A review by wolfdan9
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

3.5

Ethan Frome is a novella by Edith Wharton set in a brutally cold New England winter. It explores the dynamics of a tragic love triangle between the titular character, his  ill wife, and his wife’s young, beautiful cousin, who serves as a maid in their home. Despite being 114 years old, the story remains strikingly effective in its psychological depth, cutting deep into the reader’s emotions. For such a short work—truly a novella—there’s an impressive amount to unpack. However, I want to focus on what I find most compelling: the moral ambiguity of Ethan’s actions.

On the surface, Ethan is clearly at fault for emotionally cheating on his wife. But Wharton slyly suggests that Zeena, his wife, is manipulative, using her illness—real or feigned—as a tool to control Ethan and remove Mattie, whom she perceives as a romantic threat. Still, Zeena’s illness, if it is not real, may be a symptom of her desperate, doomed love for her husband. This additional layer of sentiment stabs at the reader’s heart as the pendulum of judgment swings toward and away from Ethan. Even more still, I began to suspect that Mattie  might also be manipulating Ethan. Her seemingly pure and innocent demeanor—the “good girl” façade—may not be entirely sincere, especially as her love for Ethan intensifies.

At the heart of the story is a tragic inevitability. Ethan has no good choices. He can remain in his bleak but stable existence, bound to Zeena, or he can chase an uncertain, idealized romance with Mattie—one that would require abandoning his home, his resources, and his community. More than that, leaving would mean effectively condemning Zeena to death, at least based on his understanding of her illness. And yet, the story’s devastating irony is that Zeena’s illness may have been exaggerated or entirely false, while Mattie, in the wake of their failed suicide pact, becomes permanently paralyzed. In the end, the roles reverse—Zeena, once the frail and sickly wife, becomes Mattie’s caretaker, and Ethan finds himself trapped with both of them, caught in an inescapable purgatory.

The ending is especially powerful in illustrating that whether one pursues forbidden desires, as Ethan and Mattie do in their reckless escape attempt, or adheres to societal expectations, suffering is inevitable. Fate, it seems, punishes either path. Even for someone as unassuming as Ethan, simply trying to navigate his existence within or outside of society’s moral expectations leads to a kind of personal hell. I don’t know if Wharton intended such a deeply cynical reading, but it’s hard to ignore how disproportionately Ethan is punished for a crime that, while morally wrong, hardly seems to warrant the lifelong misery he endures.