Ethan Frome

The story "Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton is a tragic love story. 
     At the beginning of the story one gets the idea that Ethan Frome is a recluse or perhaps unsociable, but this is because we do not know the story behind the character.  Perhaps this was written this way to give the reader the image of a broken down old man who lived a hard life.  It is the imagery that appears to matter.
     As the story continues, we learn that Ethan's life has not been easy.  He lost his father when he was in college, so he was not able to continue on with his studies, because he had to return home to take care of his mother.  She also dies and this leads Ethan to marry Zeena, who he believes is a strong woman, but it turns out that she is a hypochondriac.  She is also cruel and punishes Ethan for a false illness that she claims was caused by her taking care of his mother. 
     Mattie is the opposite of Zeena, which is probably why Ethan fell in love with her.  She is younger than he is (Zeena is older than he is) and she has more life to her.  She wants to see the world as a beautiful place and she appears to know who she wants to be with.
     It is tragic that it took the Ethan and Mattie so long to declare their love for one another.  Perhaps if they had not waited so long, then things would have turned out differently.  Instead, they wait until Zeena is sending Mattie away (which is wrong on all accounts, since the girl has no money and she is family) to declare their love and then rather than finding a way to keep Mattie there, they try to kill themselves.  Honestly, one would have thought that since Ethan was the head of the household and given the time period, that he could have put his foot down and told his wife to shove it! 
     The real tragedy is that instead of dying they are left disfigured and/or paralyzed.  And although Mattie and Ethan are able to be together they still have to contend with Zeena.  And since their plan did not work, they probably have feelings of regret and remorse which would not make for a happy life. 
     I think that perhaps Wharton was attempting to show that love does not always conquer all.  It can be, as is the case for this story, damaging because it can cause people to be cold and distant, thus making them outcasts from normal society.   I think she was also trying to show that people are so much more than what one can see.  Ethan was made to be hard, quiet and appearing to be unsociable, because of the life he had led; yet he was not so unsociable, because he took an outsider into his home on a snowy night and would even discuss, albeit lightly, engineering and other such things with this outsider.  Perhaps the moral here is that people within the town made him an outcast and he found it easier to be an outcast/unsociable because he didn't want to deal with their questions about why he was sledding on the hill with Mattie and why he has two women under his roof.  I think there are a lot of people who would rather be cast as such, than deal with people questioning them so.  I know I would.