Ethan Frome

“Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps. But one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I grouped my subsequent inferences: ‘Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters.’” 

The narrator’s sense that the significance of Ethan’s story is “in the gaps” is important for several reasons. First, it underscores the class dynamics that underpin the narrator’s conversation with Gow; because Gow is working-class, the narrator assumes he lacks the sophistication to adequately appreciate the story he’s telling. Wharton’s middle- to upper-class target audience would probably agree and consider the narrator a better judge of what is and isn’t important in Ethan’s story. Nevertheless, the narrator’s judgment is still subjective; he finds Ethan’s story compelling because he sees himself in Ethan, who shares the narrator’s interest in science and therefore offers a window into who the narrator might be if his circumstances had been less favorable. The “gaps” in Ethan’s story are thus useful to the narrator, who can tailor the narrative in a way that speaks to him and his readers.

“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.