Roman Fever By Edith Wharton

Communication is the key to any relationship and can be delivered in a number of ways. In theory, men and women use different approaches when conversing between one another. Edith Wharton authored the short story “Roman Fever” which depict social communication problems among women. The story begins in Rome, Italy while the two main American characters Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, are on vacation. The women are having lunch in a restaurant while their two daughters Jenny Slade and Barbara Ansley, leave and hopefully return with the man of their dreams. As they sit knitting and enjoying the air from the rooftop, they discussed a situation that occurred twenty-five years prior. As young women, they were always warned by their elders about

Slade jealousy stemmed from her knowledge of knowing Mrs. Ansley had passion for Mr. Slade. Although they both came from the same social class, Mrs. Slade always believed Mrs. Ansley only married Mr. Ansley once she realized she was not going to marry Mr. Slade. “You do understand? I found out—and I hated you, hated you. I knew you were in love with Delphin—and I was afraid; afraid of you, of your quiet ways, your sweetness . . . your . . . well, I wanted you out of the way, that’s all,” (Perkins 96). After hearing these words, one would have proclaimed she never cared for Mrs. Ansley when that was far from the truth. She commented on how she saw Mr. and Mrs. Ansley as “good-looking, irreproachable, exemplary,” (Perkins 90). Feeling this way only lead to more measures of envy. Instead of telling Mrs. Ansley exactly how she felt, Mrs. Slade wrote the letter in hopes of getting Mrs. Ansley to creep into the nighttime weather, and risk catching roman fever. The plan to get her to meet at the Colosseum worked, and lead Mrs. Slade to believe she had the upper hand on the

Ansley felt bad for Mrs. Slade due to all the mishaps that occurred in her life. Recalling her thoughts, “Full of failures and mistakes; Mrs. Ansley had always been rather sorry for her,” (Perkins 92). Yet, after Mrs. Slade had revealed her secret, Mrs. Ansley felt it was only right to close the meeting with a secret of her own. After all Mrs. Slade had done to keep them apart Mrs. Ansley had replied to the letter; her and Mr. Slade met that night at the Colosseum and resulted in her pregnancy with Barbara. Mrs. Ansley not only had the ashes of the letter left from Mr. Slade but a love child as well. She could not let anyone find out she was having a child out of wedlock so she hurried and wed. She lived with her dishonest actions until that cool evening in