In this essay, Wharton’s fiction is considered as metaphors for the gender conflicts of Wharton’s own history.
Edith Wharton’s works, The Age of Innocence and Roman Fever each exemplify contradictions that control women’s lives, and Wharton’s stories raise these struggles to character studies of women. This paper concludes that Wharton’s women often personify the effects of social oppression in their relations with each other.