Student: NguyỠn ThỠThanh Hằng
Student code: 0271119
Class: 02G
ROMAN FEVER
Edith Wharton
Do you think that Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley on Edith Wharton's 'Roman fever' are real close friends ?
Edith Wharton, whose many short stories have been judged among the best American stories of the twentieth century, achives great success in depicting the complicated affected relationships between women in her society, including the jealousy, rivalry, and hostility among them. Especially, in the work 'Roman fever' she builds two special main characters whose friendship gives the reader interesting discoveries.
At the first sight, the familiar relashionship between these two genteel middle-age ladies makes the readers easily think that they are true close friends. It's the fact that they have been 'intimate friends since childhood' with good relationship of the two families. They used to travel to Rome together at their young age. And now, when both are widows, they again share their innermost feelings together.
English: Page from the original manuscript of "The...
English: View of the gardens at Pavilion Colombe, ...
English: American novelist Edith Wharton (1862–1...In addition, their two beautiful young daughters also seem to be very intimate and agreeable to each other. With all of these details, it is apparently reasonable to conclude that they are close friends. But, in fact, is their close friendship a real close one? It is not until the last surprising sentence of the story that the readers surely affirm that they are not real close friends.
It was the fateful Roman night of both Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley twenty five years ago that revealed their true face, true nature as well as marked the collapse in the so-called 'close friendship' of these two main characters. As usual, when a triangle love interferes in the relationship between two best friends, they, if not voluntarily withdraw for their friend's happiness, compete in a fair honest way to get their...