Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bc. Veronika Mikulová

Narrative Presentation and Conceptions of Creative

Individuality in Katherine Mansfield’s 'Bliss' Stories
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D.

2015
 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Veronika Mikulová
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Doctor Stephen Paul Hardy for his supervision and kind encouragement as well
as my supporting family and friends for their motivation and help.
Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 2

1 Life and Literary Work of Katherine Mansfield ..................................................................... 6

2 Major Influences on Katherine Mansfield ............................................................................ 10

2.1 Mansfield and Modernism .............................................................................................. 11

2.2 Mansfield and Literary Impressionism ........................................................................... 13

2.3 Mansfield and the Short Story ........................................................................................ 15

3 Writing Style and Narrative Presentation in Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield ............. 19

4 The Construction of an Individual in the Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield .................. 29

5 Analysis of Selected Short Stories from the Collection Bliss and Other Stories .................. 35

5.1 Analysis of “Bliss” ......................................................................................................... 35

5.2 Analysis of “Prelude” ..................................................................................................... 45

5.3 Analysis of “Je ne parle pas français” ............................................................................ 55

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 60

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 63

Resumé (English) ..................................................................................................................... 67

Resumé (Czech) ....................................................................................................................... 68

1
 Introduction

A uniqueness of writing style and an innovatory approach to the exposition of the inner

life of the characters are among the main characteristics that resonate throughout the literary

work of Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923). As a woman writer of the beginning of 20th century

she witnessed the great changes within the society as well as artistic world and became one of

the important icons of the Modernist movement. During a short and turbulent life, Katherine

Mansfield managed to create a singular literary voice supported by narrative strategies that

became widely recognised and generally praised for capturing the psyche and the characteristics

of an individual within a broader frame of society.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a characterisation of the Mansfieldian literary

persona and explore how the author deals with the construction as well as reflection of

character’s inner life. A close analysis of her literary style considers the effects of different

perspectives employed by the characters in selected short stories and comments on their

relationship to the core questions of inauthenticity, convention and self-recognition.

The thesis consists of five major chapters while two of them are divided into several

subchapters for a clear thematic division of the work. The first chapter of the thesis introduces

the reader into the world of Katherine Mansfield and provides a brief description of her life and

her middle-class New Zealand family background. According to the writer’s belief in the

interconnection of one’s life and art, it highlights the episodes that had a formative influence

and functioned as a source of both - inspiration and criticism in Mansfield’s work. Moreover,

this chapter provides the reader with a brief outline of her literary work and introduces the

collection of short stories Bliss and Other Stories that offers an illustration of Mansfield’s

literary skills and supports discussion of her intentions and creative style expanded in the later

chapters dedicated to theoretical as well as analytical exploration.

2
 The second chapter focuses on the theoretical observation of the major influences on

Katherine Mansfield’s work. It is divided into three individual subsections that trace the most

important formative powers that contributed to the development of Mansfield’s singular style.

The first section, based on the observations from Peter Childs’s book Modernism, aims to

elucidate the position of Katherine Mansfield among the Modernist movement. As a writer open

to experimentation, Mansfield became an executioner of many of the Modernist thoughts

concerning the withdrawal from conventions and rejection of the stable narrative flow and fixed

identity.

The second subchapter follows the views presented in Julia von Gunsteren’s book

Katherine Mansfield and Literary Impressionism while introducing the origins and the main

ideas of the movement of Literary Impressionism and pursuing their resonance in the work of

Katherine Mansfield. The third section continues in a similar manner while depicting the main

characteristics of the short story form and exploring how Mansfield responded to this genre as

well as to the legacy of the short story writer Anton Chekhov. This subchapter also focuses on

Katherine Mansfield as a woman writer and hints her female experience and reaction to the

Victorian ideal in the male-dominated society.

The main goal of the third chapter of the thesis is to provide an analysis of Katherine

Mansfield’s writing style and emphasize those features that contributed to the creation of

complex literary characters. This section elaborates on the ideas withdrawn from the

observation of Mansfield’s sources of inspiration in the previous chapters. Introduction of detail

as a core element in constructing characters and surroundings, employment of the reader as an

active part of the story and the technique of depicting both – inner and outer part of one’s world

are among those principles that hint Mansfield’s interest in capturing the complexity of human

life. Moreover, her ideas about the plotless perception of events led to the establishment of a

specific narrative technique that employs free indirect discourse, psycho-narration and stream

3
of consciousness and composes the stories in a mosaic-like manner. All the narratological

features will be discussed in the second part of the chapter with an aid of terminology introduced

in the work Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative by Mieke Bal and in Monika

Fludernik’s An Introduction to Narratology.

Construction of the Mansfieldian literary character is discussed in greater detail in the

fourth chapter. Katherine Mansfield’s determination to portray her characters through their

inner selves corresponds with her ambition to create her own individual personae instead of

employing general character types. The striking complexity of individuals and authenticity of

their lives challenges the reader by bringing up questions of identifying one’s true self in the

world dominated by convention and hypocrisy. Mansfield responds in a form of “epiphanies”

or “glimpses” that often function as a climax of her stories and serve as a tool for revealing the

truth about individual’s unmasked self.

The last chapter provides an illustrative in-depth analysis of selected short stories from

the collection Bliss and Other Stories, while employing the issues identified in the theoretical

part of the thesis. The first section focuses on the short story “Bliss” which is one of the best

known and most widely praised works. It demonstrates Mansfield’s mastery of the chosen form

and functions as a study of mood and feeling set in a modern conventional family circle of the

woman-child narrator Bertha.

The short story “Prelude”, analysed in the second section, reveals a kaleidoscopic

arrangement of viewpoints of different characters inhabiting the Burnell household. The most

important characters – Linda, Beryl and Kezia – represent three different individualities with

distinct understanding of their inner as well as surrounding world. Through the character of

Kezia Mansfield explores the sensitive and imaginative mind of children. Linda and Beryl, on

the other hand, embody two contrasting representations of women of their period.

4
 The last section deals with an analysis of the short story “Je ne parle pas français” which

introduces an ambiguous figure of Raoul Duquette – a narcissist Parisian writer deluded by a

false self-perception and trapped in a permanent role-switching performance. The direct speech

of this first-person narrator opens different possibilities for Katherine Mansfield who openly

criticizes the inauthenticity of the society based on role-playing and victimization.

Subsequently, the concluding section of the thesis summarizes the notions investigated

in the theoretical part and explicates their relation to the analytical exploration within the

selected short stories.

5
 1 Life and Literary Work of Katherine Mansfield

“To thine own self be true… True to oneself! Which self? Which of my many – well, really,

that’s what it looks like coming to - hundreds of selves?” (Letters and Journals, p.173)

An entry from Katherine Mansfield’s journal voices one of the main concerns that

echoes throughout Mansfield’s life and finds its reflection in her art. It also hints the problematic

nature of attempts to capture her varying personality in writing. Nevertheless, soon after her

death in 1923 it became a general interest of different scholars and biographers to create a

portrayal of Katherine Mansfield as a woman and as a writer. The following paragraphs will

attempt to give a brief account of her life based on the findings in Katherine Mansfield’s Journal

edited by John Middleton Murry, Claire Tomalin’s detailed biography Katherine Mansfield: a

secret life and some other essays by different authors.

She was born as Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 to the family of the middle-

class colonial banker Harold Beauchamp and his wife Annie Beauchamp, both Australia-born

settlers in New-Zealand. Despite the merry family circle and wealthy living secured by her

successful father, Katherine rather early decided to embrace a different identity to that inherited

from her provincial family. After getting her education at Queen’s College in London and

returning to Wellington, Katherine realized that her righteous place is among the art-oriented

intellectual groups of Europe. In 1908 she sailed back to London with determination to make

her living as a writer. Soon she met some of the most important figures that would instantly

influence her life and career – Rhythm magazine editor John Middleton Murry, whom she

married in the later years and two significant figures of Bloomsbury group – Virginia Woolf

and D. H. Lawrence.

However, her dream of independence and bohemian life of an artist was almost

immediately shattered as she realized that the boundaries of convention binding the women in

6
New Zealand were very similar to those in England and other European countries. As a self-

reliant woman writer she had to fight exclusion to acquire a proper place in society where

women were still marginalized. Thus, early after her arrival in Europe Mansfield found herself

in a struggle for money and decent living. Claire Tomalin points out that “she travelled too far

outside the boundaries of accepted behaviour for her family to feel she was one of them, but

she did not find herself at home in any other group, nor did she make a family on her own”

(Tomalin, p.6). As a lonely observer of life, Katherine Mansfield spent most of her life

travelling around Europe in search of inspiration, stability and recovery of her deteriorated

health.

Mansfield’s determination to gain acclaim in the artistic world critically disturbed the

balance in her private life and until a very late point she did not realize that to be able to regain

this balance she would have do a sacrifice. Arnold Whitridge in his biographic account on

'Katherine Mansfield' characterizes the zeal of Mansfield as a “restless search for happiness.

She wanted freedom and she wanted a home, she wanted friends, gaiety, affection, and love,

and while enjoying them she wanted to earn her living by her pen” (Whitridge, p.265).

