Overview of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

In comparison, Wharton uses the seasons of summer and spring to mirror Mattie's personality and moments of happiness she shared with Ethan. Wharton refers to Mattie by saying that she "always looked like a window that has caught the sunset" (188). She catches the sunset because she is bright and radiant, or perhaps that is how Ethan wants us to see her. "Her wonder and his laughter ran together like spring rills in a thaw" (220). When Ethan and Mattie are together, their lives become surreal. Instead of being cold like winter, they are in a place where Ethan is happy, like spring. Summer is used as a positive symbol when Ethan refers to the sun shining on the geraniums that "he had planted in the summer to make a garden for Mattie" (198).
             Ethan clearly enjoys doing things that please Mattie. Mattie is, perhaps, Ethan's summertime. These two seasons are used to reflect some of the dreams that Ethan yearns for. He wants Mattie, who also brings him happiness. Zeena is often perceived unfairly as the antagonist in the novel. Ethan sees Zeena to be awful. For example, when Zeena is getting ready to leave to see the doctor "she wore her best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins" (195). Wharton uses this characterization to show how Ethan perceives his wife, all crimpled, wound up tight and opaque like the brown color. .
             Both Mattie and Zeena are presented as literary foils with neither depiction being entirely accurate. Ethan wants the reader to be sympathetic towards him. This enables him to get away with blaming the women in his life his troubles. Wharton always associated Mattie with the color red, like when Ethan "had been straining for a glimpse of the dark head under the cherry-colored scarf" (188). During this time he was looking at Mattie in the church through a big crowd of dancing people and the red scarf makes her stand out just as she does in Ethan's heart.