Review Sheet
Characters
Mrs.
Delphin Slade, Alida Slade
Mrs.
Horace Ansley, Grace Ansley
Setting
Plot
Discussion
Study Guide for Wharton's "Roman Fever"
Other topics that you can think about:
- Great-Aunt Harriet's story
- beauty
- happiness
- innocence
- views, lens, perception
- character portrayal
- matrilineage, generations of women, grandmothers, mothers, daughters
- Barbara
- Jenny
- time: time of day, season, meal; how does the light (quality, intensity of
light) reflect the plot of the story?
- relationship between men and women (you can compare to George and Evie's
relationship in "The Colonel's Lady")
- fear, being afraid
- Roman fever: as an excuse, as cover or protection, as a weapon, as an illness/disease, as a myth,
as a threat, as punishment, as a person (cf. "When Roman fever stalked the streets"
30),
as illicit desire
- monster v. prude
- history
Memory and Mortality
youth
- a girlish voice (1)
- a voice as fresh laughed back (1-5)
- "Kids have such silly reasons for doing the most serious things."
(100)
- "Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially."
(105)
remembering, forgetting, collective v. individual memory
- We must remember that. (5)
- "After all, it's still the most beautiful view in the world."
(5-10)
- "It always will be, to me" (10)
- "...When we first met here we were younger than our girls are
now. You remember?" "Oh, yes, I remember" (10)
- A full-moon night, they would remember...(10-15)
- Mrs. Slade drew her lids together in retrospect (15)
- so full of old memories (25-30)
- "...it all brings back the past a little too acutely." (40)
- for her also, too many memories rose from the lengthening shadows of those
august ruins. (40)
- "I remember that story about a great-aunt of yours, wasn't she?"
(50)
- "I--I dare say. I don't remember." (60)
- "You don't remember? You don't remember going to visit some ruins or other one evening, just after dark, and catching a bad chill!..."
(60)
- "...but perhaps you've forgotten what the letter said?" (70-75)
- "No; I know it by heart too." (75)
- "...But I was the girl he was engaged to. Did you happen to remember that?"
(85)
- "I'm not trying to excuse myself... I remembered... " (85)
- "I cared for that memory," said Mrs. Ansley. (95)
- It all happened so long ago, as you say; and you must do me the justice to remember that I had no reason to think you'd ever taken it seriously.
(95-100)
- "And I remember laughing to myself all that evening at the idea that you were waiting around there in the dark, dodging out of sight, listening for every sound, trying to get in—of course I was upset when I heard you were so ill afterward."
(105)
Height, Vertical Relationship; the stairs mediating between high and
low?
- two American ladies of ripe but well-cared for middle age moved across the
lofty terrace of the Roman restaurant (1)
- looked first at each other, and then down on
the outspread glories of the Palatine and the Forum (1)
- As they leaned there a girlish voice echoed up
gaily from the stairs leading to the court below.
(1-5)
- the two ladies were alone on the air-washed height
(5-10)
- would like to spend the end of the afternoon looking down
on the view (10-15)
- It was a big drop from being the wife of
Delphin Slade to being his widow. (20)
- In living up to such a husband all her
faculties had been engaged; now she had only her daughter to live up
to (20)
- It seemed as though, to both, there was a relief in laying down
their somewhat futile activities in the presence of the vast Memento Mori
which faced them. (25)
- She looked straight out at the great accumulated wreckage of passion and splendor
at her feet. (35-40)
- Already its golden flank was drowned in purple shadow, and
above it the sky curved crystal clear, without light or color. It was the moment when afternoon and evening hang balanced in
midheaven. (45)
- "Oh, we're all right up here. Down
below, in the Forum, it does get deathly cold, all of a sudden...but not here."
(50)
- Aloud she said: "Whenever I look at the Forum from up
here, I remember that story about a great-aunt of yours, wasn't she? A dreadfully wicked great-aunt?"
(50)
- Mrs. Slade continued to look down on her. She seemed physically
reduced by the blow—as if, when she got up, the wind might scatter her like a puff of dust.
(95)
- The clear heaven overhead was emptied of all its gold.
(100)
- Here and there lights began to twinkle through the foliage at their
feet. (100)
Roman Sites and Landscape
- the outspread glories of the Palatine and the Forum (1)
- the stupendous scene at their feet (5)
- the presence of the vast Memento Mori which faced them (25)
- the golden slope of the Palace of the Caesars (25)
- her eyes ranging from the ruins which faced her to the long green hollow
of the Forum, the fading glow of the church fronts beyond it, and the
outlying immensity of the Colosseum. (35)
- Her gaze turned toward the Colosseum. (45)
- Dusk spread over it, abruptly darkening the Seven Hills. (100)
- Mrs. Ansley stood looking away from her toward the dusky mass of the
Colosseum. (115)
Critical Works on
Wharton and "Roman Fever"
Drabble, Margaret. "Wharton's
Sharp Eye." Atlantic Monthly Jul.-Aug. 2001: 166-67.
(reviews her Collected Stories; requires EBSCOhost subscription)
Petry, Alice Hall. "A
Twist of Crimson Silk: Edith Wharton's 'Roman Fever.'" Studies in Short
Fiction 24.2 (1987): 163-66. (pdf file of full text requires EBSCOhost
subscription; significance of knitting in the story, questions the ladies as
stereotypical matrons)
Selina, Jamil S. "Wharton's
'Roman Fever.'" Explicator 65.2 (2007): 99-101. (pdf file
of full text requires EBSCOhost subscription)
Key Terms to Date
character
foil
personality
direct presentation of character
indirect presentation of character
show v. tell
consistency in character behavior
motivation
plausibility of character: is the
character credible? convincing?
flat character
round character, multidimensional
character
static character
developing character
direct methods of revealing
character:
-
characterization through the use
of names
-
characterization through physical
appearance
-
characterization through
editorial comments by the author, interrupts narrative to provide
information
-
characterization through dialog:
what is said, who says it, under what circumstances, who is listening, how
the conversation flows, how the speaker speaks (ex. tone, stress, dialect,
diction/word choice)
-
characterization through action
plot
beginning, middle, end
scene
chance, coincidence
double plot
subplot, underplot
deus ex machina
disclosure, discovery
story
conflict, internal conflict, external
conflict, clash of actions, clash of ideas, clash of desires, clash of wills
-
man v. self
-
man v. man
-
man v. society
-
man v. nature
protagonist
antagonist
suspense
mystery
dilemma
surprise
ending
-
happy ending
-
unhappy ending
-
indeterminate ending
artistic unity
time sequence
exposition
complication
rising action, falling action
crisis
climax
conclusion
resolution
denouement
flashback, retrospect
foreshadowing
Reference
Barnet, Sylvan, Morton Berman, and
William Burto. A Dictionary of Literary, Dramatic, and Cinematic Terms.
2nd ed. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1971.
Pickering, James H. Fiction
50: An Introduction to the Short Story. New York: Macmillan,
1993. 1-26.
Links
Digital
Roman Forum (from UCLA's Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory)
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updated August 6, 2007