While Mattie at first is Zeena’s opposite, she as well represents the antithesis of the modern woman. Due to her mother’s restraints and controllable behavior, Zeena embodies those characteristics when Mattie comes along. If they leave Starkfield for another town, the climate would be better because Starkfield is cold and snowy. While on the surface Mattie is characterized as beautify, naive, and innocent, a more in-depth analysis shows Mattie representing the stereotypic damsel who has no place in modern society where women are independent and a member of the working class. He has lost interest in his wife and at this point, she is in his way. Ethan Frome suffered tragedy because of his character flaws, errors in his judgment, and forces beyond his control. Gosh I hated that book. Edith Wharton, the author of Ethan Frome, constructs a story of his life and presents the psychological changes Ethan has gone through over his entire life time. In his introduction, Bernard looks specifically at the name Starkfield, equating it to a literal stark field and pointing out Wharton’s characterization of the town ad gray, mute and cold as a grave stone (Bernard, 179) All in all, the significance of Wharton’s use of morbid and cold imagery becomes rather obvious that it is supposed to show Starkfield as a dying town that greatly contrasts the growing, industrial metropolitan communities of the time. He sees Ethan the first time and thinks “how gallantly his lean brown head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong shoulders before they were bent out of shape.” Yet, he has nothing to base this on; he never saw Ethan before that moment and had absolutely no idea about Ethan’s former self. He goes along with Mattie’s idea to sled down the hill into the tree, but this plan doesn’t work, and the couple ends up surviving, and being forced to face their problem anyway, making the suicide a pointless attempt on their part. This is the moment when he realizes he can never be content with Zeena, and Mattie’s pleas push him over the edge. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is a perfect example of moral ambiguity because the main character, Ethan, is extremely inconsistent in his morals. The end of the book, which was foreshadowed in Chapter 1, has come to be. However, when Zeena decides it is time to dismiss Mattie and find better help, Ethan cannot let her leave without her knowing his true feelings. The narrator’s occupation as an engineer leads the reader to believe most of what he is telling. “With the sudden perception of the point to which his madness had carried him, the madness fell and he saw his life before him as it was. 2. Along with Zeena taking on her mother’s role, we see the resemblance of Wharton in Mattie. The illustration as Starkfield and its inhabitants as cold, dark, and near death further emphasizes this claim. He continues to long for Mattie, and stay with his wife, Zeena, because of his moral inconsitency. Throughout the novel, Ethan expresses the desire to leave Starkfield and start a new life, yet he is trapped in his life of unhappiness, similar to how the winter storms trap the residents of Starkfield in their homes. Using Ethan, Wharton is showing how all farmers represent this suffering laboring class that is coming to a demise by the hands of the growing bourgeoisie, which in this case is the modernizing, industrial metropolitan society.
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