Throughout
the short story “Roman Fever,” two women with a past are introduced sitting on
a Roman restaurant terrace. Alida Slade and Grace Ansley are two women who are
widowed and each have a daughter. Edith Wharton develops a plot in which the
conflict between the women and the insecurity and jealousy of many years leaves
each of the women in shock.
Alida Slade
is the wife of Delphin Slade who has always been envious of Grace. Alida always
felt that Grace was better than her or had something that she did not have. She
refers to Grace and her husband, Horace, as “good-looking, irreproachable,
exemplary” (page 205). Alida thought, “the idea of Grace being raided was so
amusing,” which further explained her jealousy of Grace (page 205).
Furthermore, the conflict between Alida and Grace in their childhood was
extremely evident through the letter that Alida wrote to Grace, but was signed
from Delphin. Alida states in her conversation with Grace that she knew, “what
was in the letter because [she] wrote it!” (page 210). This took Grace by
surprise and revealed Alida’s insecurity in their childhood years.
Alida is
also jealous of Grace in regards to their daughters. Barbara, Grace’s daughter,
is very confident and positive when it comes to the topic of men. She seems to
know what she wants and knows how to get it. Alida’s daughter, Jenny, was “an
extremely pretty girl who somehow made youth and prettiness seem as safe as
their absence” (page 206). Alida, however, wishes that her daughter would fall
in love, even if it were with the wrong man. Alida’s inability to be satisfied
with her own daughter further shows her jealousy of Grace.
Grace, on
the other hand, did not seem jealous or envious of Alida in their childhood. She
describes Alida as, “awfully brilliant, but not as brilliant as she thinks”
(page 206). She believes that Alida’s life was “full of failures and mistakes”
and even feels sorry for her (page 206). We later learn that Grace felt sorry
for Alida because of Delphin.
Alida tells
Grace that she wrote the letter signed by Delphin in hopes of making Grace
jealous of her for once. This is obvious when Alida thinks to herself, “Would
[Alida] never cure herself of envying [Grace]?” (page 208). Alida breaks the
news to Grace, but rather than upsetting Grace, she ends up upsetting herself
when she is informed that Grace “answered the letter. I told him I’d be there.
So he came” (page 211). Alida is now extremely jealousy and angry. Yet, she
continues to try to be better than Grace for once and tells her that in the end
she had Delphin for twenty-five years and all Alida has was the memory of the
letter that Delphin did not write. Here we see a switch in who is more
dominant. Grace replies to Alida saying, “I had Barbara” (page 212). This is a
surprising way to end the story because it leaves the reader with questions
regarding what Alida’s statement meant. The obvious interpretation is that
Barbara is the daughter of Grace and Delphin further implying the tension
between the two women.
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