Mansfield as a writer

Modernist authors preferred to represent characters through their shifting thoughts, memories
and sensations. Mansfield compared her story ‘Miss Brill’ to music. Her stories grow from
music, pictures, poems and architectural details. Her stories begin at the heart of a situation,
without preamble, and end abruptly. She is concerned with the psychology of her characters,
many of whom are isolated, frustrated, and disillusioned. Mansfield transmitted details in her
stories through allusions, suggestions, seemingly trivial incidents and random associations. She
uses personification and unusual similes and metaphors.

Epiphany is a key aspect of modernist writing. Flashes of realization, revelation, insight and
understanding, for Mansfield, may not lead to complete comprehension. Rather there is a
glimpse of something beyond a character’s everyday perceptions.

Mansfield becomes her characters and depicts with an acute psychological insight the workings
of their minds. Some of her stories are about well-to-do young innocents whose dreams are
shattered abruptly by the realism of the actual world, represented by poor people or cynical old
men.

Mansfield’s best work shakes itself free of plot, and endings, and gives the story for the first
time, expansiveness of interior life, the poetry of the feeling, the blurred edges of personality.
She was a genius in evolving moods and feelings. She was a modernist in her technique as a
writer. She reduced the significance of plot, instead emphasizing moments of emotional
discovery and epiphany that directly revealed her character’s inner lives. Her eye for telling
detail, vignettes of character, and impressionistic depiction of settings as the backdrops for her
characters’ visions distinguishes her stories.

Being a woman writer concerned with the reality of everyday life, Mansfield based her works on
her feminine experience and concentrated on depiction of the roles of women within their
households as well as broader frame of society. Under the simple, nearly trivial description of
feminine space Mansfield entangled another level of meaning which condemned the values of
the 19th century period that pushed women to act as mere dolls, ornaments and caretakers.
Through the concentration on heroines’ inner life she opened the important topics of struggle for
recognition and self-fulfilment that would resonate throughout the following decades.

Her short stories over time developed into ‘slice of life’ types – glimpses into the lives of
individuals, families, captured at a certain moment, frozen in time like a snapshot.

Impressionist art is a style in which the artist captures the image of an object as someone would
see it if they just caught a glimpse of it. They paint the pictures with a lot of color and most of
their pictures are outdoor scenes. Their pictures are very bright and vibrant. The artists like to
capture their images without detail but with bold colors. Impressionists always seek to capture a
feeling or experience rather than to depict accurate depiction and perfection. 
In literature, impressionist writers exhibit some special traits:

          1. Narrative style and ambiguous meaning are the hallmarks of impressionistic

literature. The narrator gives the readers more scope to think, judge and conclude, rather than
depending upon him.
         
          2.  They often describe the action through the eyes of the character while the events are
occurring, rather than providing minute details. All of the details seem unclear.

          3. They’re concerned with the “emotional landscape” of the setting. They always want to
sketch such a natural background when natural phenomena look pale and weird at the time of
suffering and agony of the characters.

          4. They exercise details in such a way that it’s sometimes difficult to see a clear picture
of events if one focuses on the details too closely. If readers stand back from the novel he will
get the full picture.

          5. They often avoid chronological telling of events. Instead they give the readers
information in a way that forces them to focus on how and why things happen, rather than on
the order in which they occur.

Ballroom dancing in Victorian society

It was in the ballroom that Victorian society was on its best behavior, and etiquette at the
Victorian ball was thoroughly mastered. Victorians drew upon dancing to flirt, court, and simply
associate as upper class society. Balls were particularly popular during the Victorian era (1837-
1901). It was a time when society was governed by strict moral precepts, and legions of guides
were published on how to behave correctly, how to dress appropriately and what to say in
various specific situations. Manuals on etiquette and dancing also abounded. Balls are special
occasions normally attended by the members of "high society." In the 19th and early 20th
centuries, numerous balls of all types were held in public halls and private homes. There were for
example charity balls intended as fundraisers, balls organized by societies and associations, and
costume balls, which though less frequent were wildly popular. Finally, there were debutant balls
at which young women "came out," or were presented to society.
Ladies and gentlemen were on their best behavior in the ballroom. Manners were more formal,
clothing was finer, and bows were deeper.
Men were expected to be extremely active in the ballroom to make up for the passivity required
of ladies; who could not ask gentlemen to dance, and who could not even be seen to cross the
dance floor unescorted. Ladies would be conveyed to their station by a gentleman, and there they
would wait until another gentleman came to speak to them, ask them to dance.
Balls were of course great fun for those in attendance, but they were also an occasion to find a
husband or wife, to make connections and to affirm membership in a certain social class.