Deception within Friendship

When stepping back in ones everyday life to evaluate friendships throughout the course of lifetimes, one can’t help but notice how little is actually know about even the closest of friends. In Edith Wharton’s story "Roman Fever” written in 1934, one discovers how true this statement actually is. Throughout the course of this short story, the reader learns that no matter how long a friendship lasts, it is possible that ones true identity or deepest secrets are often kept hidden. In “Roman Fever”, Wharton effectively uses symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony to portray a lifetime of deception between two intimate friends.

This short story takes place in Rome, which symbolizes something different for each of the main characters: Grace Ansley and Alida Slade. In their younger years, they both spent time in the city of Rome. Both women grew up living across the street from one another, and continued to do so all through their youth, as well as through their married lives. Now later in life, they have met up again in Rome at a hotel while on trips with their daughters: Barbara Ansley and Jenny Slade. While their daughters are out on dates for the afternoon, the two mothers enjoy lunch at a restaurant that overlooks the Colosseum. Mrs. Slade explains to Mrs. Ansley over their lunch “What different things Rome stands for to each generation of travelers. To our grandmothers, Roman fever; to our mothers, sentimental dangers – how we used to be guarded! – to our daughters, no more danger than the middle of Main Street. They don’t know it – but how much they’re missing!” (123). For Mrs. Ansley, Rome represents something entirely different: a battlefield where the two women fought for the man they both loved, Delphin Slade. She dare not share ...

... middle of paper ...

... it to you, I suppose. At the end of all these years. After all, I had everything; I had him for twenty-five years. And you had nothing but that one letter that he didn't write" (128). Whorton ends this story on an even more ironic note when she has Grace proclaim in the last line “I had Barbara” (129).

Through the use of symbolism, foreshadowing, and irony Edith Wharton is able to showcase that sometimes it takes a lifetime of deception, to find out the truth of who your friends really are. That being said, it is not until the very last line of the story, that the reader discovers the one truth that will change Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley’s friendship forever: Barbara is in fact, Delphin’s love child.

Works Cited

Wharton, Edith. "Roman Fever” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Shorter 11th ed. ED. Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2013, pp.118-128. Print.