CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

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Ethan Frome

Character Analysis
Ethan is our tragic hero, a man of many faces. He lives with two women, his wife and his wife's cousin, with whom he was (and maybe still is) in love. It doesn't sound like such a great situation, does it? We did say tragic hero, didn't we? But tragic hero isn't the only way to look at Ethan. We will also look at him in terms of the transformations he undergoes throughout the novella.

Ethan the Tragic Hero

As writers through the ages, from Sophocles to Shakespeare to Edith Wharton, have known, everybody likes a good tragedy from time to time. How do writers of tragedy capture our attention and emotions? That's easy. They just give us a really fascinating hero or heroine to whom we can relate, and then take away everything he or she loves. Actually the hero usually causes his or her own downfall.

Tragic heroes often fit a certain kind of mold. (Think about Ethan while you read.) The tragic hero is usually gifted with one or more extraordinary talents, abilities, or qualities. The hero also has a tragic flaw, which is most often inextricably linked to one or more of the extraordinary talents, abilities or qualities. Sometimes the hero doesn't really have a tragic flaw. Sometimes he just makes a mistake, or series of mistakes, but they are usually somehow connected to one or more of his talents.

So if Ethan is a tragic hero, what is extraordinary about him? Does he have a tragic flaw? Does he make mistakes?

Though Ethan has many extraordinary qualities (for example, we know he's physically very strong and also quite intelligent), his kind and loving nature stands out. Ethan can't stand to see any living creature in pain. He takes care of both his mother and father until they die, postponing his own education. And he melts completely when he thinks of Zeena abandoned and destitute. His concern for the suffering of others is hammered home during the scene where Ethan and Mattie crash into the elm tree. What is on Ethan's mind just before and after the attempted suicide? He's thinking about the fact that his horse has missed dinner and is hungry.

His concern for others (or maybe his unwillingness to make decisions which might hurt others) proves to be Ethan's tragic flaw (figuratively speaking). He dreams of schools and society and all the things his hungry mind and heart desire. But he believes that although Zeena is unhappy in Starkfield, a move would make her have "a complete loss of identity" (4.7). Later, he worries that if he leaves Zeena "his desertion would leave [her] alone and destitute" (8.52). His concern for Zeena prevents him for fulfilling his own dreams. The tragic part is that in trying to keep Zeena from suffering, Ethan makes them both miserable.

Though Ethan means well, everything turns out badly for everyone involved. In some twisted version of kindness, Ethan decides to join Mattie in a suicide pact. He can't live up to his own ideal version of kindness, and finally explodes under its pressure. Did you notice? Extraordinary talents, tragic flaws, terrible mistakes = Ethan as a tragic hero.

Ethan the Passive Hero

Considering that Ethan is the protagonist and hero of Ethan Frome, he sure doesn't do a lot. Though protagonists usually drive the plot's action forward, Ethan is extremely passive. He doesn't actively make decisions to take control of his life. Instead, he is driven by the events and circumstances of his life.

We are given a number of such life circumstances – Ethan's parents' need of care, the management of the ever-failing farm and mill, the sickly Zeena, Starkfield itself (particularly the winters), and society's expectations of his duties and role as a husband. Ethan doesn't have enough drive to get out from under all that and choose his own life direction. If Mattie hadn't driven the love affair, he probably wouldn't have had one. Zeena's actions are required before he considers leaving with Mattie, and Mattie drives him to attempt suicide. Even then, Ethan sits in the back of the sled and doesn't even drive it into the tree.

Wharton clearly presents Ethan as a passive man. The question, then, is what is Wharton's opinion toward Ethan's passive behavior? Are we supposed to judge him, or consider him a helpless victim of awful life circumstances? What do you think?

Transformations

When we meet Ethan in the Prologue he is about 52 years old and has already undergone a terrible physical transformation:

The "smash-up" […] besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window […] (Prologue.4 )

Ethan's obvious physical scars leads the narrator to wonder about the non-physical transformations that might have come along with the physical ones, and how they might connect with the accident. Let's take a look at the changes Ethan undergoes over the four days covered in Chapters 1 through 9.

Falling in Love

Ethan realizes that he has transformed from a person not in love, to a person in love – in love for probably the first time in his life. He has fallen in love with Mattie Silver.

Ethan clearly acts like someone in love. When he goes to pick Mattie up from the dance, "his heart [is] beating fast" (1.6). Not from walking the two miles from the farm, but in anticipation of seeing her "dark head under the cherry colored scarf" (1.7). Ethan also begins to feel jealousy. Likely he never felt this emotion where Zeena was concerned. More importantly, though, Ethan is "only gay [as in happy, lighthearted, lively] in her presence" (1.13). Being with her allows his inner happy-guy to come bursting out.

