The Frozen River

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “To Housekeeping”

Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary: “Ballard’s Mill”

In December 1789, Martha overhears a conversation between North and Ephraim at the mill. North, on the behalf of the Kennebec Proprietors, requests that Ephraim resurvey a tract of land near the river, a job which will likely take weeks in the winter weather. North threatens that if Ephraim does not complete this work, the Ballards might lose their lease. Not wanting to be caught eavesdropping, Martha steps into the room and asks if Ephraim knows where her ink is. North expresses surprise that Martha uses ink at all, and his dog growls at her. Ephraim and Martha convene, agreeing that the survey job is an excuse to keep Ephraim away during the upcoming court hearing on the Foster rape case. Martha may not be allowed to testify if her husband is not present, and North knows that the survey work could keep him away from town for weeks. Without a witness, the charges against North could be dropped.

Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary: “Mill Creek Bridge”

Ephraim leaves to complete the survey, taking his falcon, Percy, with him. As he rides away, Martha sees the silver fox again, and decides to name her Tempest. Tempest approaches Martha but runs away before getting too close.

Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary: “Sewell Chandlery”

Martha attends a birth at the Chandlery; the wife of the chandler, Grace Sewell is giving birth for the first time and struggling with her labor. Grace’s mother, worried that Martha is not a capable midwife, calls Dr. Page to assist with the labor, and he prescribes a dangerous dose of laudanum. The Sewells trust Page over Martha, and Grace takes the laudanum, but Martha knows that this could result in the deaths of Grace and her unborn child. Page leaves, and Martha stays to try and save Grace. When the delivery finally occurs, after a tense period of illness for Grace, Grace’s mother realizes that she was wrong to not trust Martha. Page returns to the house to check on Grace (whose name he refuses to learn), and Martha chastises him, denying him entry to the house.

Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary: “Pollard’s Tavern”

After finishing her work, Martha passes Pollard’s Tavern and discovers a fight is occurring outside. James Wall fights with a newcomer to town, who turns out to be an officer of the court named Barnabas Lambard. Lambard has come to arrest Wall for unpaid debts, and Wall insists that the only reason they went unpaid is because he was unable to complete the river expedition, and therefore went unpaid himself. Martha learns from Abigail Pollard that James’s debts are to North, whom he asked for a loan in order to start a distillery. James is arrested and sent to debtors’ jail. Abigail informs Martha that Moses intends to ask for Hannah’s hand in marriage soon.

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “Ballard’s Mill”

Dolly and Martha make candles out of deer tallow. The other children are away from the house; Hannah has gone to visit the oldest Ballard daughter, Lucy, who is married with children, and the sons are chopping down trees in the forest. Dolly remarks that she visited Rebecca Foster, who seems to be doing poorly. Ever since the fornication charges were brought against her, Rebecca has been at the center of local gossip.

Unaware of the recent murder, Barnabas Lambard arrives at the house and asks where he can find Burgess. Recognizing the opportunity for someone else to witness the condition of the body, Martha sends him to the tavern, but does not reveal that Burgess is dead. Martha notes that Dolly appears to have a crush on Lambard.

Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “Dr. Coleman’s Store”

Shopping at the general store, Martha encounters Sarah White, a young woman who had a child out of wedlock and scandalized the village. Sarah is in a hurry to leave the store, since other women are gossiping maliciously about her, and Martha decides to defend her against them. She discovers three young women in the fabric section, pregnant themselves, remarking on Sarah’s indecency. They also discuss James Wall’s recent wedding to his fiancée May, and speculate that she might have become pregnant beforehand, necessitating a hurried marriage. Martha reveals herself to them and scolds them for their hypocrisy, reminding them that they all became pregnant before their marriages. The three women leave, annoyed, and Sarah thanks Martha for defending her.

