Contrasting Friendship

Contrasting Friendship

“The two ladies, who had been intimate since childhood, reflected how little they knew each other”. This is how, author, Edith Wharton shows the relationship of two characters, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, in the short story “Roman Fever.” These two women who are supposed to be friends, led envious lives of each other, and because of the way they lived they were very contrasting and conflicting characters. In the end, I believe Mrs. Slade was guiltier for her actions and in fact the whole incident would have never happened if it weren’t for her.

Before there widowhood these two ladies led very envious and superficial lives. In describing her friend Mrs. Slade says, “Mrs. Horace Ansley, twenty-five years ago, had been exquisitely lovely…though, of course, still charming, distinguished…far more beautiful than her daughter. Horace Ansley was just the duplicate of his wife. Museum specimens of old New York. Good-looking, irreproachable, exemplary”. In return, when Mrs. Ansley was asked about or spoke about Mrs. Slade she would reply, “Alida Slade’s awfully brilliant; but not as brilliant as she thinks. Mrs. Slade had been an extremely dashing girl; much more so than her daughter who was pretty, of course, and clever in a way, but had none of her mother’s—well vividness”. These two ladies had a friendship based upon nothing but there own jealous and arrogant behavior; as if the only reason they spoke was in spite of one another. As Wharton describes them, “ these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope” (258). Wharton realized that these fragments composed the only true communication about their friendship and therefore told the real story of Mrs. Slade and ...

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...hat Mrs. Ansley finally decided to shut Mrs. Slade up of her arrogant, superficial talk and she nonchalantly turned to Mrs. Slade and said, “I had Barbara”.

In the end, I believe, it was Mrs. Ansley who had the ultimate revenge. While Mrs. Slade had planned to get rid of Mrs. Ansley that night, Mrs. Ansley not only answered the letter, and had a night of passion with Mrs. Slade’s husband, but she also had his child. Each time Mrs. Slade tried to make Mrs. Ansley feel like she meant nothing, Mrs. Ansley came back with a harsher reality for Mrs. Slade. Throughout the whole story, I believe Mrs. Slade is ultimately at greater fault because she was the one who brought up the letter and she wouldn’t let it go. She felt she had to top Mrs. Ansley each time. Though both women were at fault, in a way, Mrs. Slade had no one to blame for the consequences but herself.