Roman Fever

It is ironic that Grace Ansley and Alida Spade return together to Rome, the scene of their surreptitious rivalry. Now, twenty-five years later, it is their daughters who seem to risk "Roman...

Edith Wharton's title "Roman Fever" is symbolic of the passionate hatred and jealousy felt by Alida Slade, as well as the sexual passion experienced by Delphin Slade and Grace Ansley. The name for...

The main conflict in the story is person versus person, or more specifically, woman versus woman. In the story, Mrs. Alida Slade and Mrs. Grace Ansley are rivals. In modern terms, we would call...

Looking through the wrong end of the telescope reduces, rather than enlarges, an image. This phrase therefore means that each woman, Alida and Grace, is looking at the other in a way that...

The double meaning of "Roman Fever" is that it refers literally to an feverish ailment to which one is susceptible in the cool air after sunset, and figuratively to a feverish battle for Delphin...

Alida Slade is characterized throughout "Roman Fever" as a jealous and spiteful person who wants to assert her superiority over her friend. For no reason except to hurt her old friend, Grace...

The letter is at the heart of the deception that Mrs. Slade believed she perpetrated on Mrs. Ansley many years earlier when they were both in love with Delphin Slade. One of these women married...

As "Roman Fever" opens, Mrs. Slade considers herself superior to her old friend—or frenemy—Grace Ansley. She thinks of Mrs. Ansley and her late husband as "two nullities." She condescendingly...

Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever" describes the interaction between Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley as they sit on a Roman terrace. Their conversation is intermingled with the women's (especially Mrs....

Edith Wharton’s short story “Roman Fever” is written in a third person omniscient point of view. This means that the narrator, and by extension, the readers, can see and hear the characters’...

Mrs. Shade and Mrs. Ansley share a similar social background. They're both part of the gilded upper-class world that Edith Wharton wrote about so often. More importantly, Alida and Grace are linked...

It is important to realise that both Alida Slade and Grace Ansley now have a very different social role than they did when they were young and single and travelling in Rome together before. Now...

The climax of "Roman Fever" comes as the two matrons sit watching the Roman sunset, recalling events of their first visit to Rome so long ago, and both friends reveal truths that shock the other....

The answer to this question can be found in the second section of this story, following the background we are given of these two women and their friendship. As they sit there watching the view...

Certainly, the coliseum of Rome represents a well-developed society of ancient times, one against which the Gilded Age of America can be reflected as its notably named high society also placed its...

The moral lesson of "Roman Fever" is that often one misjudges a person who is close. In the exposition of Wharton's story, Mrs. Slade, with dramatic irony, remarks, "Grace Ansley was always...

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows what characters in a work of literature do not. "Roman Fever" does not precisely show dramatic irony, as the audience learns surprising pieces of news...

When Mrs. Slade was younger and her husband Delphin was still alive, every day was exciting; however, after her husband's death, she finds being Slade's widow a "dullish business." Mrs. Slade's...

The discrepancy between what is spoken and what is privately thought represents the first hints of submerged conflict between the two women. Mrs. Slade unceremoniously thinks that Mrs. Ansley is...

Wharton's story contains several tone shifts. 1. At the beginning of "Roman Fever," Wharton is reminiscent. She might even imagine herself as Mrs. Slade or Mrs. Ansley. The two women enjoy their...

Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley have never had a close relationship. They lived across the street from one another, but there has always been animosity between them, although unspoken, so in a way, the...

There are some very in-depth questions there, a bit much to answer all in the space I am provided. Therefore, I will deal with Q2 - the development and revelation of animosity of Mrs. Slade...

"Roman Fever" reunites the traits that describe revenge literature at its very best. Using two women as main characters, Wharton effectively includes the basic elements of a love-hate relationship....

Mrs. Slade has always been jealous of the beautiful and quietly composed Mrs. Ansley. She knew, when they were both young, that Mrs. Ansley, then single, was in love with her fiancé, Delphin. Now...

In "Roman Fever," Edith Wharton expertly sets up the twist ending by spending a lot of time drawing such a sharp contrast in personality between Grace and Alida. Grace is presented to us as a...