Coleman overhears this exchange and informs Martha that she should be careful because “sentiment has turned against” her (120). Dr. Page has spread a rumor that Martha was the one who diagnosed the deadly dose of laudanum during Grace Sewel’s labor. He also informs Martha that Lambard inspected Burgess’s body and agrees with her assessment that he was murdered.

Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “Ballard’s Mill”

The next day, Martha records in her journal that Clarissa Stone, one of the women she confronted at the store, had lost her baby during a particularly gruesome labor, assisted by Dr. Page. Martha suspects that the Stone family called Dr. Page instead of her because of the incident at the store, and regrets antagonizing Clarissa.

Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “Ballard’s Mill”

Weeks after he left for the surveying job, Martha worries that Ephraim is dead. The court date at Vassalboro where his presence is required in order for Martha to testify is fast-approaching, and Martha also worries that she will not be able to defend Rebecca if he is absent. She keeps herself busy with household chores at the mill and designates some of the work to all of her sons except for Jonathan, who is frequently missing. North comes to visit on the pretense of looking for Ephraim, though Martha suspects he is hoping to confirm that Ephraim is still absent. During this encounter, North displays an obvious dislike of Cyrus, who is mute, and insinuates that the fight between Cyrus and Burgess is enough to charge Cyrus with murder.

Two days later, North visits again while Martha and Cyrus are in the middle of slaughtering chickens. He threatens Martha, attempting to leverage his power into ensuring her silence. Martha is undaunted, and North retorts that “there is more than one idiot living in this house” (128). Just then, Ephraim’s falcon flies in, and Martha realizes that Ephraim must be back. Suddenly nervous, North hurries away from the mill. Concurrently, Moses Pollard arrives to visit Hannah, and informs Martha that he has not seen Ephraim nearby. She notices a note from Ephraim tied to the falcon’s leg, telling Martha that he will be at the upcoming court hearing.

Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “Vassalboro”

Martha goes to Vassalboro for the court hearing, but there is still no sign of Ephraim. North is seated amongst the defendants, and the presiding judge is Obadiah Wood. Barnabas Lambard informs Judge Wood that Burgess is dead, and that the court may wish to inquire about his cause of death. North protests, but Lambard asserts that he saw the body and believes a murder to have taken place, and furthermore, that Mr. Foster should be held on suspicion of that murder. Judge Wood calls the Fosters to testify, and Mr. Foster asks that the court record his denial of the murder accusation. He also asks that the fornication charges against Rebecca be dropped. Finding North to have had a conflict of interest in issuing such charges, Wood agrees to both requests.

During her testimony, Rebecca formally accuses North of rape. North provides an alibi, and tries to prevent Martha from testifying, since Ephraim is absent. Ephraim arrives at the courtroom just in time, however, and Martha is allowed to proceed. She confirms that Rebecca was injured in a manner consistent with rape, and provides her journal to the court as evidence. Wood defers the case to a higher court on account of the seriousness of the charges and adjourns the session. Martha complains to Ephraim that the court is handling affairs unfairly.

Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “Oxford, Massachusetts”

Picking up where the last flashback ended, Martha and Ephraim are married by North at her family home. Martha’s father expresses outrage that Ephraim wants to begin living with Martha right away, worrying that it could damage her reputation, and throws a jug of cider at Ephraim’s head. Martha remarks that her reputation has already been destroyed by Billy Crane, who is now dead. Against her parents’ wishes, Martha and Ephraim move into the new home he has built for them.

Ephraim gifts Martha ink, a notebook, and a King James Bible, encouraging her to learn how to read and write. The Bible contains a new family registry, where they will record the names of their future children. Recognizing that Martha is traumatized because of her recent rape, Ephraim promises not to pressure her sexually at any point. The couple sleeps peacefully in bed, and Martha anticipates what a healthy romantic life with Ephraim might be like in the future.

