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Roman Fever |
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written
by ninamil7 / 10.24.2005 |
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Assignment |
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What was once the center of the great Roman Empire stands bare and exposed to contemporary onlookers. The glory and grandeur of the Roman Forum has been stripped away to a site of stark columns and crumbling temples. In a similar fashion, in Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” the glossy veneer of socially successful people is stripped to objectively expose them in their true light. “Roman Fever” craftily analyzes the relationship between two long time friends who admit that they don’t really know a lot about each other.
The animosity between Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade is subtly present from the outset of the narrative, and then becomes strikingly clear at the climactic revelation of their secret past. Social class plays an important role in understanding the interactions between the two women. Undoubtedly they would like to inflict bodily harm on one another, but their class status forbids such action. Instead they are forced to bury their feelings and express them only in subtle movements and impulsive remarks throughout their meeting. When Mrs. Slade inquires to Mrs. Ansley about a memory of the view they are sitting before at that moment, Wharton notes the “undefinable stress” present in Mrs. Ansley’s tone of voice.
With the still backdrop of the Roman Forum, the action between Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade is all the more pronounced. While varying times of the day may shed different tones of light over the forum, ultimately, everything remains unchanged. The same cannot be said for the women’s relationship. There is an active role played to inflict pain onto one another. The static animosity between the two comes forcefully alive as the two women reveal their secret past. Mrs. Slade confesses to having purposely tried to crush Mrs. Ansley’s heart when they were last in Rome, but Mrs. Ansley gets the last word when she announces that her daughter is actually the daughter of Mr. Slade. At this point in Wharton’s story, we not only see a long time relationship between the two women crumble, but also the romantic illusion of the upper class become completely undermined as the two women reveal their secret past. The Roman Forum serves as an appropriate backdrop to such a story as it too has been stripped of its once majestic semblance to reveal a much less impressive field of ruins.
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