Chapter I Practice Quiz — Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter I
Where is Ethan Frome walking at the beginning of Chapter I, and why?
Ethan is walking through the snow-covered village of Starkfield toward the church, where a community dance is being held in the basement. He has come to walk Mattie Silver home.
What does Ethan do when he reaches the church instead of going inside?
He circles around to the basement window and peers in from the darkness, watching the dancers without being seen.
Who is dancing with Mattie Silver when Ethan looks through the window?
Denis Eady, the son of Michael Eady the Irish grocer, is dancing a Virginia reel with Mattie.
Why did Mattie Silver come to live with the Fromes?
She came from Stamford to act as an unpaid housekeeper and companion to her cousin Zeena, who is sickly and needs help around the house.
What does Zeena say to Ethan about Mattie and Denis Eady during the morning shaving scene?
Zeena says she would not want to stand in the way of Mattie marrying "a smart fellow like Denis Eady" and that the doctor says she should not be left without someone to care for her.
What cutting remark does Zeena make about Ethan shaving?
She says "I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning," revealing she has noticed he started grooming daily after Mattie's arrival despite appearing to be asleep each morning.
What changed about Ethan's daily routine after Mattie came to live with them?
He began shaving every morning, getting up earlier to light the kitchen fire, carrying in wood overnight, and even secretly scrubbing the kitchen floor on Saturday nights to help compensate for Mattie's poor housekeeping.
How is Ethan Frome's intellectual side revealed in Chapter I?
He took a year of courses at a technological college in Worcester before his father's death. He compares the winter night to "being in an exhausted receiver" and enjoys teaching Mattie about constellations and geology.
What kind of housekeeper is Mattie Silver described as being?
She is described as having no natural turn for housekeeping—quick to learn but forgetful and dreamy, not taking domestic tasks seriously. Her training had done nothing to remedy the defect.
How does Wharton characterize Zeena in Chapter I?
Zeena is described as sickly, prone to long silences followed by abrupt speech, quietly observant, and passively manipulative—she lets things happen without remarking them, then weeks later reveals she noticed everything.
What is Denis Eady's social position in Starkfield?
He is the son of Michael Eady, an ambitious Irish grocer whose "suppleness and effrontery" brought modern business methods to Starkfield. Denis is seen as likely to follow in his father's successful footsteps.
What drew Ethan to Mattie from the very first day?
When he drove to the Flats to meet her, she smiled, waved, and called out "You must be Ethan!" He found her hopeful and lively, and later discovered she had "an eye to see and an ear to hear"—she responded to the beauty and knowledge he shared.
How does Chapter I establish the theme of isolation?
Ethan stands alone in frozen darkness watching life happen inside the warm dance hall. His intellectual interests have no outlet in Starkfield, his marriage is emotionally barren, and the winter landscape itself embodies suffocating loneliness.
What does the contrast between warmth and cold symbolize in Chapter I?
The warm, bright dance hall versus the frozen darkness outside mirrors Ethan's emotional state—he can see warmth and connection (through Mattie) but remains trapped outside in the cold of his loveless marriage and isolated farm life.
How does Chapter I develop the theme of lost potential?
Ethan's truncated education at Worcester gave him enough awareness of "huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things" to feel what he is missing, but not enough to escape his circumstances. His intellect persists with no practical outlet.
How does the theme of entrapment manifest through Zeena in Chapter I?
Zeena silently monitors Ethan's attachment to Mattie and uses veiled threats about Mattie's departure and replacement to maintain control, revealing that Ethan's domestic life is a trap from which he cannot escape without consequence.
What does Ethan's comparison of the winter air to "being in an exhausted receiver" reveal as a literary device?
It is a metaphor drawn from his college physics studies that works on two levels: literally describing the vacuum-like purity of the cold air, and figuratively suggesting Ethan's emotional and intellectual deprivation in Starkfield.
How does Wharton use foreshadowing in Chapter I?
Zeena's remarks about replacing Mattie and noticing Ethan's shaving foreshadow the coming confrontation over Mattie's place in the household. The mention of the coasting hill also subtly foreshadows the climactic sledding scene.
What is the effect of Wharton's use of close third-person narration in Chapter I?
It gives readers intimate access to Ethan's thoughts and feelings—his jealousy, longing, and fear—while maintaining the restrained, measured tone that mirrors his suppressed emotional life.
How does Wharton use the image of a window as a recurring symbol in Chapter I?
Ethan peers through the church window at life happening without him, and Mattie's face is compared to "a window that has caught the sunset." Windows represent the barrier between Ethan's desires and his ability to fulfill them.
What is a "fascinator" as used in Chapter I?
A fascinator is a lightweight knitted or crocheted head scarf, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mattie's is cherry-colored and functions as a key identifying and symbolic detail.
What does "peristyle" mean in the description of the Starkfield church?
A peristyle is a row of columns surrounding a building or forming a porch. Here it describes the narrow columned entrance of the church, adding classical architectural detail to the New England setting.
What does Ethan mean when he thinks of Zeena's "plaintive self-effacement"?
Plaintive means expressing sadness or suffering, and self-effacement means making oneself seem unimportant. Zeena adopts a tone of martyred modesty when she says she would never stand in Mattie's way, disguising manipulation as selflessness.
What does Ethan mean when he reflects that his studies "had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things"?
His brief education awakened him to the deeper significance and beauty beneath ordinary life, but this awareness became a burden in Starkfield where he had no one to share it with—until Mattie arrived.
What is the significance of the line "the face she lifted to her dancers was the same which, when she saw him, always looked like a window that has caught the sunset"?
Ethan is tormented watching Mattie use expressions he thought she reserved for him. The sunset-window simile suggests Mattie's face reflects warmth and beauty, but as the chapter progresses, Ethan fears that light is not meant for him alone.