Roman Fever, By Edith Wharton

People constantly compare themselves to others or compare others to themselves. This is exactly what happens in, “Roman Fever”, by Edith Wharton. The short story starts with two young women and their mothers. The young women wonder off around Rome while the two mothers sit down and chat. One mom is Alida Slade and her daughter is Jenny, the other mom is Grace Ansley and her daughter is Barbara or ‘Babs”. Mrs.Slade is constantly comparing people, at first her daughter to Mrs. Ansley then herself to Mrs. Ansley. Throughout the story Mrs. Slade tries to get Mrs.Ansley to fess up a secret from their past. A secret about Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade's husband, Delphine. Mrs. Slade gets more than what she bargained for when she finds out that, Mrs. Ansley's’ daughter, Barbara, was the result of a one night rendezvous with Delphine. While this whole
Readers can infer that Barbara was a result of Mrs. Ansley and Delphine’s one night stand but readers never get to see Mrs. Slade's reaction to her statement. That is because it does not matter. Mrs. Ansley never finished her Knitting so no one will ever get to see what it was supposed to be, just like readers will never get to see Mrs. Slade's reaction. Mrs. Slade was shown as the knitting because Mrs. Ansley was somewhat driving Mrs. Slade. Mrs. Ansley was continually knitting and at some points would stop, at these points it was when she let Mrs. Slade in. As she was knitting she was angering Mrs.Slade driving Mrs. Slade to keep pushing at Mrs. Ansley, to get Mrs. Ansley's attention. Never did Mrs. Slade leave a hole in Mrs. Ansley, she never really took anything from Mrs. Ansley which was her goal. Her goal was to leave Mrs. Ansley with nothing but feeling stupid for loving someone who never even loved her. This did not work in Mrs Slade's favor and instead she was left with the unfinished knitting, “panic stricken”, and