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Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome is a domestic tragedy. The three main characters are Ethan Frome, Zeena Frome, and Mattie Silver. The uselessness of poverty, mean spiritedness, and grim silence are all present in the tragedy of Ethan Frome. The story takes place in a stark winter landscape, Starkfield, Massachusetts, where the lives of all the characters are constricted. At each turn the circumstances of rural poverty, mixed with the bitterness of isolation and failure, lead the main characters to lives of tragic resignation. As a result of their miserable existence, they grow hard and mean-spirited, rarely communicating except with complaints and anger. The townsfolk tend to avoid them and are even reluctant to speak freely of the ruined lives of Ethan, Mattie, and Zee