Girlhood is about making friends and having them through thick and thin, but sometimes life doesn’t allow for such moments. The very fragile foundation of girlhood can be turned on its head. Edith Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” look at these moments from slightly different lenses. “Roman Fever” offers a fascinating tale about two women reminiscing about their lives that have been lived together but not in tangent. “The Yellow Wallpaper” follows one woman who has been labeled as slightly depressed, or in modern times known as post-partum depression, but Gilman shows that she is a little more unstable than just depressed. Together, these stories show differing girlhoods that life could throw at friends or lovers. Friendship and loneliness are the two themes that run through both of these stories.
In Wharton’s “Roman Fever,” the girlhood that is shown goes along with the phrase “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” The story follows two women who are on two separate vacations, and they have run into each other in some kind of crazy coincidence. “Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley had lived opposite each other– actually as well as figuratively– for years, (Wharton 513)” this line shows the invisible tension that is between the two women, but they do not want to bring it to the surface. They are shown to be some sort of friends even if it is just through their husbands. Husbands also play a big part in them not being friends for one of their husbands is the reason why one hates the other. Mrs. Slade is seen to be this out-going loudmouth, who is seen as very beautiful, while Mrs Ansley is like a quiet little mouse. Mrs Slade hates Mrs Ansley because Mrs. Ansley was in love with Mrs Slade’s husband before they got married, although they were already engaged. The two ladies never saw each other for who they truely were because they were always doubting the others intention, “so these two ladies visualized each other, each thought the wrong end of her little telescope. (514)” Mrs. Slade thought that she had the upperhand with the trickery, but Wharton has Mrs. Ansley do something very “ladie-like” for the time, which is to write back to Mr. Slade. Writing letters was one of the ways that women would pass the time during this era. This whole accident ended with Mrs. Ansley being “sick,” and when she was well enough, her mother made her get married right away. Girlhood can be a complicated thing, and as Mrs. Slade said to Mrs. Ansely “Girls have such silly reasons for doing the most serious things. And your marrying so soon convinced me that you’d never really cared. (519)”
Showing two ladies who have secrets from the other, but they are actually the same story, and they have been driving the other mad of years. Mrs. Slade even said that she wasn’t sure why she had done it, but Wharton gives us a little tidbit about if Mrs. Slade hadn’t done it. Mrs. Ansley had been keeping an even bigger secret from everybody, and it came out in the end when she heard what Mrs. Slade had done, “Mrs Ansley was again silent. At length she turned toward the door of the terrace. She took a step, and turned back, facing her companion. ‘I had Barabara,’ she said, and began to move ahead of Mrs Slade toward the stairway. (520)” This ending had been building the entire time that Mrs. Slade was explaining her little secret. Wharton uses little body movements from Mrs. Ansley to show her anxiety with the news, “her bag, her knitting and gloves, slid in a panic-stricken heap to the ground. She looked as Mrs. Slade as though she were looking at a ghost. (517)” Even Mrs. Slade saw the stress, “One might almost have imagined (if one had known her less well, Mrs. Slade reflected) that, for her also, too many memories rose from the lengthening shadows of those august ruins… What was there for her to worry about? (515)” Girlhood can be a complicated thing when two friends don’t tell each other the truth, and it can slowly eat them from the inside out. Or it could make one think the worst of the other. Mrs. Slade thinks that she is the one to be blamed for the whole mess, and she is, but she decides to instead put the blame onto Mrs. Ansley for loving her husband. “Wasn’t it she who was the monster? (518)” which is a strong claim to make about a woman just because they loved her fiance. Girlhood although doesn’t just center around friendships as it can show how loneliness in a marriage can be just as tough. At least Wharton had the mind to give them both children and loving husbands who did care about the women. Gilman gives us a different view point on marriage, and she shows the relationship between the narrator and her husband John as perhaps a loving one, but most definitely a controlling one.
Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” tells the story of a married woman thought depressed by everyone close to her. Her husband has locked her away with the threat of sending her off to a mental instuion if she doesn’t start listening to him. She has sparks of rebellion that help her from going a little more insane as she writes when she is not supposed to. Gilman makes the assumption that men shouldn’t insiste on women staying put during their depressing time, “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus– but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. (Gilman 481)” The husband is trying to help her the best that he can, but she is getting upset so much more now than ever,“I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. (481)” The yellow wallpaper comes into play when the husband doesn’t fix it when his wife wants because, he thinks that his wife shouldn’t get everything that she wants just because she is sick, “at first he meant to repaper the room, but afterward he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies. (483)” The relationship between the narrator and her husband shows a strong one, but her husband thinks that he knows best, and that only he can help her get better. This story shows girlhood through the act of of the wife going slowly more insane and lonely as she is feeling farther and farther from her husband because he has insisted that she stays in a horrid room with heinous yellow wallpaper. Married life doesn’t show the full picture of how girlhodd is shown through this story as Gilman shows that the narrator had a friend in her sister-in-law.
This friendship can be drawn back to the one in “Roman Fever” as both of these friendships don’t have the truest of bonds. They were both formed through others, and in both stories its the husbands that are the connecting point. Wharton’s two ladies had known each other in childhood, but Mrs. Slade “reflected how little they knew each other. (Wharton 512)” If they had only started getting close when they both were on the marriage mark, it shows an interesting dynamic of the two ladies. Wharton could be saying though that Mrs. Ansley only stayed so close to the Slades because she had Mr. Slade’s child in her care. One would assume that Mr. Slade knew that he had this child with her, but Mrs. Ansley could’ve kept it a secret from him. This would base the ladies entire friendship on deceit and second-motives. Gilman shows a friendship, but its a little bit better than the one in “Roman Fever,” but not by much. Jane, who is the sister of the husband, has been following in his steps by not letting her do anything that would “tire” the narrator. Gilman tells that the narrator is a lot storger than they give her credit for, and she has found ways to be sneaky behind her husband and sister-in-law’s backs. The way to see that this friendship is also based on ulterior motives is because Jane is spying on the narrator to her husband, and true friends don’t rat their friends out to anyone. The narrator does know though that Jane is spying, “And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions about me. She had a very good report to give. (Gilman 490)” These stories tell girlhood in similar ways, but they still give two very different accounts to learn from. Friendship can be toxic, and one should always look for friends that won’t back-stab them.
Together, these stories offer nuanced insights into the different experiences of girlhood, from the bonds of friendship to the isolating effects of societal expectations. Gilman brings the idea of girlhood being lonely and untrusting, while Wharton shows girlhood as manipulative and fake. They serve as reminders of the complexities found in female relationships and the importance of authenticity and empathy in fostering genuine connections. Ultimately, both narratives develop the resilience of the female spirit in the face of adversity, challenging conventional notions of girlhood and illuminating the enduring power of solidarity and self-discovery.
Works cited:
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2021, 480-492
Wharton, Edith. “Roman Fever.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, edited by Robert S. Levine, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2021, 511-520
