In the story,” Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton, Mrs. Slade who is one of the main characters of this story sat down and started thinking about how past generations, present generations and future generations would characterize the city of Rome, Italy. She thought that her grandmother’s generation would characterize Rome as, “Rome Fever” while her daughter’s generations would characterize Rome as, no more dangers than the middle of Main Street.
First of all, Mrs. Slade says her grandmother’s generation would describe Rome as “Rome Fever”, which in my opinion means they had a love for the city. They loved the people, the atmosphere and the culture around them. They appreciated what the city had to offer them.
On the other hand, Mrs. Slade says her daughter’s generation would describe Rome as, “No more dangers than the middle of Main Street”. This in my opinion means there is no dangers around them expect for if anyone were to play in the middle of Main Street.
Finally I believe that while Mrs. Slade’s grandmothers generation didn’t seem to have to many worries in their life from the beginning. Her daughter’s generation seemed to have a few problems but, as long as they paid attention to what they were doing that generation to could lead a happy and healthy lifestyle as well. All and all I think even though both generations were characterized differently at the same time they are the same and could in the end be characterized the same way.
2 comments:
Lauren,
Good work! I think you have found a very interesting way of approaching this story: exploring how different characters (of different generations) might view the story's setting. Setting is a very important aspect to this story.
If you choose to revise this into a larger project, you could consider what role setting plays. What importance did Rome serve during the time in which the story was written? What type of people spent holidays there? Also, by using direct quotes from the story, you could give a more detailed account of how the different generations of characters viewed the city.
I think it is interesting to compare generations, especially since Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley's generation produced a baby between one woman and her childhood friends husband. During that time, a relationship like that would have been extremely frowned upon moreso than it is today, so the fact that she chose to keep Barbara is somewhat surprising. Throughout the story the women make many references to the past as opposed to the lives now which puts an emphasis on generation to generation.
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