The Frozen River

In this section of the novel, Lawhon uses Martha’s internal monologue to demonstrate the ways in which she reckons with flaws in her own character—flaws exacerbated by the challenges facing her and her loved ones. Her decision to refuse Lidia North treatment, and her presumptions about Sarah White’s fiancé highlight the tension between the values Martha espouses and her tendency toward judgement in times of extreme emotional distress. Lawhon invites readers to question Martha’s integrity in these moments by writing self-doubt into Martha’s own internal monologue. After Ephraim scolds her for refusing Lidia treatment, Martha thinks to herself, “So rarely have I been scolded by my husband in these last thirty-five years that I can feel the heat seeping into my cheeks” (252). Her immediate sense of shame indicates Martha’s willingness to acknowledge her own moral fallibility, as well as her trust in and love for Ephraim, pointing to the novel’s thematic interest in Familial Loyalty. Revealing Martha’s shortcomings allows Lawhon to develop her as a wholly realized character, rather than a one-dimensional heroine who never makes mistakes. These shortcomings also offer a brief insight into how Martha’s enemies have drawn negative conclusions about her. Lidia’s condemnation, “You think you’re so clever. That you understand everything” has a ring of truth beneath the malicious tone of its delivery (252). As indicated by Ephraim’s rebuke, Lawhon suggests that Martha’s self-superiority, at times, undermines her morality.

Lawhon also uses Martha’s assumptions to highlight the Puritan Shame Culture and Gender Oppression that defines the experiences of women in Hallowell. When Martha visits Sarah at White Saddlery, she’s internally dismissive of Sarah’s insistence that father of her child will return soon and propose marriage. Martha recalls a proverb to herself, “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride” (245), but dares not share it with Sarah, knowing that it will come across as judgmental. Contextually, Lawhon grounds Martha’s cynicism in decades of lived experience in Hallowell, working intimately with women as a midwife, making her privy to the many ways in which rampant patriarchal gender oppression weaponizes sexual shame against them. While Martha is aware that she is being judgmental, both in regard to Lidia North and Sarah White, she finds it difficult to separate her opinions from her cynicism. Her apology to Lidia comes much later in the book, and with the ulterior motivation of gaining more information about North’s involvement in the rape and murder.

With the reappearance of Rachel Blossom, one of the women that Martha chastised for their judgment of Sarah, Lawhon provides an example of character growth. When Rachel offers an apology to Martha and Sarah for spreading nasty gossip, she does so with sincerity: “I’ve just apologized to Sarah for what we did that day. You were right. It was disgraceful, and I’m sorry” (243). Even as a secondary character with a small role to play in the plot, Rachel represents one of the book’s most dynamic characters, demonstrating a clear capacity for growth. In Rachel, Lawhon presents a path to redemption for the women who have become self-protectively complicit in perpetuating the systems of Puritan Shame Culture and Gender Oppression in Hallowell. This characterization thus resolves the malicious gossip plotline with a degree of optimism about humanity otherwise rare in Lawhon’s novel.

Lawhon provides a sense of additional redemption and hope in the figures of Eliza Robbins and her housekeeper Mrs. Ney. Whereas the upper class women in Hallowell allow themselves to be seduced by the clout associated with Page’s Harvard education, working class Mrs. Ney and practical Eliza both know to place their trust in an experienced midwife such as Martha. This dynamic is encapsulated in the chapter’s discussion of blowing smoke rings, an action distinctly upper-class and masculine coded, which only Mrs. Ney performs in the novel. Eliza’s pithy commentary on the men’s feeble attempts at it—“Harvard men… Always trying to act like Oxford men”—points to the class connotations associated with the pastime, and also characterizes her as somebody who sees through posturing (261). In the end, however, it is the ease with which Mrs. Ney is able to blow the smoke rings, and the confidence with which she does it, that provides the most encouraging beat in the chapter. Through Mrs. Ney, Lawhon suggests that though they may be less powerful (and less visible) than men like North and Page, there are plenty of women like Martha in her community, women that recognize the oppression of the patriarchy, and who are capable of beating men at their own game. These characters illustrate that the Hallowell community is not a monolith; while the culture of misogyny is indeed pervasive, it has does not have all of the residents in its grip.