Moreover, all events in Mansfield’s life were hindered by her belief that “it is only being true

to life that [she] can be true to art” (Journal, p.174-5). Therefore, as a free-thinker and supporter

of change, Mansfield kept refusing the rules and values promoted by the previous generation.

This attitude contributed to the fact that she was freed from the duty of accepting the role of a

middle-class wife and mother, but it also caused her alienation from the rest of the society

resulting in the loss of protection and stabile family background.

Mansfield’s unruly and hectic lifestyle gradually contributed to deterioration of her

health that early in her life resulted in a terminal illness. Critics agree that it was at this point of

her life that Katherine Mansfield became disillusioned with the anticipations of artistic life and

turned back to her childhood memories from New Zealand. As Arnold Whitridge puts it,

7
Katherine Mansfield’s opinion on New Zealand became very different from that of Kathleen

Beauchamp: “One hated her native country with all the intolerance of youth, the other yearned

for it with all the passionate regret of a prodigal son” (Whitridge, p.259). First of all, young

Kathleen Beauchamp had to undergo the disturbing difficulties of independent life to complete

her transformation to the writer Katherine Mansfield. Then she could turn back to her birth land

memories and immerse into the process of recreation of her true self.

Another important episode that contributed to Mansfield’s re-evaluation of her New

Zealand family heritage was the tragic death of her beloved brother Leslie Heron “Chummie”

Beauchamp at the front in France in 1915. According to the entries in her journal, this event

caused a shock than was much greater than any other experience before. She wrote:

Yes, I want to write recollections of my own country till I simply exhaust my store. Not only

because it is 'a sacred debt' that I pay to my country because my brother and I were born there, but also

because in my thoughts I range with him over all the remembered places (Journal, p.42).

These “debts of love” (Journal, p.42) as Mansfield calls them are according to Don W.

Kleine’s observation in his essay 'An Eden for Insiders: Katherine Mansfield's New Zealand',

regarded as “transfigurations of an obsessive sorrow, arbitrating distances of space and time

which perplexed her from the day she left Wellington at nineteen” (Kleine, p.203). The short

stories derived from Mansfield’s childhood experience are thus among the most experimental

and most widely acclaimed pieces of author’s work.

Katherine Mansfield died in January 1923 after a long exhaustive illness. In 34 years

she was able to produce a substantial amount of essays, poems and short stories, many of which

were published during her life. Even though she was not a political writer, her work serves as a

portrayal of social, cultural as well as political conditions of her time.

Mansfield witnessed the publication of three collections of her short stories. The first,

called In a German Pension was published in 1911 and suggested a direct influence of the

8
events during Mansfield’s stay in a spa town in Bavaria. This collection was favourably

accepted, but Mansfield herself later regarded this work as 'immature'.

The second collection Bliss and Other Stories was published in 1920 and includes

fourteen short stories written between years 1915 and 1920. This collection already introduces

the typical Mansfieldian narrative strategies and opens the core questions that will linger

throughout the later works. The title story “Bliss” was the first among Mansfield’s short stories

to gain international acclaim and promote Katherine Mansfield among the important

contemporary writers. The collection The Garden Party and Other Stories, published in 1922

followed the tradition of the previous collection and confirmed Mansfield’s position as one of

the most important short story writers of the beginning of 20th century. After Mansfield’s death

it was the responsibility of John Middleton Murry to publish two remaining collections – The

Dove’s Nest (1923) and Something Childish (1924) as well as the compilation of Mansfield’s

letters and journals.

The most distinctive feature within the writings of Katherine Mansfield lies in their

construction that comprises of both, an innovatory style and attentive observation of her

experience within the contemporary society and its artistic circles. The following chapter

focuses on depicting Mansfield’s encounter and response to different notions introduced among

the relevant artistic movements of the period.

9
 2 Major Influences on Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield lived through the period of the end of 19th and beginning of 20th

century that witnessed a great array of changes and new controversial ideas ranging from

Freudian discoveries to the achievements of industrial revolution. The artistic circles of the era

vividly responded to the innovative tendencies and contributed to the transformation of the

image of contemporary society. Viorica Patea in her essay 'The Short Story: An Overview of

the History and Evolution of the Genre' emphasises the formative moments in December 1910

when England hosted the post-Impressionist exhibition of Cézanne, van Gogh, and Matisse.

She believes that this exhibition caused “a drastic change in contemporary sensibility… that

was to affect not only the visual arts, but also the conception of poetry, the novel and the short

story” (Patea, p.17). The crucial changes in these disciplines, according to the laws of

Impressionism, would result in an abandonment of conventional discourse “in favour of style

that registered fleeting impressions, moods, feelings and atmosphere” (Patea, p.17).

Successive application of various innovatory ideas triggered the origination of

numerous artistic movements, many of which overlapped and contributed to the complexity of

the artistic world of the beginning of 20th century. Therefore, after her arrival in London young

Katherine Mansfield encountered a varied and creative atmosphere that stimulated and enriched

her aborning literary voice. Julia van Gunsteren, whose work Katherine Mansfield and Literary

Impressionism focuses on the influence of Impressionist movement, acknowledges also

Naturalism, Realism, Symbolism and Modernism among the main sources of Mansfield’s

artistic inspiration (Gunsteren, p.7). Nevertheless, van Gunsteren believes that Mansfield’s art

is unique to such an extent that it cannot be labelled by any particular literary movement

(Gunsteren, p.7). More suitable is to consider her work as a result of eclectic production as the

crucial ideas and strategies in Mansfield’s writings come from diverse outer resources that

intermingle with her own inner sources of invention.

10
 Some of the major influences on Katherine Mansfield’s work will be discussed in the

following sections of this chapter. Specifically, they will explore the movements of Modernism

and Literary Impressionism as well as the influential short story form that contributed to the

final composition of Katherine Mansfield’s expression.

2.1 Mansfield and Modernism

According to the definition of Peter Childs, “Modernism is variously argued to be a

period, style, genre, or combination of these” (Childs, p.12) and is either viewed as “a time-

bound or a genre-bound art form” (Childs, p.18). Within the time presentation it ranges

throughout the period of the late 19th and early 20th while functioning as a response to the great

mental shift within the European society initiated by the processes of industrialization,

urbanization, advancement of branches of science and the crisis of belief in the course of the

First World War. The central change within the artistic circles occurred in the way the artists

of the era started to perceive subjective experience and individuality. While the “previous

dominant modes had been a poetics of mimesis, verisimilitude and realism… Modernism

marked a clear movement towards increased sophistication… self-scepticism and general anti-

representationalism” (Childs, p.22). ”Jan Manfred in his article on 'Focalization' reflects the

core concerns in his claim that “Modernist writers were not interested in realistic

representations of external phenomena but in presenting the world as it appeared to characters

subject to beliefs, moods, and emotions” (Manfred). He highlights the observation of Virginia

Woolf:

“Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad of

impressions - trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they

come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms… Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind

11
in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in

appearance, which each sight or incidence scores upon the consciousness” (Woolf, p.160-1).

The notions reflected in this quote are according to Jan Manfred some of the basic

thoughts constituting the “Modernist 'novel of consciousness'” that employs “a 'figural

narrative,' that is, a third-person narrative in which the storyworld is seen through the eyes of a

character” (Manfred). The main focus of the writings concurrently lies in the portrayal of the

protagonists’ perception of both, their inner and outer world.

In general was the main interest of the writers of Modernism in responding to “the

tradition of the new”, to use the term by Peter Childs, and offering alternative modes of

representation to those initiated in the previous era, comprising of “a dependable narrator, the

depiction of a fixed stable self; history as a progressive linear process; bourgeois politics, which

advocated reform not radical change; the tying up of all narrative strands, or 'closure'” (Childs,

p.22). Therefore, according to Childs’s observation Modernism can be essentially “understood

through what it differs from” (Childs, p.2) as its form, demonstration of time, perspective, level

of narration and other aspects stand in a sharp contract to those of the previous era while creating

works pushed towards the introspection and abstraction to express the new sensibilities of the

era and challenge the readers to find their own response and interpretation of the contemporary

society.

Katherine Mansfield, as an attentive observer of the world, clearly perceived many of

the thought-provoking notions and discussed her ideas in her letters and diaries. Her life among

the contemporary writers, particularly Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence, caused that her work

adopted very similar notions to those of their fiction. Miroslawa Kubasiewicz observes in her

essay 'Authentic Existence and the Characters of Katherine Mansfield' that Mansfield’s

approach to both, life and work was very similar to the notions characteristic for Modernism:

12
 Alienation, dread of death, or the search for freedom and authenticity manifested themselves in

her life and found reflection in her work… Most, if not all critics agree that isolation, and emotional and

spiritual loss, are among the dominant themes in her stories and reflect her view of the human condition

(Kubasiewicz, p.53).

All these themes, in addition to those of victimization and alienation within the urban

areas and domestic circles are among the topics that Mansfield shared with the Modernist

writers of the period who pondered upon the situation of the individual and his relationship to

the new thoughts and technologies introduced in different spheres of life and society.

