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| Ethan’s sickly wife, more commonly known as “Zeena.” She comes across as prematurely aged, caustic in temperament, prone to alternating fits of silence and rage, and utterly unattractive, making her the novel’s least sympathetic figure. She is acutely interested in the treatment of her own illness, displaying a degree of hypochondria (imagined illness or minor symptoms secretly relished and exaggerated by the patient). Despite Zeena’s apparent physical weakness, she, not Ethan, holds the dominant position in their household. |
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| Zeena’s cousin, who comes to assist the Fromes with their domestic tasks. Attractive, young, and energetic, Mattie becomes the object of Ethan’s affection, and reciprocates his infatuation. Because the reader sees Mattie only through Ethan’s own lovesick eyes, Mattie never truly emerges as a well-rounded character. She often seems more a focus for Ethan’s rebellion against Zeena and Starkfield than an actual flesh-and-blood person with both strengths and weaknesses. |
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| Although he recounts the story’s events, the narrator (an engineer by profession) plays no part in the story itself. That he remains nameless highlights the thinness of his character. |
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| Widow of Ned Hale and landlady to the unnamed narrator. The narrator describes Mrs. Hale as more refined and educated than most of her neighbors. Although she was once intimate with the Fromes, she hesitates to discuss their plight with her inquisitive lodger. |
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| The hired man on the Frome farm. Powell’s main duty is to assist Ethan in the cutting, loading, and hauling of lumber. Markedly reticent, Powell is sensitive to the tensions between the Fromes but loath to involve himself in them. |
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| A former stage-driver and town gossip. Gow provides the narrator with a scattering of details about Ethan Frome’s life and later suggests that the narrator hire Ethan as a driver, paving the way for the relationship through which the narrator learns Ethan’s story. |
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| The protagonist of the story, Ethan is a farmer whose family has lived and died on the same Massachusetts farm for generations. A sensitive figure, Ethan has a deep, almost mystical appreciation of nature, and he feels a strong connection to the youth, beauty, and vital spirit of Mattie Silver, his wife’s cousin. However, he ultimately lacks the inner strength necessary to escape the oppressive forces of convention, climate, and his sickly wife. |
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| Ethan frome and mattie silver agree to commit suicide by running their sled into the big elm tree at the botton of the school house hill. |
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| The frame story (introduction and conclusion) is told in the first person, from the narrator’s limited point of view as a visitor unfamiliar with Starkfield and Ethan Frome. However, most of the book is written in the third person limited, in which the narrator accesses Ethan’s thoughts but not those of the other characters. |
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| Mattie’s red scarf and red ribbon; Zeena’s cat; Zeena’s pickle dish; the final sled run |
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| Society and morality as obstacles to the fulfillment of desire; winter as a stifling force |
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| Ethan’s passion for Mattie grows as he walks her home from a dance; Zeena goes away for the night, leaving Ethan and Mattie alone, but they find their dinner together tense and awkward; Zeena decides to replace Mattie with another household helper; Ethan drives Mattie to the train station and neither can stand to leave the other. |
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