Plot Summary
Chapter II opens with Ethan Frome hiding behind the storm-door of the church hall as the dance ends, watching for Mattie Silver. When Denis Eady, the grocer's son, approaches Mattie and offers her a ride in his father's cutter, Ethan is tormented by jealousy. He watches in agonized suspense as Mattie appears to waver, but his heart surges with relief when she refuses Denis's offer and darts away up the slope. Denis pursues her briefly but eventually gives up, and Ethan catches up with Mattie beneath the Varnum spruces.
Walking home together, the pair share a rare moment of intimacy. They pause above the Corbury road and discuss coasting, with Mattie mentioning how Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum nearly crashed into the great elm at the bottom of the hill. Ethan boldly offers to take Mattie coasting the following night. However, the conversation shifts when Ethan, unable to suppress his jealousy, confronts Mattie about dancing with Denis. Mattie misinterprets his tone, fearing that Zeena plans to dismiss her from the household. Her anguished plea—"You’d ought to tell me, Ethan Frome"—brings him unexpected joy, confirming that she does not want to leave.
As they approach the farmhouse, they pass the Frome family graveyard, which for once fills Ethan with a sense of permanence rather than entrapment. A dead cucumber vine on the porch triggers a dark flash of thought about Zeena’s death. At the kitchen door, the key that Zeena always leaves under the mat is missing. Zeena herself appears at the door, gaunt and ghostlike, saying she felt too ill to sleep. The chapter ends with Ethan reluctantly following his wife upstairs, keenly aware that Mattie is watching them.
Character Development
Ethan is revealed as a deeply conflicted man—capable of intense feeling yet paralyzed by his inability to express it. His emotional vocabulary is so limited that his most eloquent response to Mattie’s distress is the gruff command "Come along." Mattie emerges as more complex than a simple romantic interest; her fear of being sent away reveals her economic vulnerability as a poor relation dependent on the Fromes’ charity. Zeena, appearing only in the chapter’s final pages, is drawn with devastating physical detail—puckered throat, false teeth, crimping pins—that underscores the gulf between her and Mattie in Ethan’s eyes.
Themes and Motifs
The tension between desire and duty dominates the chapter, as Ethan’s longing for Mattie collides with his obligations to Zeena. The motif of entrapment versus escape surfaces when Ethan passes the family graveyard: headstones that usually mock his restlessness now comfort him, suggesting his desire has shifted from wanting to leave Starkfield to wanting to keep Mattie there. Silence and miscommunication pervade the walk home, as both characters circle around feelings they cannot articulate, leading Mattie to misread Ethan’s jealousy as a warning of dismissal.
Literary Devices
employs symbolism throughout: the dead cucumber vine hanging "like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death" foreshadows doom, while the missing key signals Zeena’s silent surveillance. Contrast structures the chapter’s climax—Mattie’s "cherry scarf" and flushed cheeks set against Zeena’s angular silhouette and "flat breast." The winter landscape functions as pathetic fallacy, with the frozen silence and "crash of a loaded branch" mirroring the characters’ emotional states. Wharton also uses dramatic irony: readers understand Ethan’s feelings while Mattie remains oblivious, and both Ethan and Mattie sense danger from the missing key that the reader already recognizes as Zeena’s implicit accusation.