In Chapter I, Ethan is waiting outside a church dance for Mattie, his wife's cousin, who has for a year lived with Ethan and his sickly wife, Zeena (Zenobia), in order to help out around the house and farm. Wharton came from the high society of New York City which she so adeptly portrayed in The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. Mattie makes supper and retrieves from a high shelf Zeena's treasured pickle dish, which Zeena, in a symbol of her stingy nature, never uses, in order to protect it. Ethan is also injured, and the reader is left to understand that this was the "smash-up" that left Ethan with a permanent limp. Her tragic love story, Ethan Frome, was published in 1911 to much success and acclaim. The next morning, Zeena describes her specific and imminent plans for sending Mattie on her way. He begins to daydream, neglects his not prosperous farm and negligible mill, thinking about pleasant thoughts, their few walks and rides together... bliss. Jesus H Christ but this is bleak stuff! Just as the two are entering Frome's house, the prologue ends and the framed story begins. The epilogue returns to the framing story and the first-person narrator point of view of the prologue. These poor kids. Wharton came from the high society of New York City which she so adeptly portrayed in The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. Ethan returns to the farm and picks up Mattie to take her to the train station. In this regard, I decided to read Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton's tragic novella. Mattie is given the occasional night off to entertain herself in town as partial recompense for helping care for the Fromes, and Ethan has the duty of walking her home. Ever read a book as required reading (in high school or college) and then, rediscover it as an adult? The classic novel of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual undercurrents set against the austere New England countryside. [4], The New York Times called Ethan Frome "a compelling and haunting story. Edith's creativity and talent soon became obvious: By the age of eighteen she had written a novella, (as well as witty reviews of it) and published poetry in the Atlantic Monthly. In the bleak setting of 1880's Starkfield, appropriately named, (Lenox, western Massachusetts) where it always seems like perpetual winter, and its cold, dark, gloomy, ambiance, a poor, uneasy farmer, Ethan Frome, 28, is all alone, his mother has just died, the woman who took good care of her, Zenobia (Zeena) Pierce, is about to leave, though seven years junior to the lady, he purposes, she accepts gladly and the biggest mistake he believes, of his life, occurs. Chance circumstances arise that allow the narrator to hire Frome as his driver for a week. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Where did this come from? A girl named Emily Hazel Crosby was killed in the accident. In the bleak setting of 1880's Starkfield, appropriately named, (Lenox, western Massachusetts) where it always seems like perpetual winter, and its cold, dark, gloomy, ambiance, a poor, uneasy farmer, Ethan Frome, 28, is all alone, his mother has just died, the woman who took good care of her, Zenobia (Zeena) Pierce, is about to leave, though seven years junior to the lady, he purposes, she accepts gladly and the biggest mistake he believes, of his life, occurs.