79 pages • 2 hours read
Ethan Frome
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Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Ethan’s good mood extends into the next day, when Jotham joins him and Mattie for breakfast. A storm has made the roads icy, so the two men decide to wait until afternoon to take the lumber into Starkfield. Ethan privately hopes to dart into town before then to buy glue, but by the time he’s finished loading the sledge, it’s clear this won’t be possible; the weather is bad, and one of Ethan’s horses has sustained an injury that needs tending. He and Jotham therefore return to the farm for lunch, and Ethan leaves with the lumber afterwards while Jotham goes to fetch Zeena.
After dropping off the logs, Ethan hurries first to Michael Eady’s store and then to the widow Homan’s, where he manages to purchase glue. Ethan returns to the farm but learns from Mattie that Zeena is already back and in her bedroom. Reassuring Mattie that he’ll fix the dish that night, Ethan goes to feed the horses. He runs into Jotham and invites him to stay for dinner, eager for a “neutralising presence” now that Zeena is back, but Jotham emphatically declines: “To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened on the drive to nerve Jotham to such stoicism” (60). Nervously, Ethan goes back inside, where Mattie is setting the table.
Chapter 7 Summary
Ethan goes to fetch Zeena, but she declines dinner, saying that she’s very sick; in fact, the doctor she consulted recommends an operation. The idea that Zeena might be truly ill sparks mixed emotions in Ethan, but he tries to cheer Zeena by saying the doctor might be mistaken. This comment irritates her, and she says the doctor has a good reputation. When Ethan agrees that, in that case, Zeena should follow the doctor’s advice, she reveals that the doctor told her to hire a professional servant: “Aunt Martha found me one right off. Everybody said I was lucky to get a girl to come away out here, and I agreed to give her a dollar extry to make sure. She’ll be over to-morrow afternoon” (62-63).
Ethan chastises Zeena for not consulting him, saying they don’t have the money for a servant; the argument escalates, and Ethan is forced to admit Hale didn’t pay him. He begins to say that he and Mattie can do more work, but Zeena interrupts, revealing that she intends to replace Mattie with the hired girl. Ethan protests that people will talk if Zeena turns out her own cousin, and Zeena retorts that people are already talking. Unable to respond, Ethan listens with rising hatred as Zeena tells him Mattie will have to leave the next day; in his anger, he almost strikes her, but he instead goes downstairs.
Mattie is initially cheerful when she learns Zeena won’t be eating but soon notices Ethan’s depressed demeanor. When she asks him what’s wrong, he embraces her and kisses her passionately, then forcefully insists that she can’t leave. Obliged to explain this outburst, he then reveals Zeena’s intentions. Mattie tries to put on a brave face, and Ethan assures her that he’ll find a solution.
Zeena’s sudden appearance downstairs interrupts Mattie and Ethan’s conversation. Explaining that she now feels well enough to eat, Zeena joins them at the table and begins talking about her trip. Afterwards, complaining of indigestion, she goes to fetch some medicine; when she returns, she’s carrying the broken pickle dish. Ethan tries to blame the cat, but Mattie eventually admits that she took the dish out; Zeena presses her further, and she says she wanted the table to look pretty. In response, Zeena calls Mattie a “bad girl” and says she should have dismissed her long ago.
Chapter 8 Summary
Once Zeena and Mattie are in bed, Ethan goes to his study. He brings with him a note from Mattie, which urges him not to trouble himself on her behalf. This makes him even more determined to thwart Zeena: “Must he wear out all his years at the side of a bitter querulous woman? Other possibilities had been in him, possibilities sacrificed, one by one, to Zeena’s narrow-mindedness and ignorance. And what good had come of it?” (73).
Ethan recalls meeting a man who had once faced a similar problem; the man had resettled in the West with his lover, while his wife had divorced him, sold their farm, and opened her own business. Resolving to do the same, Ethan begins writing a letter to Zeena, only to realize the flaws in his plan; Ethan can’t afford to support Mattie while seeking work, and Zeena probably won’t be able to sell the unprofitable farm. Just as he’s trying to persuade himself that Zeena can return to her relations, he happens to spot an old newspaper advertising train fares. Consulting this, Ethan realizes he doesn’t even have enough money for travel expenses. He falls asleep staring mournfully at the moon, remembering his and Mattie’s plan to go sledding.
Mattie wakes Ethan the next morning, and as he follows her into the kitchen, he feels more optimistic: “The sight of Mattie going about her work as he had seen her on so many mornings made it seem impossible that she should ever cease to be a part of the scene” (75). Telling Mattie not to worry, he goes outside and begins cleaning the stalls with Jotham, who says Zeena has asked him to take Mattie to the train station that evening. Ethan claims that Mattie’s leaving is still undecided, but when he returns inside, Zeena is telling Mattie to have her trunk ready to be picked up at noon.
Ethan sets off for Starkfield, planning to speak to the Hales again about an advance payment. In greeting Ethan, however, Mrs. Hale happens to compliment him on his patience with Zeena; ashamed to have considered taking advantage of the Hales’ good opinion, Ethan returns home despairingly.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
As Ethan and Mattie’s suicide attempt draws closer, the novel suggests their actions are all but inevitable: “The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a convict. There was no way out—none. He was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished” (74). This passage follows a lengthy examination of the factors that make eloping a difficult endeavor at best, including Zeena’s financial dependence on her husband, Mattie’s precarious status as Ethan’s would-be mistress, and the worthlessness of the farm and sawmill. In essence, Ethan doesn’t have enough money to be able to ignore the era’s sexual politics—specifically, the combination of women’s economic subordination and the societal disapproval of sex outside marriage.
Determinism—the philosophical idea that humans have no real agency—wasn’t new at the time Wharton was writing, but the economic, scientific, and cultural developments of the 18th and 19th centuries did give it new currency. Darwin’s theory of natural selection, for example, suggested that humanity was vulnerable to the same evolutionary pressures that governed other species; many theorists then extended this idea further to claim that natural selection accounted for or even justified racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic inequality (“social Darwinism”). Those challenging such inequalities often spoke in similarly sweeping terms. Most famously, Marx argued that socialist revolution wasn’t just desirable but inevitable, thanks to capitalism’s internal contradictions. These and other similar theories informed the naturalist literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with writers like Zola framing free will as an illusion in the face of societal pressures, instinctive drives, subconscious personality, and other factors.
Ethan Frome has clear ties to naturalism, especially in its depiction of industrialization. Both Ethan and Starkfield are victims of science’s forward march: New technology has depreciated the value of Ethan’s sawmill, and railway expansion has, ironically, isolated Starkfield and contributed to its economic decline. That said, other aspects of Ethan’s predicament seem to flow directly from his own actions—or, more accurately, from his inaction. His marriage to Zeena, for example, occurs with virtually no conscious effort on his part: “After the funeral, when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him” (41). Notably, Ethan apparently didn’t try to break the engagement despite knowing on some level that it was a mistake.
A strict determinist could argue that this passivity was itself inevitable, given Ethan’s basic psychology. On the other hand, his passivity is arguably self-serving because it allows him to avoid the moral responsibility of decisive action. In moments of crisis, Ethan ascribes fate-like power to other people while framing himself as powerless: “[Zeena] was no longer the listless creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption, but […] an evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding. It was the sense of his helplessness that sharpened his antipathy” (66). Part of what Ethan’s suicide attempt will demonstrate is that even this “sense of helplessness” has consequences.
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By Edith Wharton
