Roman Fever Themes

Though Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley are lifelong friends, their relationship is constrained by mutual feelings of intense jealousy. They see one another as opponents, competing for power and stature—both within their friendship and in society more broadly. Mrs. Slade wishes her daughter, Jenny, were as vivacious as Mrs. Ansley’s daughter, Barbara, and she reveals her insecurity through snide comments that disparage both Barbara and her parents. Reflecting on her past, she remembers…

On the surface, it seems as though Mrs. Ansley’s revelation at the end of the afternoon—that she had an affair with Delphin and became pregnant with Barbara as a result—upends everything Mrs. Slade believes about her marriage, her friendship with Mrs. Ansley, and herself. However, closer investigation suggests that hearing Mrs. Ansley’s version of events does not change Mrs. Slade’s fundamental understanding of her friend as a threat; rather, it strips away a fiction…

Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade belong to the upper echelons of society. Both women are beneficiaries of exceptional wealth and privilege, with Mrs. Slade even describing her husband as a “celebrity.” Although jealousy and betrayal are hardly exclusive to the upper class, the petty and indirect ways in which the two women manifest their barely-repressed resentment of one another reveal a culture that not only permits but encourages artificiality and duplicity. Mrs. Slade, for instance…