KATHERINE

MANSFIELD
o SHORT STORIES
Katherine Mansfield (1888-
1923)
 one of the most highly regarded short story writers

 born in Wellington, New Zealand

 in 1903 went to London to attend Queen’s College; started her

career as an author

 met her fellow Ida Baker

 was introduced to a number of artists and writers of that period

(Dorothy Brett, Dora Carrington, Virginia Woolf)
  played her part in shaping modernism (experimenting with
style)

 complex emotions in deceptively simple literary form

Mansfield’s  short stories – innovative, accessible, psychologically acute

literary work
 prolific career as a writer: short stories, letters, reviews, journals

 themes: the difficulties of family life and sexuality, the fragility

of relationships, the complexities of the rising middle class, the
social consequences of war
Collections of short stories
Bliss

 published in 1918
 read through the prism of homoerotic longing and the animalistic nature of sexual
desire in disguise of symbolism
 focuses on Bertha Young, the main character enjoying her comfortable family life
 the culmination: the dinner party
 the plot takes place in a single day
 lack of characterization – the dinner party provides us with an opportunity to observe
the characters as their true feelings are suppressed by the social constraints
  Bertha Young reflects on how wonderful her life is (as she walks home, she is
overwhelmed by a feeling of bliss)

 begins to prepare for a dinner party

Summary of  reflects on the guests (Mr and Mrs Knight, Eddie Warren, Pearl Fulton)

Bliss  at the dinner, guests discuss the contemporary theater and literary scene, Bertha
shares a special bond with Pearl

 after dinner, Bertha shows Pearl the garden with the pear tree, but was not sure if
she responded positively

 guests were leaving, Bertha saw her husband and Pearl embrace in the hallway

 after all the guests left, Bertha runs to the window to look at the pear tree, only to
realize that it is just the same as ever
ALTHOUGH Bertha Young was thirty she
still had moments like this when she wanted
to run instead of walk, to take dancing
steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a
hoop, to throw something up in the air and
catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at
– nothing – at nothing, simply.
 free indirect speech – Bertha’s childlike voice
highlights her immaturity and innocence
 critique of social expectations: Bertha Young was an
upper-middle class woman who was expected to abide
by the social rules – embracing emotions is labelled as
infantile

 oppositions:

Oh, is there no way you can express it without Sensitive individual Society
being "drunk and disorderly?" How idiotic freedom emotional restraint
civilization is! Why be given a body if you emotions
PARADOX: Is it possiblesense
to be truly happy in the
have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare,
childishness society full ofmaturity
restraints?
rare fiddle?
‘drunk and disorderly’ sane
 Loneliness and inability to communicate

"Yes, perfectly. Oh, Harry!"

"Yes?"
What had she to say? She'd nothing to say. She only
wanted to get in touch with him for a moment. She
couldn't absurdly cry: "Hasn't it been a divine day!"
"What is it?" rapped out the little voice.
"Nothing. Entendu' said Bertha, and hung up the
receiver, thinking how more than idiotic civilization was.
And he couldn’t see her; couldn’t explain to her; couldn’t
have it out. (…) He sat down beside her, and couldn’t speak.
He was holding out flowers—roses, red and white roses. (But
he could not bring himself to say he loved her; not in so
many words.)

 Bliss, Katherine Mansfield

 Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Some yellow pears, smooth as silk, some white
grapes covered with a silver bloom and a big
cluster of purple ones. These last she had bought
to tone in with the new dining-room carpet. Yes,
that did sound rather far-fetched and absurd, but
it was really why she had bought them. She had
thought in the shop: "I must have some purple
ones to bring the carpet up to the table." And it
had seemed quite sense at the time.
 Bliss, Katherine Mansfield
And as she began to go with Miss Pym from jar to
jar, choosing, nonsense, nonsense, she said to
herself, more and more gently, as if this beauty, this
scent, this colour, and Miss Pym liking her, trusting
her, were a wave which she let flow over her and
surmount that hatred, that monster, surmount it all;
and it lifted her up and up when—oh! a pistol shot in
the street outside!
 Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

