Ethan Frome review: Mattie and Ethan, in love or insane?

I just read Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome for the first time. Mary Gordon writes in her introduction that The Age of Innocence and House of Mirth "concern themselves with the collision between the free spirit and the restraints of conventional society," and I found Ethan Frome no less so. I found it metaphorical that in the end the ill-fated lovers fail at their attempt to kill themselves by trying to sled into a huge elm tree. Instead, Ethan's sickly wife miraculously recovers and cares for them both for the next 20 years. Wharton succeeds at drawing the reader into the growing attraction between Mattie and Ethan and causing you to loathe Zeena, the pitiful, complaining wife. But as they are about to collide into the tree you finally want to yell at them, "No! Stop! Open your eyes! What are you doing?" Jesus said the way that leads to destruction is easy, and surely this story surely brings that to life.