Practically speaking, Mattie and Ethan make a good pair, and in many ways she would be an ideal person for Ethan to pursue his dreams with. They are able to talk to each comfortably and naturally, and quickly form a connection over their strong mutual interest in nature. Mattie is also constantly telling Ethan she is brave and fearless, and is game for anything. These characteristics stand in contrast to Zeena, whom Ethan thinks would fall apart if removed from Starkfield and her current life. Like Ethan, Mattie is active, and almost never complains about anything. Ethan also finds her beautiful. Interestingly, they are about the same difference apart in age as Ethan and Zeena – some seven years – but they both seem to be youthful, whereas Zeena appears aged.

Here's the question to ask yourself: is Ethan really in love with Mattie, or is he in love with the idea of Mattie? Since Mattie is so different from Zeena, she represents the possibility of a different kind of life for Ethan. What do you think? Is he in love with the actual girl, or the life she represents?

In either case, Ethan despairs when confronted with losing the thing he loves (either Mattie or his dream of a different life), and goes along with Mattie's suicide plan.

Becoming Deceitful

Because Ethan is secretly in love with a woman who is not his wife, he is now living a life of deceit. When Ethan and Mattie have their night alone together, he concerned with how to keep on seeing Mattie romantically, while making it look like business as usual around Zeena. Ethan is also deceiving himself by pretending that because he and Mattie haven't had sex, they aren't doing anything that Zeena would consider a violation of the marital contract.

"Ethan," we are told, "ha[s] no suppleness in deceiving. He had never before been convicted of a lie […]" (7.42). Apparently, lying to Zeena about getting money from Andrew Hale (so that he could see Mattie) is Ethan's first lie. Lying for this first time in one's life is evidence of a significant transformation.

Changing Physically

And now, of course, we are back to the physical. Death wasn't ready to claim Ethan, and left him in the world, broken and marked. But, the narrator doesn't fill in the 24-year gap between the end of Chapter 9 and the beginning of the Epilogue. We can see that Ethan is now no longer living a life of deceit. His life is on show for anyone to see. What we don't know is if he is still suicidal, or if he's still in love with Mattie. What's your take?

Mattie Silver

Character Analysis

Because we see Mattie only though Ethan's (and the narrator's) eyes, and only hear her thoughts if she speaks them, she remains a rather mysterious character. Let's dig a little deeper into Mattie's character and see what we can learn.

It's A Hard-Knock Life

Remember how Ethan hates to see anyone or anything treated meanly? This plays a part in his attraction to Mattie. People are mean to her and mistreat her. Her own family mistreats her at the time when she needs support the most. Twenty-year-old Mattie just lost both of her parents. All they left her was 50 dollars.

So why all the animosity toward this young lady? Apparently Mattie's father, who found wealth and power, had stolen from the very relatives on whom Mattie is now dependent. They want to punish Mattie for the fact that her father became wealthy, and doubly so for stealing from them to do it. They send her to take care of Zeena Frome, her ill cousin.

Based on her family's wealth, we can assume that Mattie was raised with advantages that Zeena and Ethan didn't have, though it doesn't seem that she has any education (according to Ethan, learning accounting almost kills her). She was most likely raised to be a happy-go-lucky young lady and eventually a wife. Yet, she's not spoiled and doesn't shy away from hard work. She doesn't see herself as superior to Ethan and Zeena because of her wealthier background.

Mattie changed from pampered daughter to a young woman dependent on a hostile world for survival. But, while Mattie's external circumstances have changed for the worse, she seems to be the same kind and unspoiled person she was when her parents were alive. Her changed circumstances don't seem to have hardened her heart – until after the accident.

Then again, some readers and critics see Mattie as frivolous and immature. In characteristic Shmoop fashion, we both agree and disagree. First of all, she's only about twenty-one, has little or no education, and very limited experience. It makes sense that she's a bit frivolous and immature. She wants to have fun, to frolic and play, and to have romance – though only, it seems, with Ethan. But what's your opinion?

Mattie in Love

As a young woman, Mattie seems to be truly in love with Ethan. Everything from turning down Denis Eady to declaring her love indicates that her affection for Ethan is sincere. If she simply wanted an easy way out of poverty, she could have married Denis Eady and been mistress to the Eady grocery fortune.

What we don't know is how Mattie feels about Ethan after the accident. That is, did she fall out of love with Ethan, or does she continue to love him even at the story's close? That we can't answer this question is part of what gives Ethan Frome its sense of tragedy. If Ethan and Mattie are still in love and still living with Zeena, then it sounds like the situation is truly awful. If they are no longer in love, that's perhaps even worse.

