a basic problem—namely, that Ethan can’t know her (or anyone else’s) inner world firsthand. There’s thus a danger that Ethan is simply seeing what he wants to see in Mattie, especially since, as this passage notes, the pleasure he takes in their conversation stems partly from seeing his own words and teachings reflected back at him.

“‘I wouldn’t ever have it said that I stood in the way of a poor girl like Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady,’ Zeena answered in a tone of plaintive self-effacement.” 

Zeena’s words and manner in this passage are characteristic of how she manipulates Ethan. Rather than directly referencing her displeasure with Mattie (let alone her jealousy of her), she broaches the subject of Mattie’s departure by suggesting she might marry. She also frames the statement as a defense of herself, thus putting Ethan in the awkward position of having supposedly questioned her altruism. This sort of insinuation and passive-aggressiveness is part of what Ethan finds so repellant in Zeena because it impedes his access to her true thoughts and feelings; even her “tone of plaintive self-effacement” is convoluted and evasive in that it draws attention to her purported lack of desire for attention. However, while Zeena has ulterior motives for saying so, it’s true that a woman in Mattie’s position has few options besides marriage; her education was geared towards this rather than towards providing her with marketable skills, so marriage is her best chance to secure a livelihood.

“‘Oh, Ned ain’t much at steering. I guess I can take you down all right!’ he said disdainfully.

He was aware that he was ‘talking big,’ like Denis Eady, but his reaction of joy had unsteadied him, and the inflection with which she had said of the engaged couple ‘They’re so happy!’ made the words sound as if she had been thinking of herself and him.” 

Mattie’s account of Ned and Ruth’s near crash foreshadows her and Ethan’s fate—not, ironically, because they do crash, but because Ethan’s steering isn’t as good as he believes, so the crash isn’t fatal. The crash therefore symbolizes Ethan’s inability to shape his destiny, just as his claim here that he “can take Mattie down all right” reflects his desire to exercise a stereotypically masculine form of agency. Mattie’s remarks about Ned and Ruth are also significant. As Ethan understands it, she’s identifying with the engaged couple, and perhaps trying to communicate that identification to Ethan. The remark is therefore an example of the way characters use narrative as a means of connecting with others.

“For years that quiet company had mocked his restlessness, his desire for change and freedom. ‘We never got away—how should you?’ seemed to be written on every headstone […].” 

Sickness and mortality are important motifs in Ethan Frome, where they’re often used to evoke an idea of living death. Here, the inevitability of death serves as shorthand for a different kind of inevitability, one in which social and scientific forces like heredity and poverty completely determine the course of an individual’s life.

“Mattie Silver was the daughter of a cousin of Zenobia Frome’s, who had inflamed his clan with mingled sentiments of envy and admiration by descending from the hills to Connecticut, where he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to her father’s thriving ‘drug’ business. Unhappily Orin Silver, a man of far-reaching aims, had died too soon to prove that the end justifies the means. His accounts revealed merely what the means had been; and these were such that it was fortunate for his wife and daughter that his books were examined only after his impressive funeral.” 

Mattie’s family history reflects the socioeconomic tensions and changes underpinning the novel as a whole. The novel’s major characters are mostly working or lower-middle class; they also live in rural areas, working in rural industries like agriculture or logging. In a society that has become increasingly centered on urban economic activity, these characters risk marginalization. Mattie’s father is an example of someone who tried to adapt to the new economy, only to find himself in the worst of both worlds; his relatives resented him for his apparent success, when in reality he had gotten in over his head. His efforts and subsequent failure also shape his daughter’s life, because she grows up accustomed to a middle-class lifestyle she can’t maintain after her father’s death, while lacking the skills (or even physical strength) that would help her find work.

“The mere fact of obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about his business again and talk with other men, restored his shaken balance and magnified his sense of what he owed her. Her efficiency shamed and dazzled him. She seemed to possess by instinct all the household wisdom that his long apprenticeship had not instilled in him.” 

The above passage illustrates the way in which the same gender norms that relegate women to the status of homemakers can also disadvantage men. Because he didn’t grow up learning “household wisdom,” Ethan finds himself not only relying on Zeena’s labor, but also deferring to her authority. The paradoxical result is that Ethan can only assume a traditionally masculine, “free,” and authoritative role in society with Zeena’s permission. This reversal of the typical balance of power characterizes Ethan’s entire relationship with Zeena and ultimately causes him to feel emasculated despite the fact that he outwardly conforms to societal expectations.

“He had always wanted to be an engineer, and to live in towns, where there were lectures and big libraries and ‘fellows doing things.’ A slight engineering job in Florida, put in his way during his period of study at Worcester, increased his faith in his ability as well as his eagerness to see the world; and he felt sure that, with a ‘smart’ wife like Zeena, it would not be long before he had made himself a place in it.”

