The Importance Of Social Relationships In Edith Wharton's 'Roman Fever'

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Friendships are not often without imperfection, and intentionally or unintentionally, they can often be tainted with dark secrecy. This holds especially true between two lifelong “friends” after they discover each other’s actual feelings in an unfortunate evening on a balcony in Rome in Edith Wharton’s short story, “Roman Fever.” Grace Ansley and Alida Slade are two upper-class women that consistently lather up their comments with social niceties, so as to mask their true feelings towards each other. Once these niceties are stripped away, it is clear to them that their views of each other are distant and ideological. Wharton emphasizes the importance of “social” with respect to “self” in this story by showing the assumptions that these two …show more content…

Since Alida’s life as a “Mrs.” was centered around her husband, she has had a hard time discovering her newfound identity as a “Ms.” “In living up to a husband all her faculties had been engaged; now she only had a daughter to live up to” (515). Yet, Alida sees her daughter as a disappointment because she is without the “vividness” of her mother (515). Alida’s jealousy of Grace’s daughter Barbara lays the foundation for the ironic ending that is to come in the final scene of the story. Alida wonders “how two such exemplary characters as [Grace] and Horace had managed to produce anything quite so dynamic,” (517) and admits that “I always wanted a brilliant daughter... and never quite understood why I got an angel instead” (517). Alida’s deep-rooted envy of Grace ultimately drives her to resort to disclosing an old secret in attempt to finally declare social victory over her supposed …show more content…

While Alida is appalled to find out that Grace replied to her letter and Delphin did in fact meet her that night, Grace is just as shocked to discover that Alida had written the letter that she dearly treasured. Yet Alida is determined to win, and so smugly notes "After all I had everything; I had him for twenty-five years, and you had nothing but that one letter that he didn 't write” (521). Grace retaliates and rattles the audience with the subtle, yet fatal line “I had Barbara,” finally divulging the tension’s root (521). Alida’s arrogance and pride push the social competition so far that she is left only with the unsettling knowledge that Barbara is Delphin 's firstborn daughter. While Alida has a memory of her two and a half decades with Delphin, Grace has a daughter by which to remember him—the very daughter that Alida was envious of at the beginning of the story. The telescopes, albeit backwards, are metaphorically shattered before the women as they experience the unraveling of long-kept secrets that force them to see each other different than they ever had

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