2.2 Mansfield and Literary Impressionism

The term Impressionism is generally used to describe the movement in fine art during

the late 19th and early 20th century. It primarily involves the Paris-based painters Edouard

Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and others who opposed the conventional art

community and decided to portray the current subjects in an innovative way. Gradually

Impressionism spread to other areas and had a decisive influence on contemporary music as

well as literature.

Literary Impressionism is a term introduced by Ferdinan Brunetière in 1879. It reflects

the ideas and techniques employed in the art of Impressionists, therefore, as Brunetière observes

it is “a systematic transposition of the means of expression of an art, which is the art of painting,

into the domain of another art, which is the art of writing” (Brunetière, p.452).

Some of the main principles of Impressionism that found resonance in literature are

recorded in Angela Smith’s work 'Katherine Mansfield and Rhythm'. She considers the

tendencies to

13
 …favour every-day subjects drawn from the close observation of people within their own

environment – from bourgeoisie to the working class and those who lived at the fringe of society…,

interest in the momentary effects of light, atmosphere and movement” and “privileging the role of the

senses in the observation and recording of the transitory and ephemeral (Smith, p.16).

Moreover, Impressionists experimented with different levels of perception while

employing only limited views of the actions. This technique formed the specific Impressionistic

visions termed “epiphanies” that Julia von Gunsteren characterizes as “privileged moments,

moments of being, visionary instants… or moments bienhereux” (Gunsteren, p.61). The critic

also discusses the relationship between Literary Modernism and Impressionism while

characterizing Literary Impressionism as “an incipient movement to Modernism” (Gunsteren,

p.7) that anticipated some of its most striking qualities. She believes that both movements have

“common roots in a set of shared assumptions in which there is a primacy of perception, with

a fragmentation of perceived reality, no chronology, and no clear beginnings and endings”

(Gunsteren, p.26).

Literary Impressionism emphasizes subjectivity in which various characters perceive

the actual fragments of reality through their senses. According to Gunsteren’s view, the only

responsibility of the author is to “render a character’s reactions to the external stimuli as

truthfully as he can” (Gunsteren, p.52) while the actual narrative method can vary from “a

narrator who pretends to be the character, or a character who serves as a narrator, or a number

of different characters who see reality in different terms” (Gunsteren, p.19).

As stated earlier, Katherine Mansfield did not acknowledge the primary influence of

any singular figure or movement. Despite Mansfield’s frequent trips to Paris, there are only

some minor references to Impressionist paintings in her journals and critics agree that she has

never used the term itself. However, her stories are often regarded as an allusion to

Impressionism on the level of theory and composition. Angela Smith makes a comparison

14
between Mansfield’s stories and paintings of her friend Anne Estelle Rice, while interpreting

her work as its literary equivalent (Smith, p.104). Moreover, Mansfield’s writings may be

regarded as elaboration on one of the most important notions of Impressionism articulated by

Ford Madox Ford: “We saw that Life did not narrate, but made impressions on our brains. We

in turn, if we wished to produce on you an effect of life, must not narrate but render …

impressions” (Ford, p.73).

In Mansfield’s case, the singular impressions were constructed through the concepts

influenced by Literary Modernism - her technical composition of fleeting 'glimpses' of

existence, unattached to conventional flow of time and narration with an emphasis on sensual

and pictorial evocation created a highly imaginative frame that could contribute to the

immediacy and reality of the crisis presented in an actual story. As Anne Friis puts it in her

discussion of Mansfield’s Technique in Katherine Mansfield: Life and Stories:

As the impressionist painter paints things as they appear at any given moment, so [Mansfield]

renders only the momentary impression; but the description of the immediate happening becomes to her

the means of implying a deeper reality behind the outward appearance (Friis, p.132).

Therefore, it can be argued that Mansfield’s main concern is to employ the concepts of

Literary Impressionism to activate the imagination and self-identification of the reader that is

concurrently challenged to ponder upon the situation of the main characters dealing with the

existential topics of struggle and search for identity.

2.3 Mansfield and the Short Story

The last section of this chapter focuses on the genre of the short story that became the

core medium in Katherine Mansfield’s work and contributed to both, formation as well as

original realization of her ideas.

15
 The today’s concept of the short story form is a relatively recent invention. According

to Viorica Patea’s observation, it is a child of the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century that

grew up along with the media of cinema and photography, though did not find its field of

criticism until half a century ago (Patea, p.1). The only critics until then were the practitioners

of the genre themselves, among the first of whom we can find Edgar Allan Poe or Anton

Chekhov. Patea argues, that it was the decisive voice of E.A. Poe in the 19th century that through

his writings initiated the birth of the short story as a separate genre and determined the “form,

style, length, design, authorial goals, and reader affect” while developing the framework of the

notions such as “brevity, intensity, suggestiveness… closure and design” within which is the

short story discussed until today (Patea, p.3). While the short story shares the medium of prose

with novel, it also employs the metaphorical and suggestive language of poetry making the final

work highly imaginative and prone to “challenge notions of conventional truth to dwell on

moments of breakup in the experience of everyday reality” (Patea, p.14). In the course of the

century the short story proved to be a very flexible form apt to respond to the changes of the

contemporary literary tradition.

Anthon Pavlovich Chekhov is one of the main contributors to the development of the

short story genre at the end of 19th century. Apart from the notions of constructing apparently

plotless stories with abrupt endings he also introduced the exploration of the inner world of the

characters and a tendency towards a naturalistic depiction of reality. Moreover, he was one of

the first authors that contributed to the development of the short story form as an autonomous

literary genre. Chekhov’s legacy also remains the most important model for Katherine

Mansfield’s own literary production. From the early beginning of her career she was profoundly

influenced by his technique and style and critics believe that one of her first short stories “The

Child-Who-Was-Tired” is a result of Mansfield’s adaptation of Chekhov’s story “Sleepyhead”

(Tomalin, p.72). In later years, Mansfield pursued her own way of dealing with and contributing

16
to the short story genre. However, her attachment to Chekhov’s legacy remained highly visible,

especially at those moments of her career when Mansfield struggled with the inclination to

doubt the quality of her work as well as her artistic ability. She proclaimed Chekhov as her

guide who “makes [her] feel that this longing to write stories of such uneven length is justified”

(Journal, p.65), even though she could not dispose of the feeling that the true art lies within the

novel as a highest form of fiction.

Mansfield’s own contribution to the development of the genre of short story lies mainly

in the incorporation of the ideas of Modernism and Literary Impressionism and elaborating on

their adjustment to suit the character of the short story form. As Chantal Cornut-Gentille

D’Arcy points out in her essay on 'Katherine Mansfield’s “Bliss”', Mansfield challenged “all

conventional parameters of nineteenth-century realism constrained to plot, sequential

development, climax and conclusion” (D’Arcy, p.245) and produced a form of short story that

is highly praised for its fluid quality. By cutting out the formal barriers Mansfield opened space

for introduction of the new experimental notions of substituting the plot-based action by

“movements of mind” and employing the streams of consciousness and free indirect discourse

in capturing the fleeting moments of impression and self-recognition. As Harriett Feenstra

concludes in her essay 'Circling the Self' on Mansfield’s genre innovations, it is the very

shortness of the short stories that enables to “create a particular impression” (Feenstra, p.72)

and “encourage the reader to speculate beyond the confines of the text, making connections

with the external world and thereby assuming a mental state similar to that portrayed in the

narration of the stories themselves” (Feenstra, p.66). Therefore, by engaging the potential of

the short story genre Mansfield offers the reader an authentic experience of encountering

character’s essential self captured in a singular moment of being.

17
 In terms of topic of her short stories is Katherine Mansfield considered to be a female

counterpart to Chekhov’s male world. As André Maurois observes in his book Poets and

Prophets:

The world of Tchehov is a male world: the thoughts and the conversations of its inhabitants are

filled with ideas and activities. The world of KM is primarily a feminine world. The house, clothes,

children, women’s cares… are the things that matter. With the household cares she likes to mingle the

feelings of women, their judgements of people, their musings (Maurois, p.239).

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.

18
 3 Writing Style and Narrative Presentation in Short Stories by
Katherine Mansfield

The following chapter will concentrate on the exploration of different methods and

strategies that Katherine Mansfield employed in her writings. It will develop some of the ideas

initiated in the discussion of Mansfield’s sources of inspiration and highlight those aspects that

contributed to the depiction of the complexity of individuals portrayed in Mansfield’s fiction.

According to the discussion from the previous chapters, Mansfield’s methods and

techniques sprang from her inspiration by various literary movements and forms as well as her

reaction to the conditions of contemporary society. In any case, the main interest of Mansfield’s

development of a singular literary voice lies in the initiation of the construction of Mansfieldian

personae designed to communicate the criticism of the era to an attentive reader.

