Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"
    A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"
    A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"
    Ebook33 pages23 minutes

    A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 6, 2016
    ISBN9781535832304
    A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      “They Decided That God Must Be Leading Them To North America”

      Dec 27, 2019

      Launched in 1620, the Mayflower voyage – which carried the first English Puritans to North America – had a long gestation period in England. Stephen Tomkins’ new book explores the Protestant separatist movement that eventually culminated in the journ

      7 min read

    • Article

      Read a (Love) Letter From Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne

      Mar 16, 2017

      167 years ago today, Ticknor, Reed & Fields published The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel of repentance and slut-shaming. But actually, this isn’t about The Scarlet Letter—it’s about one of the most fascinating friendships in lite

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Kevin Barry

      Dec 21, 2017

      The book I’ve read the most this year is Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño. I read a few pages from it every morning before I crawl across the floor to my desk. It’s Bolaño distilled. It’s a crime story, a death story, a sex story, a love story, but always i

      2 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Feb 20, 2020

      Maggie O'Farrell is the author of eight novels and a memoir. Her 2016 novel This Must Be The Place was shortlisted for a Costa Book Award and two of her previous novels have won this prize. Hamnet is her first novel set pre-20th century. What inspir

      2 min read

    • Article

      Visible Man

      Dec 2, 2019

      Visible Man
      4 min read

    • Article

      Looking Backward From the future

      Jun 30, 2020

      Looking Backward From the future
      14 min read

    • Article

      Belfast’s Best-kept Secret

      Aug 26, 2021

      Belfast’s Best-kept Secret
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘The Nickel Boys’ Reckons With A Legacy Of Racism And Abuse

      Jul 16, 2019

      Colson Whitehead's novel tells a story of two black teenagers in a corrupt reform school and the resilience they mustered in the face of hate.

      3 min read

    • Article

      De La Mare Revisited PAUL DEAN Reading Walter De La Mare

      Jun 30, 2021

      Faber £14.99 At one time, lots of children were made to read Walter de la Mare’s poem The Listeners at school. Nowadays, even if the Traveller broke the door down, he might find there was nobody there. De la Mare, once a literary lion, centrepiece of

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Poetry No. 104

      Mar 15, 2019

      The Art of Poetry No. 104
      23 min read

    • Article

      Conferences & Residencies

      Dec 14, 2022

      The 2023 General Artist Residency Program offers residencies of two weeks or one month during July, September, October, and November to poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators at Tower View, a 350-acre historic estate in

      19 min read

    • Article

      Story Of A New Zealand Saga

      Nov 8, 2020

      Story Of A New Zealand Saga
      7 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Sep 8, 2021

      Great Read
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Secret History of Creative Nonfiction

      Oct 15, 2021

      A common misconception about literary history is that women weren’t writing professionally or significantly before Jane Austen. To talk about women’s historical oppression, Virginia Woolf famously conjured up an imaginary sister for William Shakespea

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever" - Gale

      1

      Roman Fever

      Edith Wharton

      1936

      Introduction

      Roman Fever is among Edith Wharton’s last writings and caps off her noteworthy career. Roman Fever was first published in Liberty magazine in 1934, and it was included in Wharton’s final collection of short stories, The World Over, in 1936. Several reviewers of this final collection from newspapers and magazines throughout the nation called special attention to Roman Fever. Since then, however, the story has received little critical attention. The few critics who have written about the story describe it as artistic, complex, and reflective of Wharton’s moral landscape.

      Roman Fever, however, is frequently included in anthologies, both of Wharton’s work and of American literature, and this may be a better indicator of its value as worthwhile literature than its critical history is. The story, at first, seems to be little more than a tale about the nostalgic remembrances of two middle-aged women revisiting Rome. Yet the tone of both the outer and inner dialogue shows a deep-felt animosity between the two women. The more outgoing Mrs. Slade is envious of Mrs. Ansley’s vivacious daughter and jealous of her past love for Mrs. Slade’s husband. The final sentence of the story reveals that Mrs. Slade has a valid reason for her feelings of competition with Mrs. Ansley though she only learns of it after years of ill-feeling. Some readers may find this final sentence to be a trick ending, on par with those of Saki or O. Henry. But a close reading of Roman Fever shows that Wharton carefully crafted her story to lead up to that exact moment of truth. Wharton’s fine construction indeed makes Roman Fever one of her greater works of short

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1