Monday, October 7, 2013

When in Rome

            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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