However, in the course of time Mansfield’s stories were often criticized for their

triviality and repetitive patterns. To give an example of such criticism, Chantal Cornut-Gentille

D’Arcy emphasizes Virginia Woolf’s condemnation of Mansfield’s short story “Bliss”:

“Virginia Woolf obviously found this 'surface' feature of the narrative quite disconcerting for

she apparently exclaimed on reading the story: 'She’s done for'… she is content with superficial

smartness… (D’Arcy, p.249). From this moment on, opposing critics fought to justify the

conciseness of Mansfield’s writing style and purposeful familiarity of her themes. William

Herbert New in his work Reading Mansfield And Metaphors Of Form substantiates Mansfield’s

endeavours in his depiction of her being “a clever parodist, a caustic satirist of personal and

public foible” (New, p.14) and Sidney Cox in 'The Fastidiousness of Katherine Mansfield'

articulates the general acclaim of Mansfield’s brevity of expression that praises her “exquisite

truth and economy in depiction of trivial detail” that after all “are not so trivial as the prevailing

assumptions about them” (Cox, p.158).

19
 Moreover, Mansfield’s own approach to writing supposes her devotion to skill and

perfection. In her letter to John Middleton Murry’s brother Richard she states:

'It’s a very queer thing how craft comes into writing. I mean down to details… In Miss

Brill I choose not only the length of every sentence, but even the sound of every sentence. I

choose the rise and fall of every paragraph to fit her, fit her on that day at that very moment'

(Letters and Journals, p.213).

By insisting on constructing a well-crafted voice and inner characteristics that would

reflect the outer presentation of individual characters Mansfield reacted to the general rejection

of traditional and well-constructed forms of the previous century. Edward Wagenknecht

remarks that instead of “forcing her fresh materials into alien molds” Mansfield decided to

come up with “understanding of character, her fresh, unhackneyed presentation, her ability to

observe and to chronicle an astonishing amount of astonishingly real detail which apparently

nobody had observed for literary purposes before her” (Wagenknecht, p.275).

With these and many more literary tools Mansfield succeeded to escape from the

conventional forms of the 19th century and set out on the journey of exploring the new

perspectives of her characters’ lives. Her experimental approach and fascination with

innovative forms of expression are reflected in her letter to Hon. Dorothy Brett where Mansfield

states: “'What form is it?' you ask. Ah, Brett, it’s so difficult to say. As far as I know, it’s more

or less my own invention” (Letters and Journals, p.85).

Thus, apart from her careful attention to literary technique, Mansfield did not succeed

to clearly define her artistic principles. However, while observing her complex work, it is

possible to trace several notion that set the tone of her writings.

First of all, Katherine Mansfield greatly valued the role of literature that aimed not to

function just as “an aesthetic object, nor merely a didactic object, but in addition a creative

object; that of subjecting its readers to a real and at the same time illuminating experience”

20
(Wagenknecht, p.276). Therefore, the prime concern of Mansfield’s short stories is not only to

offer a well-illustrated account of events but also to employ evocative language that hints,

creates tension and leads the reader to a profound understanding of Mansfield’s view of social

aspects. Accordingly, W. H. New points out that Mansfield’s language no longer functions as

“a neutral carrier of determinate propositions but as a deliberate design and a conscious field of

revelation (New, p.63). Through application of certain narrative techniques Mansfield succeeds

in transgressing the traditional division between the text and its reader and leads them to engage

in a constant play of suggesting and interpreting.

However, along with the enigmatic nature of her narratives, Mansfield largely relied on

the familiarity of topics picturing an everyday life. As indicated by both, Sidney Cox and

Helena Furlong, Mansfield attempted to present the new events of her stories as familiar

through “identifying herself with the minds of people whom she wished to portray” (Cox,

p.168). Mansfield stated in one of her letters: “I have tried to make it as familiar to 'you' as it is

to me… one tries to go deep – to speak of the secret self we all have – to acknowledge that”

(qtd. in Furlong, p.91). This quote confirms Mansfield’s interest in the paradoxical notion of

experiencing both - new and familiar at the same time that becomes one of the main devices

triggering the process of reader’s self-identification with her literary characters.

Moreover, according to Mansfield’s interest in the inner life of her characters the reader

is seldom given any outer characteristics. By contrast, Sidney Cox argues that he is challenged

to compile his own portrayal of individuals through the interconnections of “their voices and

silences, their smiles and efforts at composing their faces, their gestures and uncompleted

motions, and all the manifold and contradictory hints of their behavior” (Cox, p.158).

Miroslawa Kubasiewicz elaborates on the notion of reader’s reflective construction and states

that Mansfield guides her readers to “notice the inauthentic behaviour of her characters and, as

a result, become aware how they themselves are conditioned by the objective values imposed

21
on them by society” (Kubasiewicz, p.55). Resolution of Mansfield’s subtle suggestions

therefore enables the reader to perceive the characteristics of the individuals conditioned by the

values of the middle-class world of the early 20th century while supporting the comparison of

reader’s own experience within his time.

In accordance with the Modernist code, both the familiarity and credible portrayal of

Mansfield’s characters are mainly attained through the characterization of individual’s voice.

Being a woman writer and living a female experience in the male-dominated world, Mansfield

focused on depiction of women characters in a style described by Virginia Woolf as “feminine”

(qtd. In Aihong, p.101). W. H. New elaborates on the nature of this specific style and claims

that it is rooted and further developed through specific registers of speech that contribute to

various mindsets of characters and convey “perspectives on [their] class, gender, and age”

(New, p.73).

Moreover, to individualize each of her characters Mansfield employs a wide range of

lexical and grammatical devices that Lawrence Mitchell terms “modernist manifestations of a

'dramaturgy of voice'” (Mitchell, p.5). They include the elements of character’s idiolect as well

as various grammatical tools just as exclamation and repetition used for emphasising, sights,

silences, dots and dashes used to form omissions to be filled by the reader and different

metaphors and symbols that contribute to the enigmatic nature of character’s perception of inner

self.

In addition, an important aspect that manipulates the characteristics of Mansfieldian

voice is its musicality and performativity. W. H. New observes that Mansfield intended to

achieve the effects of scenes “through the conscious choice of prose rhythm” (New, p.55). He

supposes that to read Mansfield’s stories effectively, it is necessary to recognise the singular

power of her word choice and “follow the effects of the structures of rhythm and arrangement”

(New, p.18) that contribute to the animation of character’s inner voice and consciousness.

22
 Another feature of Mansfieldian narrative that contributes to the specific treatment of

its characters is the plotlessness. Opposing the tradition of plot-based stories of the previous

century, Mansfield turns her attention away from the surface and action. Claire Tomalin notices

the influence of Impressionism on Mansfield’s stories in her claim that “there is no plot to speak

of, but a series of impressionistic scenes, and a 'merging into things'…” (Tomalin, p.200).

Therefore, when considering the events in Mansfield’s stories that are based on physical action

and movement, nearly nothing substantial happens. As Samya Achiri remarks in her essay

'Transcendental Selves of Woman Characters in Katherine Mansfield’s “At the Bay”',

Mansfield chooses not to expose her characters physically but “concentrates on the workings

of the mind. It is a criterion which makes the mind the site of action throughout the story” while

employing the “inward vision, or vision within the mind… which reflect the predicaments of

the soul” (Achiri, p.99).

Thus, the most important events within Mansfield’s stories that contribute to an effective

climax are situated and reflected through characters’ minds. As stated in the previous chapter,

singular moments or 'glimpses' of being come from the Impressionistic observation of reality

and in Literary Impressionism follow the function of revelation or epiphany. In Katherine

Mansfield’s work these emphasise the moment of internal change and are an important element

in exploration of the inner self. Following Edward Wagenknecht’s remark that Mansfield’s

plotless stories are based on her own understanding of life, which is arranged into distinct

impressions rather than specific plots (Wagenknecht, p.278), epiphanies become the main

structuring principles in composition of both, direct and indirect narrative of Mansfield’s

stories.

Moreover, the time structuration is another element that affects the reader’s perception

of characters as well as their surrounding. Mansfield deliberately manipulated the time

representation in her short stories to create an illusion of witnessing only a fleeting moment of

23
events in her characters’ full life. Or as Anne Friis notes, “she takes a small section of life and

puts it under the microscope” (Friis, p.167) while such treatment responds to Rober Littell’s

opinion that “the truth is in minutes rather than in years, in the emotion not of a day, but of a

second, in the chill or warmth of a sudden mood…” (Littell, p.166).

In her essay on 'The Elusiveness of Reality' in Katherine Mansfield’s work, Joanna

Kokot emphasizes the usage of praesens historicum that contributes to the recognition of the

instantaneousness of the moment along with the singularity of the stimuli influencing the

character (Kokot, p. 74). The critic also argues that the suspension of time results in suspension

of Mansfield’s world where characters do not develop but only react and dive into the

discussion of the nature of their “true self” (Kokot, p. 74). However, the suspension does not

necessarily create a static portrayal, in contrast, it preserves the ephemeral quality through

engagement of different time shifts disregarding the time order. As Edward Wagenknecht

observes, Mansfield “writes as the mind works” (Wagenknecht, p.279) what contributes to the

natural perception of characters’ thoughts and words as well as the great array of realistic details

that constitute their world.

