Dennis Eady

The son of Michael Eady, an ambitious Irish grocer. Dennis has a reputation for applying the same techniques ills father used so successfully in business in pursuit of the young women of Starkfield.

Ethan Frome

Ethan Frome is twenty-eight years old and physically impressive at the time the events in the novel take place. A series of family crises put a premature end to his engineering studies and force him into agriculture, for which he has no inclination, and now he must also care for Zeena, ills cranky, hypochondriacal wife of seven years. Ethan's brief studies made him "aware of the huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things," and because he is "by nature grave and inarticulate," he is "warmed to the marrow by friendly human intercourse" He cannot expect this from Zeena, who basically stopped speaking a year into their marriage. So when Mattie...