Part 2 Analysis

The flashbacks Lawhon uses to conclude each of the six parts of her story raise an element of irony in the shared personal history between Martha, Ephraim, and North that complicates North’s campaign against the Ballards in 1789 since the key moment of their earlier relationship involved his help in carrying out vigilante justice against Martha’s rapist. Lawhon highlights the shift in North’s character in the transition between Chapters 9 and 10. The highly confrontational setting of the Vassalboro courtroom stands in stark contrast to the intimate wedding ceremony officiated by North in Martha’s childhood home. During the wedding ceremony, North is a quietly supportive presence for Martha and Ephraim, defending them against her father’s anger. In the courtroom, however, North openly attempts to undermine Martha’s authority, objecting to her testimony on the grounds that her husband is not present. In the single page separating these two scenes, several decades pass during which Martha and North’s relationship deteriorates entirely. Curating the reveal of North, Martha and Ephraim’s backstory across the full length of her novel, Lawhon builds dramatic tension and links the characters’ past to their present.

In A Midwife’s Tale, Ulrich also addresses the fraught nature of Martha and North’s relationship, writing, “Martha was in a difficult position. Judge North was not only one of the most powerful men in Lincoln County, he was her near neighbor and… her husband's employer” (Ulrich, 118). As with many details in The Frozen River, Lawhon takes the skeleton of historical record and fleshes it out, adding intimate details and motivations in order to create her fictionalized account populated with fully realized characters. Her addition of Crane’s rape of Martha three decades prior to the Foster case and the Burgess murder is, as Lawhon herself references in the Author’s Note, one of the “riskiest” fabrications in the novel, serving to forge a shared history between the Ballards and North, making North’s villainy all the more cruel and unfathomable. Martha’s insults for North—“What a coward! What a guttersnipe! What a foul, stinking codpiece!”—are made more pointed by knowledge of this shared history (144).

With such unbridled animosity brewing amidst Hallowell’s older generations, Lawhon introduces fresh faces such as Barnabas Lambard to balance the impartially of the players involved in the rape and murder cases that drive the plot forward. Newcomers to Hallowell also signal the birth of new relationships, even as the Martha’s longtime relationship with North deteriorates. Lawhon emphasizes these dynamics in Lambard’s first visit to the mill. He arrives just after Burgess’s death, naively inquiring about his whereabouts, unaware of the murder. Martha’s observation at the beginning the chapter that “the house smells of dead animal” as a result of the candle making process (108) shifts to a more hopeful tone by the chapter’s end as Martha recognizes her youngest daughter’s romantic interest in Lambard, noting: “Well, that’s new” (113). The process of renewal in the wake of death, brought about by Lambard’s brief visit, signals a rare moment of optimism for the Ballard family’s future.

Like many of the male characters in the story, Lambard’s naivete serves to emphasize Martha’s insight and intimate knowledge of her community by contrast. During the Vassalboro court hearing, when Lambard accuses Isaac Foster of Burgess’s murder, Martha castigates him internally: “Stupid boy, [she] think[s], and when Barnabas glances at [her], he can safely judge [her] thoughts by [her] expression alone” (136). Martha’s knowledge of local politics and ability to read those around her far exceeds Lambard’s despite the institutional authority his status as an officer of the court gives him, underscoring the Puritan Shame Culture and Gender Oppression rampant in 18th-century New England. Lambard’s obvious confusion betrays his ineptitude at navigating the social landscape of Hallowell. He makes up for his lack of social skill with physical prowess, evident in his fight with James Wall: “It is clear he’s been trained to box… and is quick on his feet. A left hook makes contact with James’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the frozen mud” (103). For Martha, who frequently judges her community members based on their grit, and who, for all her feminism, often reinforces traditional ideals of masculinity, Lambard’s ability to fight earns her admiration. Abigail Pollard makes references to the standards of traditional masculinity that Martha values, reminding her that “Not every man can be Ephraim” (105), a subtle nod to Martha’s notable Familial Loyalty. Through this brief commentary from her neighbors, Lawhon indicates that Martha understands herself and her husband as embodying feminine and masculine ideals, respectively.