When it comes to the characterization of the outer sphere it is primarily the use of

distinct details that conveys the formation of Mansfield’s fictional reality. Monika Fludernik in

her work An Introduction to Narratology observes that it is the “superfluity of apparently

pointless details which authenticates the text as realistic” (Fludernik, p.54). The employment

of descriptive passages results in decelerating of the pace of the action and gives space to the

activation of “frames” or “schemes in which one part of the frame evokes the whole thing”

(Fludernik, p.54). Yet under Mansfield’s treatment some of the details gain a very specific

feature – apart from a mere evocation of images they embrace suggestions. Wagenknecht

stresses mainly those subtle reactions or gestures that imply the characteristics of the whole

character (Wagenknecht, p.277), just like Beryl’s biting of her lip in “Prelude” or Mouse’s

24
stroking her muff in “Je ne parle pas français”. Therefore Mansfield’s sensitive writing requires

an equally sensitive reading so that the reader can fully perceive character traits as well as

symbolism hiding under the trivial and familiar surface.

The second part of this chapter introduces the terminology of narratology and explores

the features and methods of constructing narrators and narratives along with other means of

presentation that Katherine Mansfield employed in her works.

According to Monika Fludernik’s conception, narratology is a field of study where the

main objective is to “describe the constants, variables and combinations typical of narrative and

clarify how these connect with the framework of theoretical models” (Fludernik, p.8). Its classic

models adopt the structuralist approach and apply ideas of different theorists, such as Claude

Brémond or Gérard Genette, while the more recent conceptions concentrate on more general

notions of narrative research and narrative theory (Fludernik, p.158).

However, the difficulty of narratological analyses resides in the inconsistency of the

narratological terminology used within the works of different narratologists. Both Mieke Bal

and Monika Fludernik base their narratological strategies on conceptions introduced by their

predecessor narratologists while praising, criticizing and integrating new notions and trends.

To open the narratological discussion, it is important to distinguish the term narrator as

it is the most significant and inseparable aspect of each narrative captured in a textual form.

Fludernik engages terminology of Gérard Genette and distinguishes between two basic types

of narrators – first-person or homodiegetic, where “the narrator is the same person as a

protagonist of the story level” and third-person or heterodiegetic where “the spheres of

existence of narrator and characters are non-dentical” (Fludernik, p.158). Apart from the dual

division there are numerous specific features that different types of narrators may embrace to

gain particularity and uniqueness.

25
 Early in her career Katherine Mansfield accepted that part of Modernist aesthetics which

rejected an authorial narrator that had been a very prominent aspect of the literary production

in the previous century. Authority of “godlike” and “omniscient” narrator that “has an overview

of the entire fictional world, tells the story from on high, as it were, in full knowledge of the

outcome of the complications that exist on the plot level” (Fludernik, p.150) did not suit the

concerns of Mansfield’s expression. She wished to focus on the inner characteristics of her

protagonists and let the reader project their thoughts, views and dreams into a mosaic-like

portrayal. In terms of narratology Mansfield experimented in employment of the restricted third

person point of view through internal focalization, therefore captured “a view from within”

(Fludernik, p.153) while resulting in a specific reflector mode where the “mediacy is not

generated by a narrator but through the consciousness of a reflector character, creating the

illusion of immediacy” (Fludernik, p.160). This method enabled Mansfield to explore the

present moment instead of lingering in the retrospective narration characteristic for the first-

person account and also contributed to the exposition of Mansfieldian personas to the critical

eyes of both, the author and the reader.

Julia van Gunsteren gives an account of different narrative methods explored by

the authors within the movement of Literary Impressionism:

Method with a narrator who pretends to be the character, or a character who serves as a narrator,

or a number of different characters who see reality in different terms. Another method is the complex

device of uncertain or unreliable narration, in which the narrator attempts to discover the truth about his

own experience (Gunsteren, p.19).

In Mansfield’s short stories we can trace all of these methods of narration while some

of her most widely acclaimed stories employ even more experimental method known as

“parallax” presenting “an event or scene as perceived by multiple characters or narrators”

(Gunsteren, p.19). This method, applied in such stories as “Prelude” or “At the Bay” creates the

most fruitful background for exploration of the singular 'slice of life' where according to Joanna

26
Kokot are different impressions and points of view presented and encompassed in an

“incongruous mosaic of incompatible versions of reality that do not complement but rather

exclude one another” (Kokot, p.71).

This great array of different perspectives projected through conscious as well as

unconscious minds of different characters considerably reduces the direct involvement of the

narrator. However, the final composition of Mansfield’s stories flexibly balances the characters’

expression with a subtle commentary as well as colourful and imaginative descriptions from

the part of the observing narrator.

Narrator’s imaginative characteristics of the outer world also contribute to its cinematic

representation. In her essay 'Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Short Story' Gerri Kimber

observes Mansfield’s fascination with the new medium of cinema and reflects her tendency to

imitate this interest in her narratives manipulating “deliberate cinematic impressions” portrayed

through the narrator and his “moving camera, panning across then focusing in, which provides

so many of the stories with their unique 'pictoral' quality” (Kimber, p.16).

Concurrently, the switches between various perceptions of characters are

correspondingly performed on the level of narrative acts. Mansfield uses numerous techniques

to capture the sentiments and positions of her characters, among which there are two methods

that function as a key element in representation of the protagonists’ internal world. Both of

these techniques are characterized in Päivi Kuivalainen’s essay 'Emotions in Narrative: A

Linguistic Study of Katherine Mansfield’s Short Fiction': “Psycho-narration” functioning as the

narrator’s “rendering of characters’ psyches or their non-verbalised thought processes, and free

indirect discourse” where the narrator employs” indirect quotation of the words that the

characters say or think, their verbalised speech or thought” (Kuivalainen).

Both psycho-narration and free indirect discourse respond to the notions of internal

focalization and focus on depiction of the framework of characters within the third person

27
narrative. Moreover, the main purpose of psycho-narration in Katherine Mansfield’s stories is

to report “those feelings or states of consciousness that the character may be unaware of”

(Kuivalainen) and to implicate the inner voice of characters through their idiomatic language

and orthographic marks (Kuivalainen). Psycho-narration is also an important device in

communicating the inner conflict of the characters that triggers the revealing moment of

emotional climax.

Free indirect discourse, on the other hand, represents a compromise between direct and

indirect discourse. It is formed in commentaries of the narrator of the story, though reflected

through the characters’ indirect discourse. Gunsteren points out that its omission of quotation

marks sets free indirect discourse from the narration and serves as a vehicle of stream-of-

consciousness, irony, and epiphany (Gunsteren, p.112).

As Päivi Kuivalainen concludes, both “psycho-narration and free indirect discourse

provide Mansfield with a tool to point out the significant moments in the protagonists’ lives

and separate them from the rest of the narration” (Kuivalainen). Distinct techniques of

narratology are therefore a fundamental element in construction of Mansfieldian “moments of

being” that encompass the inner as well as outer exposition of their protagonists. The following

chapter will explore how these two worlds are interconnected in a universal search of

authenticity and one’s true self.

28
 4 The Construction of an Individual in the Short Stories by
Katherine Mansfield

The aim of the following chapter is to present those means of exposition that Katherine

Mansfield employed in the construction of outer as well as inner lives of her characters. It will

elaborate on some of the methods and techniques presented in the previous chapter and explain

their involvement in the composition of multi-layered individuals related to the conditions of

the surrounding world.

Following the tendencies of Modernism, numerous writers turned from the objective

reality of the outer world and started to focus on depiction of subjective workings of characters’

minds often captured under the influence of extreme situations. Accordingly, Katherine

Mansfield responded to the trend by creating troublesome characters trapped in troublesome

moments. As Nancy Gray remarks in her essay ' Un-Defining the Self in the Stories of Katherine

Mansfield', she seized the opportunity to depict the complexity of human beings while

portraying both, their attachment as well as freeing from convention (Gray, p.79).

It could be therefore argued that the primary concern of Mansfield’s short stories lies in

depicting the conflict between the individuals and the society. Though instead of direct

confrontation with society’s obstructions Mansfield chooses a much subtler presentation where

different aspects of the story hint and suggest rather than state the problematic nature of

Mansfield’s characters and surroundings. For instance, many conflicts originate from the

inauthentic pattern of life that characters adopt and are required to follow. Miroslawa

Kubasiewicz observes that most of Mansfield’s characters do not realize they “have the right to

change their perspective and enjoy their existence with new meaning” (Kubasiewicz, p.59).

Instead, they conform to the expected patterns of behaviour issued by their upbringing that

represses most of the prospects of independent deeds and thinking. As Katherine Mansfield’s

29
prior interest lies in portraying the women characters, the faults of upbringing are mainly

reflected in women’s victimized position within authoritarian male world. The cases of the

governess in “The Little Governess” or Mouse in “Je ne parle pas français” may serve as an

example of victimization where the influence of convention resulted in the creation of child-

like women suffering from inability of escaping the naivety of judgement and narrow-

mindedness of thinking.

However, even the women that find the determination to fight convention are doomed

to fail as they are not able to abandon the familiar grounds. Julia van Gunsteren emphasizes the

fact that it is not only the condition within society that creates the tension, it is a combination

of factors along with the nature of characters themselves, as each “individual should be

responsible for himself at least to a certain extent; it he fails there must be something wrong in

his personality” (Gunsteren, p.23). Thus, in most cases heroines suppress the inner voices

characterized by John Warson as the bearers of “negative messages, telling Isabel (“Prelude”)

that she is 'shallow, tinkling, vain'… and Bertha (“Bliss”) that she is 'so cold'”. Instead of

performing a change in their lives Mansfieldian women often succumb to the idea of comfort

and stability provided by the old, convention-bound world.