Ethan’s dream of becoming an engineer isn’t simply the result of intellectual curiosity. Rather, as this passage suggests, it’s intertwined with a desire to participate in urban society, and especially to prove himself capable of competing in a modern economic system. This vision of the American dream—the idea that it’s possible to “make a place for oneself” in the world through hard work alone—is so deeply ingrained that Ethan’s failure to live up to it causes him intense shame.

“At other times her silence seemed deliberately assumed to conceal far-reaching intentions, mysterious conclusions drawn from suspicions and resentments impossible to guess.” 

For Ethan, who fervently desires deep and meaningful human connection, Zeena’s inscrutability is so frustrating that it seems like a “deliberate” attempt to distance herself from him. This impression in turn leads him to suspect her of plotting against him, and even of wielding an almost superhuman power over him; his impression that Zeena is concealing “far-reaching intentions […] impossible to guess” echoes his sense of “huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face” of the natural world (20). Arguably, this belief is self-serving since it excuses Ethan’s own passivity and indecision.

“She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child’s.” 

The above passage initially seems to underscore the differences between Zeena and Mattie, most notably in physical appearance; where Zeena’s throat is “puckered” (33), for example, Mattie’s is “slim.” In retrospect, however, this moment is one of several that foreshadow Mattie’s transformation into a Zeena-like figure. These passages reveal the irony of Ethan’s desire to replace his wife with Mattie while also highlighting the tension between free will and determinism in the novel; nothing Ethan does seems to change the kind of life he’s destined to lead, but in a perverse sense, he does succeed in making Mattie a permanent part of his life.

“[H]e remembered the night before, when he had put his arm about Mattie, she had not resisted. But that had been out-of-doors, under the open irresponsible night. Now, in the warm lamplit room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order, she seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable.” 

The contrast between the “open irresponsible night” and the “conformity and order” of the scene inside the farm raises an important point: It is precisely the fact that Ethan’s fantasies are so conventional that makes them unattainable. Ethan doesn’t want to have an affair with Mattie, but rather to marry her and lead a very typical, idealized domestic existence.

“The sudden heat of his tone made her colour mount again, not with a rush, but gradually, delicately, like the reflection of a thought stealing slowly across her heart.”

Unlike Zeena, who strikes Ethan as entirely unreadable, Mattie seems incapable of concealing her thoughts and feelings, which here manifest visibly in her blush. Regardless of whether this perception of her is accurate, it plays an important role in Ethan’s attraction to her, contributing to his belief that they understand one another on a fundamental level. The passage is also one of several that links Mattie to the color red. Initially, this association emphasizes Mattie’s vitality and sexual desirability, but in the aftermath of the attempted suicide, it also ties her to danger, bloodshed, and death.

“[H]e might get back to the farm with the glue before Jotham and the old sorrel had had time to fetch Zenobia from the Flats; but he knew the chance was a slight one. It turned on the state of the roads and on the possible lateness of the Bettsbridge train. He remembered afterward, with a grim flash of self-derision, what importance he had attached to the weighing of these probabilities [...].”

The breaking of the pickle dish is symbolically significant, both as a commentary on Ethan and Zeena’s marriage, and as an omen of Ethan and Mattie’s fate. Ethan’s efforts to fix the dish are likewise important and tend to reinforce a deterministic view of human action; not only do external circumstances constantly impede him, but the entire project turns out to be pointless, since Zeena has already decided to dismiss Mattie.

“Ethan was aware that, in regard to the important question of surgical intervention, the female opinion of the neighbourhood was divided, some glorying in the prestige conferred by operations while others shunned them as indelicate.”

Like the era in which it was written, Ethan Frome associates sickness with womanhood or femininity. The roots of this association are complex, ranging from sexist stereotypes concerning female weakness to poor understanding of female bodies. What is significant about Wharton’s depiction is the relationship between sickness and power; here, for example, she describes a debate about whether surgery elevates the social standing of the woman undergoing it. Zeena is especially skilled at leveraging illness in this way, just as she is at leveraging the broader disadvantages of womanhood to secure status and authority.

“All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the woman who at every turn had barred his way. She had taken everything else from him; and now she meant to take the one thing that made up for all the others.” 

In his anger at Zeena, Ethan sees her as embodying all the forces that have constrained his life. There’s an element of truth to this, since Zeena not only stands in the way of Ethan’s relationship with Mattie, but also has in the past prevented him from moving away from Starkfield: “She chose to look down on Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place which looked down on her” (42). However, this characterization of Zeena glosses over Ethan’s own responsibility for the course his life has taken—perhaps most obviously, his choice to marry Zeena.

“Despair seized him at the thought of her setting out alone to renew the weary quest for work. In the only place where she was known she was surrounded by indifference or animosity; and what chance had she, inexperienced and untrained, among the million bread-seekers of the cities? There came back to him miserable tales he had heard at Worcester, and the faces of girls whose lives had begun as hopefully as Mattie’s.... It was not possible to think of such things without a revolt of his whole being.” 

