The Relevance of Edith Wharton’s Roman Fever to the Modern World Essay

The relevancy of Edith Whartons roman type Fever to the Modern knowledge domainAccording to the World wellness Organization, of the 75 million children under five in Africa a million and a half die each year of pneumonia. As distressing and sad as this statistic is, it points out the great danger pneumococcus still is to young people in the developing world. Its in the developed world, but at a time before antibiotics, at a time when acute respiratory ailments posed an even greater but still preventable threat to the younger set that concerns us here and that inspires a deeper look at the full implications of respiratory disease. The WHO goes on to say that acute respiratory infection (ARI) is one of five conditions which government none for more than 70% of child mortality in Africa. So not only is pneumonia prevalent, it is still deadly. The danger it poses to young people has life-influencing ramifications, ones with an incredible frantic content. Though more treatable now, as well see later, the persistence of pneumonia fits in with the engender as it presents itself, since it is linkable to a much more fundamental human ailment.In Edith Whartons Roman Fever we also see ailments of a pneumonic and life-changing import. Indeed, the entire story seems shot-through with infection. Wharton writes of Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley, both widowed, both taking their daughters to Rome on holiday as they had been. Their own intertwined histories Wharton describes at the storys onslaught as all of the movings, buyings, travels, anniversaries, illnesses (emphasis mine) (751). Wharton then begins the tale with illness. It is only as the memoir progresses that we get a sense of how important illness is to become Yes being the Slades widow wa... ...an be hardened with antibiotics, it can be treated with aversion therapy or the simple addition of marriage. Other love preventatives such as war and country music are both preferably feasible and can actually be very profitable for westbound nations, though they seem a little cruel, especially the latter. Whartons Roman Fever at the very least points the way it is a warning that love and pneumonia are inextricably linked, an idea that wed do closely to pay more attention to today when the ease of a broad(prenominal) technology lifestyle fosters an arrogance that all the worlds problems ease up been solved. Works CitedWharton, Edith. Roman Fever. Edith Wharton Collected Stories 1911-1937. New York Literary Classics 2001. 749-62.World Health Organization. Childhood Diseases in Africa Fact Sheet N 109. March 1996. 14.3.2003 http//www.who.int/inf-fs/en/fact109.html