Ethan Frome

An unnamed engineer, stranded in Starkfield during a long winter, observes Ethan Frome and gathers fragments of his story from townspeople before a snowstorm forces him to spend the night at the Frome farmhouse — where he sees the outcome before we've heard the story.

The main narrative opens: Ethan Frome, age thirty, walks to the church dance to escort Mattie Silver home. We see his marriage to Zeena, the dying farm, his abandoned engineering ambitions, and the first stirrings of his love for Mattie through gesture rather than speech.

Ethan and Mattie arrive home. We see the domestic geography of the farmhouse — Zeena's sick-room as center of gravity, the kitchen as zone of warmth, the 'L' that connects house to barn. Zeena is established through absence and complaint. Ethan reads Mattie's face by firelight.

Zeena leaves overnight for a new doctor in Bettsbridge. Ethan and Mattie have supper alone together — their only evening of domestic intimacy. The cat breaks Zeena's red pickle dish. They hide the pieces. The evening is simultaneously the novel's most tender and its most catastrophic moment.

Zeena returns from Bettsbridge with a new specialist's verdict: she is 'sicker than she thought.' She has already hired a new girl to replace Mattie. Ethan learns Mattie must leave in three days. The broken pickle dish is discovered. Zeena's authority is total.

Ethan spends an agonized night and day trying to find a way to keep Mattie or run away with her. He considers forging Zeena's name for a loan, visits his neighbor Hale, fails to ask, and returns home defeated. Poverty and duty have closed every door.

Ethan drives Mattie to the Flats to take the train. They cannot bear to part. They return to the sledding hill. Mattie asks to go together and steer into the elm. They sled. They survive. The accident that ends nothing.

The frame narrator returns to the present: Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena twenty-four years after the smash-up. Mattie is shrunken and complaining. Zeena is capable and tending both of them. Ethan is silent. The narrator understands at last what he is looking at.