Nevertheless, the presence of a conflict remains the main inspiration of Katherine

Mansfield that resonates throughout her short stories. It operates on many different levels

affecting the images, behaviour, thoughts as well as language of the characters.

In case of language, Mansfield employs various lexical and grammatical devices to

attain both, experimentation with prose sound and individualization of voice that were

discussed in the previous chapter and expression of social influence that is closely related to the

conditioning of Mansfieldian individuals by society. Through the speech as well as thoughts it

is possible to trace the impact of the background on the means of the character’s expression. It

often lacks clarity and abounds with repetition, exaggeration and affective expressions.
30
 Comparably important in Mansfield’s writings are also the moments of silence. As

Chantal Cornut-Gentille D’Arcy points out, Mansfield’s characters are often unable to

“verbalize [their] state of mind – to give full expression to [their] emotions” what leaves them

“marginalized or alienated from a culture (and language) which cannot accommodate such

feelings” (D’Arcy, p.252). They often find themselves wordless in the buzz of voices

surrounding them, though it does not mean that the lack of expression would signify their

defeat. William Herbert New proposes that Mansfieldian women deprived of the language are

often prone to communicate by other means (New, p.80), often embedded in character’s

unconsciousness.

Moreover, the silence of characters is often accompanied with the feeling of stillness

that according to Gunsteren functions as one of the “most fundamental elements in Literary

Impressionist fiction”, whose characters, despite the petrified state of body and language

employ very “active, restless consciousness” (Gunsteren, p.53). These characters “passively

absorb a bewildering flood of an outside world moving in a constant flux” while they often find

“a 'creative synthesis' in passive perception and final 'active conception'” (Gunsteren, p.53). In

case of the Mansfieldian characters, another very important element that contributes to the

awakening of the inner voice and consciousness is the solitude. Being in a state of isolation

from the rest of the public enables the protagonists to leave their roles designed by society,

escape the illusion of unity and ponder upon the nature of their true identity that is often

impossible to communicate in words.

Nevertheless, Kubasiewicz remarks that for Mansfield’s women characters “escaping

the roles imposed by society is a heroic task, which not everybody can face up to”

(Kubasiewicz, p.59). In order to pull women characters out of their routines and expose them

to the process of individuation, Mansfield constructs various critical situations that constitute

31
the evocative images of revelations, moments of awareness in which the character achieves an

epiphany - a new realization.

The epiphany is characteristic for its lucidity and subjective nature of judgement of own

individuality independent from the influence of character’s family or society. Katherine

Mansfield discusses the nature of epiphany in her journal:

…moment of suspension [where] the whole life of the soul is contained. One is flung up – out

of life – one is 'held', and then, - down, bright, broken, glittering on to the rocks, tossed back, part of the

ebb and flow (Journal, p.148).

Mansfield employs epiphanies to bring her characters as well as the story itself to a

climatic state. Through this technique Mansfield creates narrative spaces that might be equated

with Mieke Bal’s term slow-downs characterized as small sections of narrative with “extremely

evocative effect” that “at moments of great suspense… work like a magnifying glass” (Bal,

p.107). Correspondingly, epiphanies function as moments of spatialisation where, as Renata

Casertano states, “the subject… is no longer perceived as temporal or time-bound but as space-

bound and a-temporal” (Casertano, p.100). The timeless suspension causes that the external

conflict is replaced with internal crisis which is according to Nancy Gray neither explained nor

elaborated within the compressed space but its role is to “enact the experience of its happening”

(Gray, p.79).

However, the revelation inflicted through epiphanies does not function as a solution or

answer to character’s internal struggle. Cornut-Gentille D’Arcy observes that the “moment of

being” typically serves the contrary as it is “a point of maximum conflict that marks the denial

of a solution” (D’Arcy, p.266). Therefore the characters are restrained from a conversion that

would encompass their newly uncovered individuality. After the moment passes most of the

characters resume their old roles, just as in the case of Raoul from “Je ne parle pas français” or

32
Millie from “The Man Without a Temperament”. Other characters are similarly to Berta from

“Bliss” abandoned by Mansfield at the moment of climax and the reader does not learn how

they managed to cope with the critical situation, however, he can often guess that security and

familiarity of their present life will prevail and discourage them from aspiring for a change. The

third type of epiphany, represented by Linda Burnell, functions more like a portrayal of a single

reflective moment that sheds light on the state of Linda’s inner self, torn between the demands

of society and her own dreams.

Consequently, the role-playing remains the most important part of each character’s

personality. As their true self proves to be unsuitable for public consumption, Mansfield’s

heroines regain their roles of wives, mothers and ornaments to their husband’s lives that are the

few public identities Mansfieldian women are allowed to impersonate. Harriett Feenstra

observes Mansfield’s identification of role-playing as “one of the key social strategies” where

different characters “assume roles in relation to particular social context” (Feenstra, p.64). She

also emphasizes the notion of fragmentation of one’s identity as a response to impotence of

reaching authenticity and satisfaction. Mansfield’s characters are therefore presented from

various levels of their selves as a direct consequence of performing different roles imposed by

the demands of society as well as their inner struggle for recognition and change.

Yet one of the best demonstrations of the complexity of the characters’ selves is

embedded in the portrayal of children. Rosemary Jackson praises Mansfield’s depiction of

children’s inner life that blends “with reality more freely than adults, who are conversely more

alert to the objectivity of facts and the potential distortions deriving from perceptions and

references” (Jackson, p.45). It is mainly through children’s games that Mansfield reflects the

subconscious awareness of social roles as the children observe and practice the entangled social

structures of the adults. Moreover, Edward Wagenknecht perceives the negative consequence

these structures impose on Mansfield’s children as they are “generally lovely, sensitive

33
innocents” who are trapped in a pitiful endeavour “to adjust themselves to a coarse world

constructed by adults to suit themselves” (Wagenknecht, p.282). Children in Katherine

Mansfield’s stories therefore function as very attentive perceivers of the conditions of the

surrounding society and intermingle their open minds and simple perception of things with the

harshness of reality of everyday life.

Nevertheless, it is not Katherine Mansfield’s interest to construct a true-to-life portrayal

of the society of early 20th century. She always chooses to experiment, hint and suggest and

create a mere fleeting image of her characters’ world. It is up to the reader to materialize the

bricks constituting the inner and outer spheres and come up with interpretation of the character’s

endeavours. Thus as Miroslawa Kubasiewicz observes, Mansfield’s short stories “tell us as

much, if not more, about who we are as they do about the characters who exist in the world of

her fiction” (Kubasiewicz, p.59).

The main focus of the following chapter will be the analysis of the particular notions,

techniques and methods explored in the previous chapters within the content of the selected

short stories from Bliss and Other Stories collection.

34
 5 Analysis of Selected Short Stories from the Collection Bliss and
Other Stories

The last chapter of the thesis focuses on Katherine Mansfield’s collection Bliss and

Other Stories and provides a textual analysis of selected short stories serving as an illustration

of the methods and techniques explored in the theoretical part of the thesis.

Katherine Mansfield’s collection Bliss and Other Stories, compiled and published in

1920, comprises of fourteen short stories written between years 1915 and 1920. Many of the

stories are among the most widely acclaimed and recognised works of Mansfield that

demonstrate the originality and creative genius of the author. For the sake of the thesis this

chapter will mainly concentrate on three specific works – “Bliss”, “Prelude” and “Je ne parle

pas français” as these writings are of the greatest relevance to the topic of the thesis while

offering the clearest presentation of Mansfield’s intentions, encompassing the greatest range of

narrative styles and suggesting the characterization of distinct Mansfieldian character types.

5.1 Analysis of “Bliss”

The short story “Bliss”, whose name inheres also in the title name of the whole

collection Bliss and Other Stories, is one of the most intense and expressional works. During

the course of the century the story had been widely discussed by many critics from different

points of view while emphasizing the complexity of the mood and feeling and contrast between

the familiarity of modern conventional family circle and the intensity of the inner experience

of the main protagonist Bertha.

At the opening of the story Mansfield uses the technique known as in medias res that is

widely employed within the Modernist works as well as Mansfield’s own writings. Instead of

the traditional introductory sequences providing the reader with the descriptions and

35
background information Mansfield chooses to plunge right in the middle of her heroine’s day,

thoughts and feelings. This notion corresponds with Mansfield’s ambition to depict the

singularity and instantaneousness of the moment drawn from the protagonists’ full life. Gerri

Kimber likens this notion to the beginning of a theatre play as it is “cutting straight through to

the action, from the very first line, as if a stage direction is being given, with the use of temporal

constructions implying a prior knowledge of the event being described” (Kimber, p.15).

Moreover, despite the absence of the outer description of the main character, in medias res

technique thrusts the reader directly into Bertha’s present feeling and immediately initiates the

construction of her inner self that later reacts to the impulses of outer circumstances and reflect

the portrayal of Bertha’s characteristics. Mansfield’s economic treatment of words causes that

the reader learns much about Bertha’s mental state from the few initiatory lines:

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… What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own

street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss—absolute bliss! (Bliss, p.49).

