Ambiguity In Roman Fever And Hills Like White Elephants

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.

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.

“Roman Fever” written by Edith Wharton has a more complex plot structure than “A New Leaf”. The plot structure in a “Roman Fever” is more complex because it is not simply chronological. The story does use a chronological structure to describe how long the two characters have been sitting together, and to further the story, but there are mentions of the past that divert from the chronological order. These glimpses into the past from the characters, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley, add artistic unity to the story, meaning that these flashbacks cannot be removed, otherwise the story would not be comprehendible. The purpose of “Roman Fever” is not the plot but the characters and their relationship, and the change and develop of Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley. This alone rank “Roman Fever” above “A New Leaf” because “A New Leaf” relies heavily on chronological plot structure and the plot to truly drive the story. The plot also ties in heavily the stereotype of the pattern of three’s. Julia rejects both Dick and Phil twice before accepting them both on the third time. Many of the analysis questions for “A New Leaf” focus on the plot rather than anything else, including two about Phil and Dick and plot, “4. What causes Julia to reject Dick, twice? What in his behavior causes her rejections, and what in her character causes them? 5. What is the function of Phil Hoffman in the plot? Why does Julia reject him, and why does she finally marry him?”

The loose cinematic retelling of the novel Mildred Pierce into a more marketable “noir” murder mystery greatly changes aspects of the story’s “literary point of view”: how the story is portrayed or narrated. The film employs a third person point of view giving us extremely limited access to the thoughts of the characters. In the novel James Cain utilizes a third person limited perspective, allowing the reader to know Mildred’s thoughts and emotions. As a result the meaning of the story greatly varies between the two. While Mildred’s actions in the two versions of the story are, for the most part, similar, access to her thoughts change their meaning. Without knowing her thoughts and emotions, Mildred’s devotion to Veda in the film appears

Throughout “Roman Fever” Grace is a woman of very few words. She seems to keep a majority of her thoughts to herself, unlike Alida. Mrs. Ansley is compared to her late husband as the couple being “Museum specimens of old New York.” (389) “Grace Ansley was always old-fashioned,” (388) Alida articulates at one point. Nonetheless, another example of irony is revealed considering Grace happens to be conservative, yet unveiling her past defeats moral code. Wharton displays Mrs. Ansley and her daughter having a stronger bond than Mrs. Slade and her daughter by presenting the fact Grace knew the girls’ plans for the night while Alida is left in the dark. Toward the conclusion of the story, Mrs. Ansley derives from her shell and makes her thoughts known to Mrs. Slade as to what actually happened the night she arrived at the Colosseum. After she reveals one of her most cherished memories, “Mrs. Ansley rose, and drew her fur about her. ‘It is cold here. We’d better go… I’m sorry for you,’ she said as she clasped the fur about her throat.” (397) Grace seems to be kind of sympathetic to Alida’s pathetic attempt to rid of

“To our grandmothers Roman fever; to our mothers, sentimental dangers - how we used to be guarded! - to our daughters no more dangers than the middle of Main Street. They don’t know it - but how much they’re missing!” (754)

The art of storytelling has evolved from oral speech to written form. This evolution has brought us many wonderful stories that are valued and still read. These stories have given us a glimpse into lives well before over time, making them classics. Stories such as “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway give us a glimpse into lives we have not experienced. One of the ways in which all these classic stories still matter besides their writing is their attention to detail.

What would be expected from the personality of a woman who had an affair with her best friend’s fiance? Certainly not a dull mother who enjoys knitting, as is the case in the short story “Roman Fever.” Edith Wharton effectively makes use of direct and indirect presentation to create two round, yet static characters in her short story to escalate the powerful and surprising climax. Edith Wharton uses mostly direct presentation to describe Alida Slade and Grace Ansley in the beginning of her short story; “Roman Fever”; however also successfully incorporates indirect presentation to create even more realistic characters. In the first several paragraphs of the story the author tells readers “straight out, by exposition...

Romantic rivalries can begin among girls in junior high or high school, but they do not imagine the possibility of long-term consequences. In her short story, “Roman Fever,” published in 1934, Edith Wharton tells the story of two American women, Grace Ansley and Alida Slade, who have been friends since they were children, but who were also rivals for the same man, now married to Alida Slade. Although friends, the two women engaged in subterfuge in pursuing Delphin Slade when they were in Rome twenty-five years ago. Meeting by chance in Rome now with grown girls of their own, the two women reveal secrets they have kept for decades while knitting on the terrace of a restaurant overlooking the ancient ruins of Rome. Alida confesses that when in Rome twenty-five years earlier, she sent Grace a note, signing Delphin’s name, to meet him at the Coliseum by moonlight with the hope that Grace would contract an illness and be unable to pursue Delphin. Grace now reveals that she did meet Delphin that night, and that he is actually the father of her daughter, Barbara. Through the relationship between Alida and Grace and their purposeful revelation of long-held secrets in “Roman Fever,” Wharton explores one of her common themes, hostility between women (Ammons 1), and shows how jealousy and rivalry between women poisons friendships and leads to unintended and undesired consequences (Gawthrop 4). Wharton weaves her story and reveals this theme

“Roman Fever” written by Edith Wharton, is a short story set in the 1920’s about two women, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley, who have been recently reunited after several years while being on vacation in Rome. When meeting one another, the two begin a conversation with reminiscing their “golden days”. As the story progresses the once seemed as a healthy friendship slowly turns into a friendship that has been disturbed by jealousy and hatred. With each event being exposed in the plot the seemingly “close” friendship, turns into a relationship that becomes infected with jealousy and hatred. Edith Wharton exposes the true feelings that both women have for one another and hidden secrets of their past by creating a contrast between the two characters

“Roman Fever”, written by Edith Wharton, is a short story with an unpredictable ending. Two “middle aged” widows, Grace Ansley and Alida Slade, have come across each other unexpectedly in a Roman restaurant. The outcome of envy and jealousy on each other began with wanting to conquer one man, Delphin Slade. A conversation has begun once the daughters “leave the young things to their knitting”, later leaving the reader astonished (Wharton 1). In “Roman Fever”, the strained friendship results from the envy and jealousy of one another.

The fine line between the fear of the unknown and what is known can sometimes become blurred. In the short story “Roman Fever”, Edith Wharton does just that by telling the story of two ladies who were ‘childhood friends’. Both are recently widowed, and encounter each other in Rome by coincidence while traveling abroad with their daughters Jenny and Barbara. One of the ladies, Alida Slade, has long suspected that her intimate friend, Grace Ansley was involved with her fiancé many years ago and has been harboring some sort of dark secret about that liaison. As the story unfolds, Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley wonder about the familiar situation they have found themselves and their daughters in while in Rome. The similarity between the two

In “Roman Fever,” Edith Wharton employs irony to manipulate the reader’s perception of a seemingly innocent conversation between two middle aged women, Alida Slade and Grace Ansley. When reconnecting in Rome, both women reminisce about their past experience there in which secrets first emerged between them. Alida, driven to reconcile the past, attempts to relieve her conscience by confessing that she betrayed and entrapped Grace with a falsified love letter. On the other hand, Grace selectively forgets any semblance of the past, but ultimately reveals her affair with Delphin twenty-five years ago, Alida’s then fiancé, and that they conceived a child, Barbara. The culmination of setting,

Roman Fever, by Edith Wharton, is an outstanding example of 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.

In order to evaluate the argument of Roman Fever being used against the characters in these stories we need to examine Roman Fever. What it is versus what it is purported as being by the authors. Roman Fever is the nickname