Grace Ansley And Alida Slade example essay topic

The role of a woman in the late 1800's and the early 1900's is simple, get married and be submissive, have children and be devoted, entertain company and be gracious, follow the guidelines of society and be selfless. Society fashioned a mold of the way women are expected to act in order to lead the most fulfilling life. The life that is so desirable on the surface neglects to consider the happiness of the women who are sacrificing themselves. Many of these women fool themselves into believing that they are happy and content. In the story "Roman Fever" by Edith Wharton, both women Alida and Grace are set into such roles and yet each one lives it very differently.

In addition, though both women have shown to be oppressed in the period they lived, they both showed that they can be deceitful in their own ways and most of this story is centered around the deception of their past, the lives they led and where their friendship lies now. "Roman Fever" is truly exceptional, a work that exposes the gender stereotypes of its day (1936) but that moves beyond details to uncover something of the continuous bitterness of human nature. From the story's first sentence, in the introduction of two women of "ripe but well-cared-for middle age", it becomes clear that stereotypes are an issue (The Heath Anthology of American Literature) Wharton page 1067. This minor portrayal suggests immediate images of reserved and supportive wives, their husbands' wards, yet well off in their lives and not struggling to survive. However, through the story we begin to see the struggle they do have as women in this era. They live in a society that demands for women to act as background figures, totally occupied with advancing their husbands' careers and the continuous struggle to remain attractive.

In fact, little else is desired or even tolerated and Grace Ansley and Alida Slade seem, at first glance, to measure up to this persona perfectly. Throughout history, a person's position in society has influenced their self-image. A rich man will usually believe he has certain rights and power. In this period, there were very strict gender roles and stereotypes that controlled women. Women needed to be modest, well mannered, and devoted to husband and home and show qualities of devoutness, purity, and submissiveness in order to be acceptable by society. These qualities caused women to begin to perceive themselves in terms of inner, rather than outer beauty.

Many women's status was defined by the status of her husband and his career. Women were reduced to nothing but ornaments that decorated the arms of their men. It was a cycle that was hard to break; women became weak and needy because their gender stereotype and society treated them that way. In this story, both women tell a brief description of the other, which mentions that her acquaintance was quite beautiful in her youth.

Which gives the reader the idea of how important it was to them, to be beautiful and what an advantage it was to be an attractive woman back then. As the workings of the characters' minds are exposed, the extent to which they have held on to these values becomes obvious. In this passage, it is obvious how important it was to be someone with money and what it meant to a woman who married a man that was well to do financially. (No doubt, Mrs. Slade reflected, she felt her unemployment more than poor Grace ever would. It was a big drop from being the wife of Delphin Slade to being his widow.

She had always regarded herself (with a certain conjugal pride) as his equal in social gifts, as contributing her full share to the making of the exceptional couple they were: but the difference after his death was irremediable. As the wife of the famous corporation lawyer, always with an international case or two on hand, every day brought its exciting and unexpected obligation: the impromptu entertaining of eminent colleagues from abroad, the hurried dashes on legal business to London, Paris or Rome, where the entertaining was so handsomely reciprocated; the amusement of hearing in her wakes: "What, that handsome woman with the good clothes and the eyes is Mrs. Slade-the Slade's wife! Really! Generally the wives of celebrities are such frumps". ) Her life revolved not around her child but mostly around her husband and the status it gave to her being his wife. It also states the importance she feels that comes from the other wives and not from the businessmen themselves and it is this is that I find to be a stereotypical.

While the men are out talking business and their status, the women care mostly about how high society sees them and care about who they have married, what they look like, and how their husbands achievements makes them look. It also shows how other women can be more envious of the woman who married someone even more important then they did. The difference of gender roles is more evident to those that read the story in this era. Humans naturally strive for acceptance from others. Most of us are taught from childhood to contain our emotions.

We act in a certain manner in order for people to perceive us in the way we want to be perceived. Usually this is only how we want to appear, and it is not how we really feel. I believe that Alida tries so very hard for the acceptance of her husbands peers and their wives. Wharton portrays Mrs. Slade in great detail to be such a woman. She explains Mrs. Slade's self- pity in the story with the loss of her husband and how she has a harder time dealing with grief than Mrs. Ansley, who has also recently lost her husband. Alida's world had revolved around her husband Delphin for many years.

It seems as though so much of her self-image was wrapped into her husband and his career that she has now lost some of this. If she didn't seem oppressed in her marriage, she can definitely feel it now in being an unemployed widow. Edith Wharton's portrayal of these two women is very important because it allows us to see the personalities of them and sets us up for the theme of deception. It is important to note that Mrs. Slade's personality is completely dependent on society to find enjoyment in life. Alone and in her middle age, she is constantly observing others to glean their view of her.

Despite her self-confident ways, she is trapped within the traditions of society and is thus the more conventional of the two. Mrs. Ansley is revealed as a character that has become self-dependent and able to overcome societal pressures. In the passage that Mrs. Slade begins to steer the conversation to a discussion of that fateful night when Mrs. Ansley went to the Coliseum, we can begin to see the theme of deception but don't realize until the end how deceitful it became. Wharton's treatment of this theme is fascinating and insightful. We find that Mrs. Slade, despite her dismissal of Mrs. Ansley as "tame and estimable", blames herself for the fact that she will "never cure herself of envying her" (Wharton, 1072). Mrs. Ansley, furthermore, regards Alida's life as "full of failures and mistakes" (1070).

Mrs. Slade has imagined for years that her letter-forging scheme successfully removed Mrs. Ansley from competition for Delphin, but we find that, in reality, in backfired upon her in the worst of all possible ways. Ultimately it is Grace Ansley, the more reserved of the two, who has the last word and who suffers the smallest defeat. This story is a complex story with many sides to look at it. I believe that much of what Wharton meant to prove by writing this story was how oppressed these women and all women of this time were. The stereotypes given to women in this period were unfair but put up with because many women believed it was what they were suppose to do. For Edith Wharton much of her life had revolved around this story, and she had the knowledge of the upper class because she was born into a wealthy and socially prominent family.

When she married with no great enthusiasm Edward Wharton, a Boston banker, who was twelve years, her senior, her role as a wife with social responsibilities and her writing ambitions resulted in nervous collapse. From this it is my belief that she couldn't understand how so many women could live this type of life. Even though Grace was much more, simple than Alida she was stronger independently. The deceit from both women made this story an exceptional read. Wharton's story is groundbreaking in its presentation of two female characters that are not defined, primarily, by their sex, but by their species. The fairy tale of calm and obedient women is exploded as one realizes they fully possess those traits previously held to be the exclusive property of men: cunning, ruthlessness, and deceit.

"Roman Fever" allows its women to be human, but, unfortunately, all too human.