In contrast to the warm, summer imagery associated with Mattie is the imagery that represents the cold, isolation, and death of spirit inherent during the winter months and apparently present in the Frome farmhouse. Returning home from the church, Ethan and Mattie see farmhouses that seem to be "mute and cold as a gravestone." They see the dead cucumber vine at the Frome farmhouse that looks "like the crape streamer tied to the door for death." And, the kitchen has "the deadly chill of a vault after the dry cold of the night." These images are related to the fascination that Ethan finds in his family graveyard, and they are also appropriate to the living death that Ethan and Mattie experience after their accident. Their lives become cold and dead and Ethan experiences more intense silence and isolation than he did before Mattie came into his life.
Wharton reveals important aspects of Ethan's character and introduces readers to Zeena and Mattie. Ethan is an intelligent man; he spent time at a technological college, but had to quit and return home when his father died. His schooling "made him aware of huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things." Ethan learned that he has the freedom to think and his thoughts have become his world and his life. He retreats into his thoughts to avoid the pain of reality. Ethan's thoughts are sometimes imprecise and irrational — they too often consist of illusions or half-truths rather than clear intuitions or reasoned conclusions. Ethan constantly tries to analyze and control what is happening in the present and dreams and wonders about the future.
