Ice Girls Finish First

Nice Girls Finish First

Gender roles are how society defines men and women. There are many different categories. Some women are “homemakers,” others are “rebels,” some are “bookworms,” and some are “brilliant.” In Edith Wharton’s short story, “Roman Fever,” the females begin as two different stereotypes and end as something unexpected. Even the title, “Roman Fever” has an unforeseen meaning, proving that things are not always what they seem. Even the most sheepish woman can be a Lioness, and the most confident woman can be completely insecure.

The story is set entirely on a patio in Rome. The main characters are described as, “…two American ladies of ripe but well-cared-for middle age… with the same expression of vague but benevolent approval (Wharton, “Roman Fever,” p377).” This description shows the reader that these women come from money, are not young, and their vague expressions imply that neither is easy to read at face value. The women are vacationing with their daughters staying at the hotel they visited in their youth. There is a sense of nostalgia here but the women understand that even though Rome may be thousands of years old there is always a different vibe in the air.

As the women relax on the patio their daughters cast them off to join young boys noting, “…let’s leave the young things to their knitting (Wharton, p377).” The seemingly more assertive of the two women, Mrs. Slade notes, “That’s what our daughters think of us (Wharton, p377)!” While the seemingly more sheepish woman, Mrs. Ansley replies, “Not of us individually. We must remember that. It’s just the collective modern idea of Mothers (Wharton, p377).” These lines recognize how gender roles were defined in the early 1930’s. It is also suggested here that the two women resorted to knitting because their daughters gave them nothing better to do. As if to say, the children are all grown-up, might as well knit. Wharton has introduced her reader to two women who may be more mysterious then expected, but also who do in fact knit.

Once the daughters are gone the scene is an outwardly tranquil one. Both women sit engaging in small-talk believing that they know their friend as well as she knows herself. Mrs. Slade sits thinking, “Grace Ansley was always old-fashioned (Wharton, p378).” While Mrs. Ansley finds herself describing her friend, “Alida Slade’s awfully brilliant; but not as brilliant as she thinks… (Wharton, p380).” These descriptions of one another seem definitive. These women seem confident that they know the other. However, the narrator notes, “So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope (Wharton, p381).” Here again is an example of the narrator’s use of foreshadowing. Wharton never allows the reader to get too comfortable with the surface versions of these women, and yet she seems to reinforce the stereotypes until the last lines where the whole house of cards comes crashing down. Just like in the opening lines where the women have “vague expressions,” here the narrator is out-right telling the reader that the impressions these women have of one another are wrong.

For Wharton to drive her point that people are not always who they seem home, she gives the two women a great deal in common. They lived by each other in New York, they married and widowed around the same time, and have daughters of relatively equal ages. With all this shared love and loss it would seem these two have been invaluable to one another, and therefore would know each other relatively well. This is clearly not the case as the reader has already been told. In fact, their friendship is not even what it seems. The narrator notes,

Like many intimate friends, the two ladies had never before had occasion to be silent together, and Mrs. Ansley was slightly embarrassed by what seemed, after so many years, a new stage in their intimacy, and one with which she did not know how to deal. (Wharton, p381)

Again, Wharton made the reader think the women were long-time best-friends who had been through