Their plan fails but not without injuring both seriously first. Zeena then takes Mattie back in and nurses the two back to health. We learn that for the past 20 years the three have lived together despite the forbidden love and the failed marriage. In this story the author makes us feel sorry for Ethan, but why didn't he solve the problem and leave Zeena, or get over Mattie. Ethan was torn between what he wanted in life and what others had told him was the right thing to do.
Love is the strongest thing on earth, but it can be bended by the ideas of society.
We feel for Ethan because he is trapped and all of us have felt trapped by society before. Wharton uses this to put us on Ethan's side. The story takes place during a harsh winter which adds to the deariness and coldness of the events in the story. This quote example of how Wharton used the description of the setting to add to our feelings about the story. I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.