Ethan’s concern for Mattie’s future is justified. As a single woman with no experience working outside the home, she is at considerable risk of failing to secure an income and falling into poverty. Furthermore, the kinds of jobs available to women in her position were often poorly paid and dangerous, even by the standards of the time. There’s also an implicit suggestion that Mattie might have to prostitute herself if she can’t find other work; 19th- and early-20th-century writers tended to frame prostitution as the worst fate imaginable for a woman, a fact that explains Ethan’s visceral “revolt” when considering Mattie’s potential future.

“Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham Lincoln and a calendar with ‘Thoughts from the Poets,’ and tried, with these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a ‘minister’ who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at Worcester.” 

The sad state of Ethan’s makeshift study—its “meagre” furnishings and lack of heat—reflects not only his defunct dreams of completing an education, but also the impoverishment of his entire inner world. Ethan craves learning and intellectual engagement but has limited access to scholarly materials; his study is a pale imitation of the minister’s, in much the same way that he can only read about scientific discoveries (long after the fact, in the case of the book the narrator lends him) rather than participating in the field himself.

“His pen paused on the word, which brought home to him the relentless conditions of his lot. If he gave the farm and mill to Zeena what would be left him to start his own life with? Once in the West he was sure of picking up work—he would not have feared to try his chance alone. But with Mattie depending on him the case was different. And what of Zeena’s fate? Farm and mill were mortgaged to the limit of their value, and even if she found a purchaser—in itself an unlikely chance—it was doubtful if she could clear a thousand dollars on the sale.” 

The above passage lays out the various social forces hemming Ethan in. Industrialization has devalued Ethan’s already unprofitable farm and sawmill, making it all but impossible to sell them. This poverty in turn interacts with norms surrounding gender and marriage to produce a situation in which Ethan feels he has no options; both Zeena and Mattie are financially dependent on Ethan, so he can’t in good conscience leave Zeena with nothing but worthless property or take Mattie west with no plan in place to support her. The “relentlessness” of Ethan’s situation reflects the influence of naturalist literature, which depicted human agency as illusory in the face of factors such as societal expectation, family history, and evolutionary pressure.

“The passion of rebellion had broken out in him again. That which had seemed incredible in the sober light of day had really come to pass, and he was to assist as a helpless spectator at Mattie’s banishment. His manhood was humbled by the part he was compelled to play and by the thought of what Mattie must think of him.” 

Ethan’s powerlessness (or, alternatively, his passivity) starkly contradicts the gender role society has assigned to him; according to the ideology of the time, men were by nature forceful, independent, and driven. Typically, part of what Ethan appreciates about Mattie is the opportunity she provides for him to feel conventionally masculine; she’s young and inexperienced, thus allowing him to assume an assertive, protective role in their relationship. In this passage, however, Mattie’s presence exacerbates the deep shame Ethan habitually feels around his inability to live up to gendered expectations.

“The words were like fragments torn from his heart. […] And the sweetness of Mattie’s avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too, made the other vision more abhorrent, the other life more intolerable to return to...” 

The idea that Ethan and Mattie share a unique understanding culminates in the above passage, as Mattie seems to give voice to Ethan’s own thoughts. Her all-but-explicit declaration of love brings them even closer together, affirming that her experience of their relationship has mirrored Ethan’s all along. This is just the sort of connection Ethan has longed for throughout his life, so the thought of returning not only to Zeena, but also to the loneliness of his life with her, feels “intolerable.” However, in an ironic twist, Ethan’s attempt to avoid this fate changes Mattie’s personality so dramatically that it presumably severs the bond between her and Ethan.

“The answer seemed to satisfy her, or else she yielded to the power of his voice.” 

For most of the novel, Ethan has associated sledding with masculine agency. However, when Mattie asks Ethan to drive them into the elm, he argues that they should switch positions on the sled, even though doing so will make it more difficult for him to steer. Ethan insists that this won’t matter, since other sledders have left a grooved track to follow, but the moment is symbolic of Ethan’s general posture in life: He uses what agency he does have (in this case, his masculine “power” over Mattie) to give up his agency.

“‘Oh, Matt, I thought we’d fetched it,’ he moaned; and far off, up the hill, he heard the sorrel whinny, and thought: ‘I ought to be getting him his feed.’” 

The aftermath of the crash, like the sled ride itself, takes place within the context of the determinism-versus-free-will debate. Ethan’s remark that he “thought they’d fetched it” implies confusion over how he could have failed to achieve a result he was so set on. However, his very next thought reveals the problem: Ethan wasn’t fully committed to his and Mattie’s suicide, but rather preoccupied with his obligations to Zeena, the family farm, etc. The fact that he continues to feel the weight of these societal pressures even through the pain of his injuries is a testament to how restrictive they are.