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"When she spoke it only to complain, and to complain of things not in his power to remedy." Pg 63.
it shows the irony from going marrying her and talking all the time to getting annoyed at her.

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The pickle dish is red, which can show desire, love, seduction, and passion. The breaking of the pickle dish represents the disintegration of Zeena and Ethan's marriage, as well as Ethan and Mattie's relationship.
The cat is representative of Zeena and her presence, especially when Mattie and Ethan are alone. The cat is constantly present and watching, which keeps the two apart.

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"She chose to look down on Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place which looked down on her."(page 63)

This is a form of irony towards Zeena because she would rather be on the sending end rather than the receiving end. This shows her hypocritical and ironic nature of her ideas.

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"...but it was surprising what homelike look the mere fact of Zeena absence gave it" (26). His own home feels unfamiliar to him until Mattie's there. Makes his home feel more like a home than when Zeena is there.

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"the fact that, for the first time since Mattie had come to live with them, Zeena was to be away for a night. He wondered if the girl were thinking of it too...." even though his wife is talking to him he cant take his eyes off Mattie and he wonders about her feelings she might have for him.

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The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena’s seat to the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie. The two leaned forward at the same moment and their hands met on the handle of the jug. Mattie’s hand was underneath, and Ethan kept his clasped on it a moment longer than was necessary. The cat, profiting by this unusual demonstration, tried to effect an unnoticed retreat, and in doing so backed into the pickle-dish, which fell to the floor with a crash.

When the cat breaks Zeena’s favorite wedding present, symbolizing the way that Mattie may break up Zeena and Ethan’s marriage. Ethan’s response to the broken dish is also symbolic. Rather than securing the shattered dish permanently with glue or simply throwing away the pieces and admitting that the dish has been broken, Ethan arranges the fragments into a delicate balance, postponing disaster. The dish, and his marriage, appear unbroken, but they may in fact fall to pieces with the slightest disturbance.
-Emily Aquino

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"She seemed to Ethan taller, fuller, more womanly in shape and motion."
Ethan, in this quote might see her more as a wife, not like Zeena, but as someone he really loves. The fact that she was seen with a crimson ribbon in her hair still shows desire.

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" At times looking at Zeena's shut face he felt the chill of such forebodings. At other times her silence seemed deliberately assumed to conceal far reaching intentions,mysterious conclusions drawn from suspicious resentments impossible to guess"

This quote shows how Ethan feels towards Zeena, whenever he sees her he feels a sense of resentment. He feels a sense of mystery when it comes to Zeenas intentions

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"But since he had seen her lips in the lamplight he felt that they were his." this is a new desire and it shows that Ethan's affection for Mattie is rapidly growing.

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"her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual, she was wholly absorbed in her health."(page 56)

She is only caring for herself and worrying about her own well being rather than thinking how others are affected.

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"'it was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging to their familiar task and his lings expanding with long draughts of mountain air"

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'Then she too fell silent"
When Ethan's mother fell ill and wouldn't talk he was attracted to Zeena because she brought sound back into his world, and now as Zeena falls ill and is silent all the time he is attracted to Mattie now because she has brought sound and happiness back into his life.

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"The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his fears of “trouble” with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits with a rush, and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang aloud as he drove through the snowy fields. There was in him a slumbering spark of sociability which the long Starkfield winters had not yet extinguished."

She gives him a feeling he doesn't experience with Zeena, because he doesn't have a connection with her like he does with Mattie. And just the thought of her gives him a feeling that not even Starkfield (in which he lived his whole life) gives him this feeling.

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"Her nearest relations had been induced to place their savings in her father's hands, and though, after his death, they ungrudgingly acquitted themselves of the Christian duty of returning good for evil by giving his daughter all the advice at their disposal, they could hardly be expected to supplement it by material aid"
In Ethan's eyes maddie has lived with a rough family like zeena for example and he wanted to change that

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"After the funeral, when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter…" This is significant because it is showing us The circumstances of how and why Ethan and Zeena met and married. The main reason was that after his mother's death he couldn't face winter alone in the farmhouse.He's basically saying that if it weren't for his mothers death leaving him in isolation, he probably wouldn't have met or married Zeena.

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"the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his."
this is another motif for how mattie makes ethan feel warm

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"Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his. Why had he not kissed her when he held her there? "(page 24)

This shows that he in fact wanted to kiss her, but he didn't because he is married to Zeena. Also the warmth is a motif for Mattie.

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"And within a year of their marriage she developed the sickliness" "but he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had been aquired by the absorbed observaton of her own symptoms." This is significant because

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"He knew that Zeena must be wondering why he did not offer to drive her to the Flats and let Jotham Powell take the lumber to Starkfield, and at first he could not think of a pretext for not doing so; then he said: 'I'd take you over myself, only I've got to collect the cash for the lumber"' (25). Ethan finally kinda self admits that he doesn't like being in the presence of Zeena anymore if he can help it.