|
|
 |
|
Roman Fever |
|
written
by joelnish / 09.05.2005 |
|
|
| |
Assignment |
| |
There are few places in the world as richly engrained with political intrigue as the Roman Forum. The Forum was the location of countless political maneuvers as subtle as they were decisive in an age where politics was a game of life and death. Yet this trickery and deception in the end did not produce a stronger Rome. Today many remember that the fall of Rome was very much due to self inflicted wounds rendered from years needless internal struggle and civil war. The Romans did manage to fool themselves though into a false sense of certainty as they continued to conduct daily business while the Goths besieged the city. In a very similar manner this pattern of deception found in the Roman Forum is also found in Edith Wharton's short story. The seeds of Mrs. Slade's jealousy are sewn be herself. A simple line of causality puts Mrs. Slade as the very cause for the betrayal of Mrs. Ansley. Yet while the Mrs. Ansley sleeps with Mrs. Slade's fiancé, Mrs. Slade not only is completely ignorant of the entire event but revealing in her victory over Mrs. Ansley.
The very first description of the main characters Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade is of "two American ladies of ripe but well-cared-for middle age". It is interesting the lust that the "well-cared-for" have for intrigue. Indeed as these ladies are busy fine-dining above the ruins of the roman forum it is hard not to imagine a couple of large Roman senators doing the same, involved in their own web of deceptions two millennium ago. Edith Wharton's consistent use of their proper surnames and the expensive hotel they dine in furthers the discontinuity between the actions that these ladies have undertaken and their supposed dignified social standing. Owning apartments in the ritziest parts of New York, continual globe trotting and generally freed from the regular burdens of survival why would they be so interested in creating internal strife? It is the recreation of the same paradox created by the roman forum. Having freed themselves from their agrarian past they devolved into a tendency to backstab and plot. The relationship between Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade is that of Senator Ansley with Senator Slade who think that through plots and manipulation they can do anything other than bring on their own downfall.
In her own defense Mrs. Slade claims that the reason she started the whole thing was "as a joke", that "girls are ferocious sometimes." Yet this essentially means that Mrs. Slade created the whole origin of intrigue out of own desire for nothing more than the shear pleasure of trickery. Ironically the jealousy that caused Mrs. Slade to send the letter to Mrs. Ansley ended up being the spawn of the jealousy that she later would feel over Mrs. Ansley's beautiful daughter. From an initial germ of jealousy and lies was created a vast web that clouded both ladies lives. Indeed, once started intrigue feeds itself.
Bring back Forum......
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
