Similarities Between Roman Fever And The Muse's Tragedy

During the 19th century female authors were commonly degraded especially when books had a sexual nature. A now notable biography from this period is Charlotte Brontё’s “Jane Eyre”, a detailed account of the life of a young girl that blossoms into adulthood having to face the challenges and social norms of the time. In many works of literature a character intentionally deceives others to either hurt or offer protection. In “Jane Eyre” a character intentionally deceives a loved one with the intention to protect everyone including himself. This particular deception plays a large role in developing the characters of the narrative and the plot development, contributing to the work as a whole.

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.

During the late 19th century, strict and confining gender roles existed for women throughout the United States. Expectations regarding these gender roles varied based upon the social class in which a woman was born. Edith Wharton in The House of Mirth, explores the lives of women who aspired to be part of New York City’s highest social class. Specifically, the author follows the life of Lily Bart and her quest for acceptance and financial security in high society. Lily Bart intrigues me as I cannot decide if I am more repelled by her, or more sympathetic to her. I expect that Edith Wharton has made Lily not wholly unlikeable on purpose. In doing so, Lily becomes a character whose struggles we care about, during an era which gave women such

Born in 1862, Edith Wharton Newbold Jones was brought up within the graceful, wealthy yet conservative, confining circle of New York society, which fostered sexual repression and prided itself on the innocence of its young girls. Edith Wharton herself was discouraged from expressing her emotions or developing her intellect which was supposed to be very unbecoming traits in a woman. This is the reason why she stressed in her fiction the need of growth, and has shown how painful and frustrating this process can be for a woman. This process of growth and development is revealed in her major works, Ethan Frome (1911), and Summer (1917) (Balakrishnan 1).

The novel in which Jane Eyre stars in can be seen criticizing many aspects of those times such as the role and nature of women, child negligence and social hardships for those in a lesser class. Jane Eyre’s alienation from society allows for a greater reveal of the story’s culture, values, and assumptions. It’s presented through the use of gender, class and character conflicts throughout the story. On multiple occasions, Jane is judged for the presented factors reflecting the type of society Jane lives in and what the times were like at that time.

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.

Edith Wharton had a different view on women’s role in society, and was shockingly to blunt for some. Wharton’s views were coming of the time, “She saw women's position within culture as suffocatingly fixed, and her narratives, as a rule, end with the bleak message that there is no escaping male dominance.” (New York Times) She felt women should be treated equal but was a realist and had little hope they could ever overcome male dominance.

In Henry James’s “Daisy Miller” and Edith Wharton’s “The Other Two,” the narrators each disclose the complications of their party’s social formalities during circumstances within their own society. In both short stories, Winterbourne and Waythorn try to figure out their adored ones character and motives but for different reasons. In “Daisy Miller,” it’s noticeable that Mr. Winterbourne ends up longing for Daisy Miller as he tries to fully categorize the character she’s carelessly ruining. While in “The Other Two,” the narrator examines a society of how a married couple, Waythorn and Alice, adjust to an awkward

Wharton portrays Grace and Alida having certain peculiar comparisons. Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade appear to reach the realization after remaining friends for several years now, they scarcely

Deceit runs rampant in the lives of these two women leaving behind a path of destruction, just as Roman fever did though Rome. Frightened she was going to lose her fiancé, Mrs. Slade took vengeance on Mrs. Ansley constructing a plan that would expose Mrs. Ansley to night of cold that sickens her, therefore, separating her from Delphin. In this plan, Mrs. Slade writes a letter to entice Mrs. Ansley to go to the Colosseum to meet Delphin thinking he would not know of the letter and never show up. Even after constructing this deceitful arrangement and causing Mrs. Ansley to get sick, Mrs. Slade still pretended to be her friend for the next twenty-five years. In the end, after all her plotting and deceit it appeared her happiness with Delphin only came from her social status due to his Fame, not from love. Consequently, Mrs. Slade became irrationally jealous as she allowed the hurt to simmer for decades causing her to envy the lifestyle of Mrs. Ansley. Mrs. Slade even devolves deep feelings of resent towards Mrs. Ansley’s daughter, Barbara, because she

“Jane Eyre” is a book centred around female duality. In a time when females were still expected to fulfill their “womanly duties,” Charlotte Bronte wrote a novel dealing with a woman’s view on morality & sexuality, passion & sensibility, and conformity & insanity, among other themes. This motif of duality plays a strong part in the dynamism that makes up the book, and is not limited to the themes, but is also used to relate many of the characters to the titular Jane. In “The Mystery at Thornfield,” Valerie Beattie makes claims that the character Bertha Mason’s insanity is a representation of rebellion toward the limitations of Victorian women. Not only is

“Roman Fever” is a short story written by Edith Wharton in 1934. The story is about two old friends Alina Slade and Grace Ansley reconnecting. Alina and Grace run into each other while on a trip to Rome with their daughters. The two women grew up in Manhattan and were childhood friends. A romantic rivalry led Alina to get feelings of jealousy and hatred against Grace. In the first part of the story, the two women talk about their daughters and each other's lives. Eventually, Alina reveals a secret about a letter written to Grace on a visit to Rome long ago. The letter was addressed from Alina’s fiancé, Delphin, inviting Grace to meet at the Colosseum. Alina had written the letter, to get Grace out of the way of the engagement by disappointing her when Delphin didn’t show up. Grace is upset at this revelation, but reveals that she was not left alone at the Colosseum. She had responded to the letter, and Delphin went to meet her. Alina eventually states that Grace shouldn’t pity her because she won by marring Delphin while Grace had nothing but a letter Delphin didn't even write. Then, Grace reveals that she had Barbara, Grace’s daughter, with Delphin. “Roman Fever” uses a lot of dramatic irony and has many events that contribute to thematic conflict. Wharton uses the letter Alina writes to Grace to trigger all the deception between them, which shows readers that when people are being deceitful with one another nobody wins. Alina sends the letter to Grace to get her out of the picture, but it gives Grace the chance at Delphin that she wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, and Grace takes advantage by writing back to Delphin without Alina’s knowledge. Both characters are keeping secrets about their relationships with Delphin and they both think that they won when neither of them did.

The setting of the story was in a Roman restaurant, where down you can see the “glories of the Palatine and the Forum” (Wharton 1). Wharton’s placement of the setting enhances the readers understanding that in the short story the two women are living in a “patriarchal civilization” where women are being forced to compete for their social statuses (Rankine 1). The two protagonists envy and jealousy begin over one man. Mrs. Slade feared that Mrs. Ansley would steal Delphin from her because “I was afraid; afraid of you, of your quiet ways, your sweetness…your…well, I wanted you out of the way” (Wharton 9). She then developed an idea to eliminate the competition, which shows how jealous of Mrs. Ansley she was. Mrs. Slade uses a similar method that Mrs. Ansley’s great aunt, Harriet, used on her sister to get her out of the way, because “they were in love with the same man---“. Harriet confessed before she

Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte explore social class in a number of different ways throughout their novels Pride and the Prejudice and Jane Eyre. They do this through the use of stylistic devices which in turn appeals to their different audiences. Both Jane and Charlotte are notable writers for their remarkable texts. Jane Austen is known for playing a revolutionary role in the generation of English female literature, which was counteracted by this piece- and Charlotte Bronte also developed her feminist thoughts, which have been displayed throughout her novels. By analysing social class in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre this essay will compare these two women writers’ texts and display how social class is presented

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.