Mattie's Decision to Commit Suicide

It's not Ethan but Mattie who initially suggests the suicide. Did this surprise you? This moment opens up her character. Just before, we learn that Mattie had fantasized about running away with Ethan some eight or nine months ago. Until now, Ethan (and us, the reader) hasn't know how she really feels about him. Now we understand that Mattie really wants to be with Ethan. Furthermore, she'd rather die than be without him. Since we can't track Mattie's inner movement to this point, we can't say whether the idea of suicide came upon her all the sudden, or if she had been considering it all along.

We know that Mattie was afraid Zeena was suspicious, and we know Mattie doesn't have anywhere else to go. She was probably way ahead of Ethan in seeing the hopelessness of their situation. That is, she probably already predicted that Ethan wouldn't or couldn't run away with her. Being a single woman with no money and virtually no education would be rough going. This story seems to be showing us how limited the options were for women in the Victorian period.

Mattie's Final Transformations

When we meet Mattie in the Epilogue, we see that her physical transformation is even more drastic than Ethan's. Mattie would only be about 45 years old at the end of the book, but is described as having not only aged drastically, but also of having "soured." According to Ruth, nobody was "sweeter" than Mattie before the accident. While the accident physically injured Ethan, and the events injured his heart and soul, he is still the sweet, kind, gentle man with whom Mattie Silver fell in love.

Mattie, however, is completely changed. Whereas she used to be the complete opposite of Zeena, she has become almost exactly like Zeena. This transformation is foreshadowed in the scene where Mattie and Ethan have their night alone. Ethan suggests that Mattie sit in Zeena's chair, so he can see her better, but it doesn't work out quite the way he planned:

Ethan had a momentary shock. It was almost as if the other face, the face of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder. (5.3)

In other words, Ethan sees the face of Zeena ("the face of the superseded") remove from existence the face of Mattie ("the intruder"). Like most of the foreshadowing in this book, it only partially comes true. Mattie becomes prematurely aged, chronically ill, and chronically faultfinding, very much like Zeena was for much of her marriage to Ethan. But there is one big difference. Zeena was mostly silent. That's what the biggest problem was for Ethan. Transformed Mattie, on the other hand, is described as "droning querulously" (Prologue.62). In other words, she talks on and on and on in a grumpy, complaining, and argumentative way. So, like all the foreshadowing of the death, the foreshadowing of Mattie turning into Zeena only partially comes true.

Zeena Frome

Character Analysis

Zeena and the Narrator's Bias

We know that the narrator is entirely biased and that he portrays everything the way he imagines Ethan must have seen it. Though logically we know that Zeena is a victim – her husband has fallen in love with another woman and constantly considers leaving her – she comes off as the bad guy. She appears to be a mean, grumpy woman who browbeats her husband, holds him back from all his hopes and dreams, separates him from the woman he loves, and abuses and abandons her relative, Mattie Silver.

All this is pretty much true, but we can't blame Zeena for wanting Mattie to leave the house and fast – Zeena's suspicions are entirely correct.

Despite what Zeena actually does or says, the way she's described makes certain that we view her in a negative light. She has an unpleasant physical appearance, having "grayish tinge[d]" skin, false teeth, and a "puckered throat." The light of a candle reveals the "microscopic cruelty and fretful lines of her face." Even her voice is described as an obnoxious "flat whine." Because the narrator is loyal to Ethan's biased point of view, a sense of sympathy for Zeena does not leak out until the end of the pickle dish. There we understand that Zeena does love Ethan (though she doesn't know how to show it) and does want to be his wife. At this moment we can see clearly just how broken her dreams are, just how badly things have gone for her.

Nurse or Patient?

Zeena seems to flip-flop between the roles of nurse and patient. In the early 1900s medicine was much less of a developed science than it is today. Interestingly, the story goes to some trouble to convince us that Zeena's illness is in some way imaginary or psychological. The biggest piece of evidence for this comes from Ruth, who is actually defending Zeena to the narrator.

"Zeena's done for [Mattie], and done for Ethan, as good as she could. It was a miracle, considering how sick she was – but she seemed to be raised right up just when the call came to her. Not as she's ever given up doctoring, and she's had sick spells right along; but she's had the strength given her to care for those two for over twenty years, and before the accident came she thought she couldn't even care for herself." (Epilogue.23)

We know that when Zeena became Ethan's wife, she transformed into a sick woman. According to Ethan, she learned how to care for the sick by being sick herself. Yet, when Mattie and Ethan are injured, she miraculously becomes relatively healthy again, and remains so for at least the next 24 years. (This also means that the medicine the narrator sees Ethan picking up from the post office in the Prologue might not be for Zeena.) This suggests that she can only be healthy when she is doing what she loves to do, which is caring for the sick.

