Edith Wharton's Roman Fever

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Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever” by: Cassandra Bush “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton is a story about two wealthy American widows who have been friends for almost a lifetime, but have a secret they have kept bottled up for a very long time. Alida Slade and Grace Ansley are the main characters in this compelling story that incorporates love, mother/daughter relationships and revenge. The story's beginning finds the older women having lunch overlooking a beautiful view of the Forum. Their daughters, on the other hand, partake on an adventure with two Italian men alone. Utilizing their time alone, the mothers compared their own adventures in Rome when they were their daughter’s age. They point out that their own mothers were very overprotective of them and this behavior comes from a long line of family mothers who were just as protective over their daughters. Roman fever was used as a way to prevent people from venturing out at night. The setting of Wharton's Roman Fever is very important to the story's blatant theme about love, considering the fact that Rome is one of the most romantic spots on earth. Not only does it play an important role in respect to the mother/daughter relationship, but also regarding illness. The cold Grace gets has some hidden implications that hints to the reader that the cold itself is not the primary focus. It can be argued that Roman fever was just a cover for malaria and cholera, which the author cleverly masks with a metaphor. Roman fever is defined as a disease that refers to a particularly deadly strain of malaria that affected Rome, Italy, throughout various spans of time in history; an epidemic of Roman fever during the fifth century AD may have contributed to the fall of the Roman empire. It was thought that Roman fever was contracted at night which made it dangerous to venture out. “The most deadly diseases to which Rome’s
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