Effie Whittlesey

George Ade was an American writer. His essay “Effie Whittlesey” was written in 1886. The theme of the text is social classes and their way of behaviour. Mainly the text tell us the story of the family Wallance and the new maid- Effie. Effie was an old friend of Mr Wallance and the fact that she and Mr Wallance get along so well, was iritating Mrs Wallance. This is why she decide to fire her. The ideea of the text is the people from higher social classes try to show their superiority when in front of them is someone who is lower. This phomenon is cause by the fact that those people try to fit in with their roles. They think that if they behave like that, they will be respected and honoured. As I mentioned above, the theme of the text is social classes, that are very well show in the text by the Wallances adn Effie. Mrs Wallance is a tipical woman who has the air of superiority and who thinks that she has the right to treat in any other way her servants. Her husband , on the contrary is a man who built his fortune out of nothing and this is why he is kind to his old friend Effie. Effie is the character due to whom we can see this obvious distinction between spouses. The message tat the author try to send us is that no matter the circumstances we are, we shall not forget about our values and the respect toward others. We should remember that money don’t make a person, but the way he acts is more valuable. The conflict that appears between the spouses show us that Mr Wallance was not only gealous, but she wasn’t able to speak up with her own husband, while a servant was doing it more often than her. Here is a good example, how even being from a lower social class Effie was able to entertain her old friend. And Mr Wallance was still interesting as a person, even if he was rich. The main characters from this text are Mr and Mrs Wallance and Effie Whittlesy. Mrs Wallance isn’t described to us in any phisical manner, but from her actions we can notice that she is a rather stupborn person and a not very kind. Mr Wallance is shown us as “a child of the soil” as he mention himself, “who worked his way through college and came to the city”. It shows us that he is an ambitious person who tries to reach his goals. Moreover he is a polite person , because he agrees to send Effie only in a “gently and dimplomatically way”. Also, he is a sentimental person. When he saw Effie, “the panorama of is life rolled backward”, meaning that he reminded to himself of his old life. Effie, as described by Mrs Wallance is “not a young and good-looking girl”, working very hard “ working as Trojan” is the comparison she’s been given. Effie is a good girl from the countryside, who can’t harm anybody. If we are talking about the title of the text “ Effie Whittlesy”, I think that the author named it in this way, because the girl shows us the contrast between the spouces and the way their attitude is toward others. I think if I could change the name of the text it would be “social classes”, mainly because this is one of the themes.

The style of the text is colovial, easy to read and understand. The type of the text is more a dialogue melled with some description. From my life experience, I think I haven’t yet encountered people who achieved a higher social position and suddenly changed themselves completely.