That's the charitable explanation, and one with which Edith Wharton might also take issue. Her portrait of Zeena seems very much designed to criticize those who use illness as a tool for manipulating others. Zeena appears to switch back and forth between illness and health depending on which gives her more power in a given situation, and Wharton's contempt for these kinds of maneuvers shows through.

But Zeena has some physical signs of illness that we can't ignore. Perhaps depression contributed to her premature aging, but could it really account for her lost teeth? Dental care was probably scarce in her neck of the woods, but if she lost all her teeth before she turned forty then her health problems couldn't be all in her head.

One thing this novella gets at through the character of Zeena is that both the body and the mind are mysteries, and we will probably never tire of trying to figure out how they work, together and separately.

Zeena seems to be the character that changes the least – from beginning to end she is healthy when she has sick people to care for, and unhealthy when she doesn't. We also get the idea that from beginning to end she doesn't have the best bedside manner. The question is why did she decide to take care of Mattie and Ethan? Was it out of sympathy, love, vengeance, shame, or duty? Or was it for some other reason?

The Narrator

Character Analysis

The narrator is an engineer who has come to Starkfield to work at a nearby power plant. He's an educated, upper-middle-class man who happens to become fascinated by the figure of Ethan Frome, 24 years after the tragic sled ride.

Luckily for us, the narrator is a kind of a nosey guy. He feels completely comfortable going around asking everybody he sees to tell him Ethan's story. One question to ask is whether the narrator is exploiting Ethan for his own amusement or is he just fascinated by Ethan and his story? We're not entirely sure what his motivation is, but we prefer to look at the narrator as a man who identifies with Ethan and feels that his story needs to be told.

Harmon Gow

Character Analysis

Harmon Gow is the town gossip. He used to drive the stagecoach before the railroad was built and that is how he knows the stories of all the families in town. Harmon is the first person to give the narrator information about Ethan, and the person who suggests that the narrator hire Ethan. If the narrator hadn't hired Ethan he would never have gotten to spend the night at Ethan's house. This means, of course, that he would never have learned the secret that allowed him to imagine the story.

So, even though Harmon Gow drops out of the picture after the Prologue, he is an important character. He connects Ethan and the narrator, and he is our reminder to never forget that this is a story. Unless Ethan or Mattie told every detail of their relationship that night, the narrator couldn't have heard about Mattie and Ethan's private moments. Those moments are in "the gaps" (Prologue.16) and can only be imagined.

Mrs. Ruth Hale

Character Analysis

Ruth is the daughter of the late "lawyer Varnum" and has a little more money and a little more education than the other women in town (Prologue.19). She lives with her mother in the big house that once belonged to her father, and rents one of the rooms to the narrator.

She was also friends with Mattie Silver before the accident and helped take care of Mattie before Zeena decided to bring her back to the Frome house. Ruth is an important character. She is the one person in the story who is present from the beginning to the end; she probably knows more about what went down than everybody besides the three starring players.

Did you notice that she also gets the last words of the novella? We will just say that her final words leave us with a bad, sad taste in our mouths.

Ned Hale

Character Analysis

Ned is dead by the time the narrator arrives in Starkfield. We only see him once in the story that takes place 24 years before. It's an important moment: Ethan surprises Ned while he's kissing Ruth. In this open affection between young lovers Ethan sees everything he's missing, and everything he wants.

Andrew Hale

Character Analysis

Andrew Hale is Ned's father. He likes Ethan and has business dealings with him. Ethan almost borrows money from him to use to run away with Mattie. However, Ethan decides that he couldn't live with himself is he were to take money from this nice elderly couple.

Mrs. Hale

Character Analysis

Mrs. Hale is Ned's mother and Andrew's wife. Ethan runs into her on his way to borrow money from Andrew. She's so sweet to him that he abandons his plan to borrow money from her husband and skip town with Mattie.

Denis Eady

Character Analysis

When we first meet Denis, he is a wealthy man, the owner of a grocery store, and also the person who gives the narrator rides to the train. When Denis's horses all die, the narrator is forced to hire Ethan. So, Denis provides a sort of sideways connection to Ethan.

It turns out that Denis lived in Starkfield 24 years ago, was interested in Mattie Silver, and probably wanted to marry her. Young Ethan was jealous of him, but Mattie never seems to have had any interest in Denis whatsoever.

Michael Eady

Character Analysis

Michael Eady is Denis's father. He started the grocery business that made his son a wealthy man

Jotham Powell

Character Analysis

Jotham Powell works for Ethan at the sawmill and the ranch. We don't really get to know him.

Ethan's Parents

Character Analysis

Ethan's parents aren't named, and are dead before the action of the story begins. Because Ethan dropped out of school to care for them, they are important factors in his feeling stuck in Starkfield. In addition, Zeena helped care for Ethan's mother when she was sick. It seems that Zeena never lets Ethan forget this fact