Oppression Of Women In Roman Fever By Edith Wharton

“Roman Fever” is successful in revealing a darker side of interpersonal interactions and the lust for the role of the superior in relationships. It conveys this message by showing the transfer of

In the beginning of Roman Fever you will notice how Alida Slade is exceedingly envious towards Grace Ansley’s overall life. Slade states, that Grace and her husband Horace where “Museum specimens of old New York. Good looking, irreproachable, exemplary.” As you read you find out that Alida seems to have the perfect life with her lawyer husband Delphine yet, she still craves her lifestyle. While having their escalating conversation, to avoid the awkward silence Grace begins to knit. Slade states “She can knit in the face of this! How like her.” This infuriates Slade that Ansley can hold a conversation while remaining knitting at the same time. She fantasizes to live her “old-fashioned” life style that Ansley illustrates.

Roman Fever" is an outstanding example of Edith Wharton's theme to express the subtle nuances of formal upper class society that cause change underneath the pretense of stability. Wharton studied what actually made their common society tick, paying attention to unspoken signals, the histories of relationships, and seemingly coincidental parallels. All of these factors contribute to the strength and validity of the story of Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley.

Fitting with the common theme between the two novels of the judgment of others, each heroine falls victim to a horrible misjudgment of the character of another. After discovering that the engagement between her brother and her friend Isabella has been broken, Catherine finds she has grossly misjudged her friend’s character, and thinks, “She was ashamed of Isabella, ashamed of ever having loved her” (Northanger 150). Elizabeth, on the other hand, finds her attachment the Wickham wholly inappropriate after receiving her letter from Mr. Darcy. After digesting the shocking contents of the letter, Elizabeth “grew absolutely ashamed of herself.—Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd” (Pride 156). And indeed, as suggested by Elizabeth’s mention of Darcy, this misjudgment goes on to affect each girl’s attachment to her future husband.

means Daisy’s death from Roman fever also suggests her death from sociality. Besides, by not

In “Sweat” adoration and hatred continuously go back and forth and Delia even “attempted friendliness, but she was repulsed each time” (1092). The despair and isolation Delia felt in the end of the story, perhaps even more than the straightforward and steadily building anger, is what caused her to allow him to die in the end.

One theme in the story is physical and emotional abuse. Delia is quite often trying to work or simply minding her own business, when her husband, Sykes decides to pick a verbal fight with

Everybody in their life has made mistakes, but there is a difference between the small mistakes that people make on a daily basis, and those that can cause life-altering events. In the three Zora Neal Hurston stories, “Sweat,” “Spunk,” and “The Gilded Six Bit,” characters all make terrible mistakes that affect the people that they love most. The outcomes of each story though are very different as the characters face tough choices and deal with them in very different ways. Though these situations deal with many of the same issues, the ability or inability for those in the stories to forgive individuals shows their true character and values.

Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever” and Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” are the result of two “realistic” writers wishing to change the perspectives of how women should be viewed and treated. In “The Story of an Hour,” Chopin writes about Mrs. Mallard who is a woman desperate for her own thoughts and identity, at the time this concept was untraditional and not accepted. Like Chopin, in “Roman Fever” Wharton calls emphasis to the hidden secrets and feelings held by women at the time. In her writing, Chopin uses various literary devices to play an important role in conveying her message, these devices are also used by Wharton in “Roman Fever.” Irony is a predominant literary device used in both of these works, for example when Chopin states “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills” (1611). This is ironic because the reader knows she didn’t die of joy, but rather from seeing the glimpse of her husband and knowing she had lost the freedom she so desired. The first sign of irony Wharton uses is in the title, “Roman Fever,” which is an old name for malaria. However, that’s only the surface meaning as the deeper meaning symbolizes Mrs. Slade’s disease-like jealousy she has hidden for years over Mrs. Ansley. Both Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin were very influential authors of the time and brought out suppressed issues in their works to be acknowledged and challenged by society.

The author once again shows Delia’s goodness and devotion to her marriage in Clarke’s market. Sykes began to order many items for Bertha, his mistress, knowing Delia was riding by and would see him doing this. Delia avoids talking to villagers in an attempt to blind herself from the truth that her husband had been cheating on her for many months now. However, Bertha forces her to face the evil truth by showing up at her doorstep and calling out for Sykes. Sykes and Delia began to consistently fight. Delia tries to be friendly with her husband, but loses all hope when he rejects

Delia Jones starts off as a healthy religious woman who believes she found the love of her life, but little does she know that she will lose her beloved qualities of freedom. This submissive quality appears two months after their marriage. Considering she has experienced ongoing abuse for fifteen years, Delia has eventually had enough. I say it is because of Sykes’ irony that she develops hatred. Sykes’ selfish demeanor is the cause for Delia’s weak state. He then goes on to humiliate her by saying “Ah 'm so tired of you Ah don 't know whut to do.

shows us that one of the characters, Miss Bingley, lacks completely of virtue. The Aristotelian

Societies’ Masks Situational irony occurs when the actual result of an action is different from what was expected. Using situational irony, Edith Wharton highlights the theme that appearances can be deceiving in “Roman Fever.” She does this with her portrayal of Grace Ansley and Alida Slade, the jealousy of Alida for Grace’s daughter Barbara, and the backfired attempt Alida made to keep her fiancé away from Grace. Although acquainted with each other most of their lives, Wharton states, “these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope” (1699). Alida has a greater presence than Grace, “fuller, and higher in color, with a small determined nose supported by vigorous black eyebrows” (1697) and had a busy social life until her husband’s death.

In “The Bloody Chamber,” Angela Carter tells the tale of a seventeen-year-old girl who marries an older, wealthy Marquis. Like many other clever authors, Carter gives the reader an opportunity to determine the outcome of the story before the ending is reached through her symbolism and allusions which foreshadow the ending. In doing so, she not only provides insight into what will happen next but also further develops each of the characters through these complex symbols that she incorporates throughout the story.

The plot of Edith Wharton’s novella “Roman Fever” is straightforward with a consciously casual setting. Words in Wharton’s work are careful and calculated, each paragraph requires an in-depth scrutiny of content from their original context. In ways “Roman Fever” encourages readers to dig through the advanced syntax in search of the conveyed messages. Hence, the story focuses mainly on Mrs. Ansley's knitting and its significance in the novella. When the author addresses Mrs. Ansley's "twist of crimson silk"(69), the descriptive imagery is intentional in the sense that knitting symbolizes Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade’s relationship and foreshadows the dramatic revelations later in the story. The use of frame story to structure the narrative of their ill-matched friendship illustrates the author’s intent to invoke thought and ideas in the reader's naïve minds. Thus, although knitting is an unconscious habit of Mrs. Ansley, it is actually significant because it is an attempt to weave back the disrupted relationship between the two friends. Hence, knitting as a “crimson” alludes to the intensely passionate love and closure that blinds the two from truly understanding each other and gives a glimpse of the unstable nature within the upper middle class in society.