The initial capitalized particle suggests that Bertha’s thoughts and feelings are

exceptional and in contrast to society’s expectations of the behaviour of a 30-year-old woman.

Bertha is instantly presented as a child-woman who has not yet crossed the borders of her

childhood to reach maturity as an adult. Instead, she lingers in an imaginative and playful world

where, according to Ala Eddin Sadeq “her benumbing sense of elation” is expressed “in a

manner similar to that of a child when given a precious gift or playing with other children in a

playground and feeling innocently happy” (Sadeq, p.17). Correspondingly, Bertha’s childish

nature is prone to hypersensibility and spontaneity, while engaging in exaggerated and sensual

perception of the surrounding world. The reader encounters Bertha in a state where her vivacity

is heightened by the feeling of 'bliss' that brightens everything and everyone and makes Bertha’s

36
thoughts burst with energy and indefinable desires. The incommunicability of Bertha’s feelings

is reflected in the chains of thoughts where Bertha tries to describe the joy through the

imaginative actions of her mind: “throwing something up in the air…” and “laugh[ing] at –

nothing—at nothing, simply” (Bliss, p.49). The elusiveness of the thoughts later compels Berta

to filter her inner sensations through different means, hence Bertha switches her attention to the

sensual perception and praises the colours, textures, smells and sights accompanied by

seemingly banal actions of arranging fruits and matching their colour with the colour of the

dining-room carpet and squeezing and ordering pillows for upcoming dinner party.

Apart from the point of view of Bertha that bursts with dynamic responses, the reader is

also provided with the subtle observations of the omnipresent narrator that sympathetically

comments on Bertha’s situation. At the beginning of the story the narrator speaks directly to

the reader while posing the question “What can you do if you are thirty…” (Bliss, p.49) and

facing a similar situation to that of Bertha. This notion evokes the direct involvement of the

reader who is positioned between Bertha and the all-framing conventional society of which

Bertha is uncomfortably aware.

While observing Bertha’s thoughts and utterances Mansfield introduces two faces

acknowledged by her heroine. One is linked with Bertha’s revealing sensitive inner self and the

other with Bertha’s response to the surrounding world. Through subtle hints and Bertha’s

dialogues with her maid and nanny the narrator defines Bertha’s social status of a middle class

housewife, mother and hostess. The performance of these roles that are predefined and imposed

by society functions as a repayment for Bertha’s illusionary securities of a loving husband,

lovely child, safe home and close friends that constitute society’s definition of a happy life.

Miroslawa Kubasiewicz points out that Bertha adheres to the belief of being in control of her

life as she does not tend to question any aspect of her present situation (Kubasiewicz, p.58)

37
what leads to even greater shock at the very end of the story when Bertha learns about Harry’s

infidelity.

According to Ala Eddin Sadeq is Bertha “trained from an early stage in her life to adjust

to the reality of being patronized by the male members of her society in return for a luxurious

and irresponsible way of living” (Sadeq, p.18). However, despite the supposed obligation that

comprises part of this role, Bertha’s mind occasionally reveals a resentful standpoint towards

society and its demands. In her state of childish exhilaration Bertha criticizes civilisation as

“idiotic” as it does not approve of any intensified feelings and categorically condemns Bertha’s

expression as “drunk and disorderly” (Bliss, p.49). Moreover, Bertha’s inability to find an

appropriate response to her feelings is occasionally exhibited in a form of laughter which is

instantly quieted by Bertha’s role-playing self in fear of society’s condemnation of being

hysterical. Bertha’s 'bliss' is therefore very soon associated with hysteria which is in Bobby

Seal’s article 'Gender, Truth and Reality: The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield'

characterized as a “product of an unresolved conflict between unconscious impulses and

conscious ones” that results from “the repression of one’s sexual feelings, which society of that

time demanded of all, but especially of women…” (Seal).

The demand of repressive behaviour confuses and angers Bertha who exclaims: “Why

be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?” (Bliss, p.49).

But at the critical moment when Bertha actually starts considering the question and formulating

her own opinion, her indirect speech becomes scattered, full of hesitations and dashes: “No,

that about the fiddle is not exactly what I mean… It’s not what I mean because- …” (Bliss,

p.49) and ends up disrupted by a banal task of opening the front door.

In her childish predisposition Bertha decides to repress those aspects of her social roles

that require mature dealing, just like exerting superiority in an episode of negotiation with the

nanny:
38
 Bertha wanted to ask if it wasn’t rather dangerous to let [Little B] clutch at a strange dog’s ear.

But she did not dare to. She stood watching them, her hands by her side, like the poor little girl in front

of the rich little girl with the doll (Bliss, p.50).

Child-like Bertha feels threatened by the self-confident nanny even though she realises

the irrationality of the situation. She exclaims: “How absurd it was. Why have a baby if it has

to be kept—not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle—but in another woman’s arms?” (Bliss, p.51).

It seems that the only motivation that impels Bertha to gather her strength and oppose the nanny

is the exceptional 'bliss' she feels that day.

Even better illustration of Bertha’s confusion between repressing and performing of

behaviour within her social roles is presented in her attitude towards love and sexuality. Both

in her speech and thought reports is she unable to express her feelings for Harry. After rushing

to the telephone to talk to him Bertha craves to express her state of mind, however it is

convention as well as her inexperience that discourage the articulation of her thoughts: “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!” (Bliss, p.51). As Chantal Cornut-

Gentille D’Arcy points out, “behind [Bertha’s] discourse lies the dominant ideology of a

'civilization' that suppresses such embarrassingly feminine notions as bliss to the sphere of the

unpresentable” (D’Arcy, p.257). Therefore, instead of acknowledging her inner tension to her

husband Bertha becomes even more concerned and regresses to masking her words with those

of a foreign language: “Nothing. Entendu” (Bliss, p.51).

Bertha’s weakness is also embedded in constant affirmations that her performance

within society bears the respective fruit. Her anxiety and submissiveness are reflected through

the patters of her speech that conclude repetitions and colloquial exaggerations: “Really—

really—she had everything. She was young. Harry and she were as much in love as ever, and

they got on together splendidly and were really good pals…” (Bliss, p.51). The unconvincing

39
character of the utterance where the couple drops from being “much in love” to being “really

good pals” resonates with the fact that Bertha struggles with her incapability of passionate

marital love: “It had worried her dreadfully at first to find that she was so cold…” (Bliss, p.57).

Child-woman Bertha feels embarrassed and constricted in her adult married life as her childish

nature cannot perform the mature form of love anticipated by the society. As William Herbert

New observes:

rather than partners, the men in [Mansfield’s] stories appear to want their wives to be at once

mothers and obedient children… whom they consequently feel they have the right to draw from and

ignore at will, while going on with the status quo (New, p.133).

Consequently, Bertha lingers in her childishness and submissiveness and openly terms

her relationship with Harry as a companionship while praising their mutual frankness and

modernity.

Bertha’s critical experience of 'bliss' might function as a breaking point and the moment

of maturation as “for the first time in her life Bertha Young desired her husband” (Bliss, p.57).

Nevertheless, the actual meaning and notion behind the phrase remains hidden as there are

several possible explanations of Bertha’s sudden revelation. Another explanation suggests that

Bertha finally succumbed to the pressure of society and decided to serve her husband in every

aspect while degrading into the status termed by D’Arcy as “woman-as-commodity”

functioning “within an oppressive patriarchal system… which reduces woman to a mere

instrument for man’s sexual and emotional pleasure within the family and private life” (D’Arcy,

p.255). On the other hand, Walter E. Anderson in his essay 'The Hidden Love Triangle in

Mansfield’s “Bliss”' offers an interpretation that introduces an unconventional love triangle of

feminine love between Bertha and her guest Pearl Fulton while attempting to transfer Bertha’s

unconscious feelings for Pearl into the conventional relationship with her husband (Anderson,

p.402). In any case, it is equally important to consider the ardent and juvenile quality of

40
Bertha’s affections as she “always did fall in love with beautiful women” (Bliss, p.51).

Therefore, an actual alternation of Bertha’s perception of her own sexuality and position within

the domestic circle cannot be fully realised until the climactic moment revealing Harry’s

adulterous relationship with Miss Fulton.

Both Harry Young and Pearl Fulton are presented from Bertha’s subjective point of

view thrilled with admiration as well as certain amount of intimacy. Harry as a husband and

breadwinner occupies the core position in Bertha’s world and accordingly to Bertha bears the

juvenile features associated with his surname 'Young' while embracing various boyish features

and interests, just as his “passion for fighting – for seeking in everything that came up against

him another test of his power and of his courage” (Bliss, p.54). Bertha approves of his youthful

“zest for life” (Bliss, p.54), playfulness as well as his sensual lust for beauty and food while

letting herself naively mislead by Harry’s two-facedness. As a godly patriarch figure Harry

searches for sexual satisfaction outside his marital bed and subsequently usurps his right to rule

both heavenly entities letting Bertha, the blissful Sun, serve him by the day and Pearl Fulton

representing the Moon attend the nights.

