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Essay / Literary Realism: “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton
In the short story “Roman Fever,” Edith Wharton depicts an everyday life situation between two wealthy middle-aged women chatting in Rome. The morals and struggle of upper class women to succeed and stand out during this era are revealed in the story. This story fits into the literary movement of realism because of the realistic depiction of the common daily life of women in society. It demonstrates hypocritical friendship, rivalry between high-class women, betrayal between "friends" and superficial ideas of middle-aged women. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay The main concern of realism is to defend the “small” lives of unexceptional human beings and to represent the need for reforms socio-economics outside the text in the “real” world (Hirsch 676). "Roman Fever", an example of realism, reflects the real lives of high society women in the 1800s. It begins with two American women who have known each other for a very long time, sitting at a restaurant table. Grace Ansley and Alida Slade were both widows. They married Horace Ansley and Delphin Slade respectively. From the beginning of the story, we see that their friendship is not very sincere. Mrs. Slade thought Mrs. Ansley was old-fashioned (Wharton 874). Mrs. Ansley, on the other hand, thought that Mrs. Slade had an overall sad life. She considered him to be full of failures and many mistakes to the point that she pitied her (Wharton 875). For most of her life, Mrs. Slade had envied Mrs. Ansley for her gentleness. She really hated her and their friendship was just a mask. They both fell in love with the same man. Delphin Slade was an example of a successful man in society. He was a famous collaborating lawyer and probably desired by many women at the time so it is very likely that these two friends would fall in love with him. This was not morally correct but it can happen in a real situation. People can pretend to be friends with each other and be complete opposites as much as they could like the same person. Human error is natural. Another thing that's remarkable about "Roman Fever" is how these two women clashed like most humans do. They each wanted the perfect man, the perfect children, and the perfect life. They judged their success based on who they married and what children they had. Ever since Mrs. Slade had married Delphin, she had considered herself the winner of the competition. She was proud of the fake letter she sent to Mrs. Ansley to get her out of the way. However, she was disappointed that her daughter was not as bright as Barbara. She described her daughter as an angel, but Barbara was an angel with rainbow wings (Wharton 877). Mrs. Slade's sense of triumph had finally collapsed when she discovered that her future husband had not only met Mrs. Ansley that evening, but had also borne Mrs. Ansley a child (Wharton 881). Despite these terrible revelations, none of them really won. There is no happy ending, which is a more realistic view. Life is full of surprises, and not all of them are good. Betrayal, for example, is a terrible thing to experience, but can happen to anyone at any time if they are not careful who they trust. Mrs. Slade was betrayed by two people in the story. She was betrayed by Delphin and Grace. Ideally, it would have been better for Mrs. Slade to leave Delphin and find a man who truly loves and respects her. In reality, the divorce was not good..