Along with symbolic meaning, the suggestion of Barbara Ansley that she and Jenny Slade "...leave the young things to their knitting" contains much irony. For, the knitting to which Mrs. Slade and...

A most significant setting to Wharton's story, Rome is a city of passions much different from upper society's Victorian New York. Far removed from their own society, in Rome the Ansley and Spade...

Judging by the manner in which Edith Wharton characterizes Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley, it is safe to say that it is not too difficult for a female reader to identify with either of the two. For...

In his essay, "'Roman Fever': A Mortal Malady," Lawrence Berkove writes, Wharton’s genius, it turns out, is moral as well as aesthetic; the story...is a powerful exemplum about the dangerous...

Naturalism as a literary movement moves away from the idea of a universe controlled by God in which people operate out of moral values. Instead, the genre depicts a mechanistic, Godless universe...

Jenny is quiet and refined. She is the daughter of dynamic and powerful Mrs. Slade. Mrs. Slade had always wanted a daughter who was "brilliant" but got one who was "an angel." Barbara is bright...

There seem to be two main moral lessons that we can draw from this excellent and surprising tale. The first lies in the way in which Mrs. Slade completely underestimates her friend, Mrs. Ansley,...

In her youth, Alida used Aunt Harriet's story as a rationale for her spiteful behavior. At present, she uses Aunt Harriet's story to put her past actions in a meaningful context for Grace. Alida...

It helps us to understand that Mrs. Slade's opinion of Mrs. Ansley is very off-center. Mrs. Slade is a very domineering woman who is used to getting her way because of her wealth, and she assumes,...

The summary of Roman Fever is tricky, I find, because the women's names tend to swim together in my mind and their identities become blurred and confused. Having said this, the theme of Roman Fever...

The relative presence or absence of literary “realism” in the setting of Edith Wharton’s short story “Roman Fever” is an intriguing issue. The Cambridge Companion to Literature in English, edited...

The story is written to both describe and inform. Wharton describes the Roman ruins and the areas in Italy where the families visit and stay beautifully. She also describes the characters of the...

In one of her greater works of fiction, Edith Wharton portrays the class from which she herself came, the social elite of New York, to whom name and social status are all-important. Relationships...

In ancient Rome, the Forum was the center for rituals and civic and political events. Also, because there were citizens of all levels present for these events, the forum was the heartbeat of Roman...

One of the things I love about this story is that the resolution that Edith Wharton gives us seems not to represent a resolution at all in terms of the external conflict that Mrs. Ansley and Mrs....

Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley have known each other for a long time. When they were young girls both competing for the attention of Delphin Slade, Mrs. Slade had hoped that Mrs. Ansley would catch...

At the start of Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever," the characters of Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley are civil with each other but not especially warm. The two women knew each other as young girls and as...

"Roman Fever," by Edith Wharton is a story about two close Victorian friends who do not know each other. These women revisit Rome years after their first youthful visit; this time they have their...

In a story reflective of Old New York's stifled Victorian society, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade are thrown into intimacy simply by their social class because they differ markedly in personalities and...

The author favors Mrs. Ansley over Mrs. Slade. Both women are equal socially, financially, but Mrs. Slade is bitter. Mrs. Ansley is sympathetic, genuine and sincere. When the discussion turns to...

Dramatic irony is a literary device whereby the reader knows something that the characters do not. At the same time, we cannot know too much, as that would spoil the ending. So a skillful author...

Delphin Slade was clearly a very handsome, charismatic man. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been competing for the attention of not one, but two women at the same time. A wealthy, successful corporate...

A story reflective and yet contrary to the Old New York's stifled society, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, rather than being truly friends, have been thrown into intimacy by their social class. They...

Alida Slade makes no secret of the fact that she looks down on Grace. She sees her as a little mouse of a woman, who lacks the toughness and assertiveness to get what she wants in life. According...

In this short story, Mrs. Ansley is the only one of the women who knits. Knitting symbolizes her self-possession. Mrs. Ansley is a woman content with her life and able to produce good work....