 filling the emptiness in their lives

Trivialities of everyday life – the importance of the ordinary

Aesthetics and appearance

When she had finished with them and had made two pyramids of these bright round shapes,
she stood away from the table to get the effect – and it really was most curious. For the dark
table seemed to melt into the dusky light and the glass dish and the blue bowl to float in the
air. This, of course in her present mood, was so incredibly beautiful ... She began to laugh.
"No, no. I'm getting hysterical." And she seized her bag and coat and ran upstairs to the
nursery.

 Bertha’s excessive preoccupation with external appearances  modernist

 she attempts to communicate her feelings and personality through the presentation of her home
 Bertha’s surmounts social constraints and lack of communication through aesthetics
 The symbolism of the
pear tree
symbolizes Bertha’s attraction to Pearl Fulton, a distant and
mysterious woman

representshidden desire (corresponds with the Tree of Life from the

Garden of Eden)

associated with the sensation of ‘bliss’

as Bertha and Pearl look at the tree together, that moment represents
their unspoken connection
 The Garden
Party
 The Garden Party is a 1922 short story
 its luxurious setting is based on
Mansfield's childhood home in
Thorndon, Wellington

CHARACTERS:
 Mrs. Sheridan: Mr. Sheridan's wife
and mother of Laura, Laurie, Meg,
and Jose
 Sadie & Hans: servants

 The Scott’s: neighbours; working -

class family
  the wealthy Sheridan family are preparing themselves to host a garden party

 Laura is charged with commanding the workers on the placement of the

marquee and feels a personal connection with them

 Laura and Jose learn that their working-class neighbour Mr Scott has died just

Summary of The
outside their gate

Garden Party  Laura believes the party should be called off, neither Jose nor their mother
agrees

 Mrs Sheridan tells Laura to bring a basket full of leftovers to the Scotts' house

 intrigued by the peacefulness of the dead man's face, and she finds his face in
death just as beautiful as life
MAJOR THEMES
Class consciousness
 Laura feels a certain sense of kindship with the workers
and again with the Scotts. An omniscient narrator also
explains that, as children, Laura, Jose, Meg, and Laurie
were not allowed to go near the poor neighbours'
dwellings, which spoil their vista.
Sensitivity and insensitivity
 The Sheridans hold their garden party, as planned,
complete with a band playing music. Laura questions
whether this will be appropriate, discovering the death
of their neighbour only a few hours earlier.

Death and life

Illusion versus reality
 Laura is stuck in a world of high-class housing, food,
family, and garden parties. She then discovers her
neighbour from a lower class has died and she clicks
back to reality upon discovering death.
 Laura's realization that life is simply marvellous
shows death of human beings in a positive light.
Death and life co-exist, and death seems to Laura
merely a sound sleep far away from troubles in human
life.

"It was simply marvellous. But Laurie--" She stopped, she looked at her brother. "Isn't life," she stammered, "isn't life--"
But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.

"Isn't it, darling?" said Laurie.

MRS DALLOWAY & THE GARDEN PARTY COMPARISON

 involve a social gathering disrupted by a sudden death

 Mrs. Dalloway and “The Garden Party”devote at least three

quarters of their narrations to the preparation of a party

 different generations of women as protagonists

 starting in medias res

 illustrate estranged mother-daughter relationships

 MRS DALLOWAY & THE
GARDEN PARTY
COMPARISON
 both heroines realise that life is less
untroubled and pleasant than it used to be

 neither of them is free to express

discontentment or grief for deceased
strangers, because such people are outcasts
uninvited from festive events hosted by
social elites

 Laura and Clarrisa both experience feelings

of kinship with the unfamiliar ordeals of
poverty-stricken neighbours, like the
workman Scott, or the suicidal soldier
Septimus–two men enduring or fighting in
the same twentieth-century war against class
hierarchies