First of all, this story gave me such a shock! Edith Wharton was actually able to make a conversation between two (seemingly) boring middle-aged women exciting. And, aside from being engaged by the plot twists at the end of the story, I also found myself ensnared in Roman Fever due to Wharton's use of the theme of mutual recognition throughout the story.
The two main characters in Roman Fever, Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade, have huge issues with mutual recognition. A big part of the story hinges on the fact that neither of these women view each other as much of anything aside from a stereotype. The both recognize this on page 44, when the narrator of the story says "for a few moments, the two ladies, who had been intimate since childhood, reflected how little they knew each other". The two women don't know each other past the surface of their personalities, and therefore neither of the two fully recognizes the other as an intelligent, thoughtful human being (although Mrs. Slade is much more guilty of failure to mutually recognize than Mrs. Ansley). Mrs. Slade's lack of mutual recognition for Mrs. Ansely is demonstrated when Mrs. Ansley reveals that she wrote a letter back to Mrs. Slade's fiancé. Mrs. Slade was shocked, because she never thought that Mrs. Ansley would reply to her fake letter. This shows that Mrs. Slade never really thought of Mrs. Ansley as an equal, because she was completely caught off guard when Mrs. Ansely did something many other people would do in that situation. Mrs. Ansley also fails to completely mutually recognize Mrs. Slade. Mrs. Ansley always thought of Mrs. Slade's life as sad, and felt sorry for her because she had many failures and mistakes in her life. Mrs. Ansley views Mrs. Slade through a narrow window, and doesn't give her life any credit; Mrs. Slade had plenty of joy in her life, and viewing her life as a failure is very shallow of Mrs. Ansley.
I found the lack of mutual recognition in this story to be very realistic and engrossing. Roman Fever made me realize that even people who have been friends for years might not actually be true friends; it is very easy to be friends with someone and not truly recognize them as an individual. Just something to think about.
I completely agree Aidan. For the first couple of the pages of the story I had no idea what this story was going to be about other than two older women that seemed to like to reflect on their childhood. Little did I know that these women could have something so captivating deep down inside them. And such little respect for each other even after being friends for such a great deal of time. They each attempt to see themselves as superior, and this comes at the cost of their friendship. Their friendship is just really a fabrication and has no substance beyond the surface.
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