Lunar Pearl Fulton functions as a contrastive as well as equivalent figure to Bertha and

represents the element of newness and mystery in the life of the main protagonist. Similarly to

Bertha, Pearl is also portrayed as a dreamer inclined to sentimentalism, dressed in silver-white

to celebrate the beauty of spring and symbolism of Bertha’s pear tree. However, contrastively

to Bertha’s energy and impulsiveness Miss Fulton is depicted as a reflective figure with sleepy

eyelids surrounded by secrets and whispers. The smoothness of her expression resonates with

Pearl’s own name as well as her fair complexion that is also in a sharp contrast with Bertha’s

assumingly darker appearance, judging from Little B’s dark hair and Harry’s deceptive

accusation of dullness of all blonde women.

41
 Within the course of the short story the influence of Miss Fulton brings sparks of dispute

and excitation to the lives of both Harry and Bertha and launches the critical situation by fanning

Bertha’s blissful state by the new waves of secrecy and mystique, while concurrently disturbing

the illusion of perfection and completeness of her life. The central struggle within Bertha’s

mind is centred on her desire to decipher and telepathically reach Pearl’s mind resulting from

the observation of her enigmatic way of perceiving:

…she lived by listening rather than seeing. But Bertha knew, suddenly, as if the longest, most

intimate look had passed between them – as if they had said to each other: “You too?”—that Pearl

Fulton… was feeling just as she was feeling (Bliss, p.54).

The image of Bertha’s dreamed-of connection between women is also embedded in the

symbolism of the pear tree situated in Bertha’s garden. Her fascination with the perfection and

exquisite beauty of its rich flowering branches induces Bertha to equate its existence with her

own: “As she seemed to see on her eyelids the lovely pear tree with its wide open blossoms as

a symbol of her own life” (Bliss, p.52). Therefore, when Pearl enters the frame and engages in

her own observation of the tree Bertha projects her involvement into the imagery:

And the two women stood side by side looking at the slender, flowering tree. Although it was

so still it seemed, like the flame of a candle to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air, to grow

taller and taller as they gazed—almost to touch the rim of the round, silver moon (Bliss, p.56).

At his moment Bertha’s supposed spiritual identification with Pearl reaches its peak.

However, the climactic end of the story brings both, shattering of the pear tree imagery as well

as disillusionment of the perfection of Bertha’s world. After witnessing Harry’s passionate

response to Pearl, Bertha runs to the pear tree in a search of response to her concurrent state but

finds none as the tree responds only to nature and not to emotion while remaining “lovely as

ever and as full of flower and as still” (Bliss, p.58). As Bobby Seal points out, after the ending

lines the reader is left to judge the situation of both, Bertha as well as Pearl. He observes that

42
“Pearl’s position is perhaps even more precarious than Bertha’s. She relies on her youth and

looks – qualities which are by their very nature ephemeral – to attract powerful men such as

Harry”. Therefore, Pearl’s own private world with Harry cannot last very much longer than that

of Bertha as sooner or later it becomes a subject of the critique of society and its regulations.

Moreover, apart from its omnipresent restrictions and obligations, the influence of the

early 20th century society is also mockingly presented through the observation of the remaining

guests at Bertha’s dinner-party. On the one hand, Bertha claims to be delighted with their

acquaintance and describes them as “modern, thrilling friends, writers and painters and poets

or people keen on social questions” (Bliss, p.52). But after the arrival of her guests Bertha sees

them only as a decorative group along with the fruits and furniture and does not care to pay

much attention to their utterances. The group proves to bear features of conformity as the reader

is often left without signification of who says what and can only guess the speakers by observing

specific speech patterns employed by different characters, just like the heavily emphasized and

exaggerated speech of Eddie Warren imitating the upper-class recitation or fashionable terms

employed by the Norman Knights.

After all, the opinions of the group prove to bear the same “superficial pettiness” that

according to Todd Martin characterizes the group as people “who take pleasure in mocking the

bourgeoisie, even as they become mere caricatures of the artists they hope to be” (Martin, p.76).

Besides, it can be observed that all guests along with Bertha suffer from the similar delusion –

while thinking of themselves as originals and intellectually superior they all comprise the same

frame, speak the same languages and bend to the same conventions. Even Bertha soon submits

to the influence and employs similar language and behaviour to that of her guests.

Nevertheless, the frivolous conversations between the members of the dinner-party

serve just as a parodying backdrop and a comic counterpart to the dramatic tension that

accumulates within Bertha’s inner world. Also the restricted plot of the story that is narrowed
43
down to the description of banal domestic duties gives space to the workings of Bertha’s mind

that is full of drama and richness, “waiting for something… divine to happen” (Bliss, p.50)

while manipulating the temporal presentation and focusing of the strongest revealing moments

whose strengthening and suspension contributes to the final climactic epiphany. According to

the words of Nancy Gray, in “Bliss” the heroine as well as the reader are left “empty-handed at

the point where we would expect to have gathered the story’s threads into whole cloth” (Gray,

p.82). Story’s epiphany comes with the revelation of Harry’s infidelity, which contrastively

does not contribute to the denouement of Bertha’s situation but brings a new crisis that alters

every aspect of Bertha’s life. As Tom Holmes observes, at the moment of epiphany “[Bertha’s]

world and the reader’s world have become decentralized. The reader now has to re-read, or

reflect, and Bertha has to re-experience her whole story, or married life, again” (Holmes, p.8).

However, through Bertha’s cry: “Oh, what is going to happen now?” (Bliss, p.58)

Mansfield expresses not only heroine’s betrayal but also the possibility of awakening as along

with Harry’s disloyalty the critical event also reveals the falseness of the whole concept of

modern society ruled by pretention and hypocrisy. Bertha is therefore given a chance to

reconsider her situation and acknowledge the absurdity of civilization that forces her to repress

her true self and determines her identity by expectations of her husband’s world.

Another discussion of succumbing as well as revolting against the rules of society is

opened in Mansfield’s short story “Prelude” which offers a greater range of distinct characters

while capturing their original ways of perceiving and reflecting that comprise the inner part of

their characteristics. The following subchapter focuses on analysis of those aspects of the

Burnell family members that contribute to the creation as well as presentation of distinctive

Mansfieldian character types while comparing them to those discussed in the analysis of

“Bliss”.

44
5.2 Analysis of “Prelude”

Katherine Mansfield’s primary intention while working on “Prelude” was to turn it into

a novel Aloe that would trace down her childhood memories of New Zealand country life. The

opening part, later named “Prelude”, was to serve as an introduction, but Mansfield’s inability

to compose a longer piece resulted in cutting the original script into a shorter story that became

a part of the collection Bliss and Other Stories, while the original unfinished version remained

hidden from the public until Mansfield’s death and was published as Aloe by John Middleton

Murry in 1930.

In “Prelude” Katherine Mansfield opens a very private set of subjects as the story bears

strong autobiographical features. The Burnell household comprises of very similar characters

to those inhabiting Mansfield’s family circle in New Zealand, including Mansfield’s

grandmother, parents, aunt Belle (Beryl), siblings and servants as well as young Kezia that

represents Katherine Mansfield herself. To create a truthful portrayal of familiar background

and to capture the varying perceptions of different members of the Burnell household,

Mansfield employed a very specific technique known as parallax that presents a singular event

through several different viewpoints while composing a kaleidoscopic image of unique versions

of reality. The resulting portrayal of a 'slice of life' is in this case affranchised from any

climactic experience and the lengthy fragments of the story are simply interwoven in a structure

resembling the flow of a real-life experience. Similarly to “Bliss”, each fragment of the story

begins in a swift in medias res opening where the scene seems to run for some time before the

reader gets an actual glimpse of it. Therefore, the narrator does not usually involve in presenting

the scene and the protagonists but takes them for granted while challenging the reader to collect

relevant details and create a synthesis of the mosaic-like narrative.

45
 “Prelude” consists of distinctive fragments that are numbered and subsequently divided

in a clock-like manner into twelve uneven episodes. The length of fragments differs and relates

to the fact that the manner of perception of the time flow responds to the age and character of

each protagonist. While lengthy reveries of Linda seem to take for hours, Stanley’s energetic

nature reflects his activities in mere instances.

Whereas reading the story as a whole, the reader may unify distinct fragments through

repeated appearances of symbolic objects or activities. However, the primary function of the

story does not lay in unifying but contrasting the individual attitudes of major as well as minor

characters. As Don W. Kleine points out, “all these Burnells meet in cryptic bondage to each

other, yet their respective solitudes are absurd, distressing, and more ultimate. Their lives

together seem based on a vital misunderstanding” (Kleine, p.205). The glimpses of the lives of

family members depicted in “Prelude” are affected and conditioned by numerous aspects

including the inner conditioning of the age and gender but also the outer influence of society

that dictates the roles and forms and deepens the abyss between the generations and social types

of the members of Burnell family, their servants and friends.

One of the most highly praised accomplishments of Katherine Mansfield is her ability

to capture the world of children. By treating children individually and focusing on their unique

way of perceiving as well as understanding and projecting of things and events Mansfield

creates a counterpart to the uniform depiction of children in the previous era. As Delphine

Soulhat points out in her essay 'Kezia in Wonderland', the depiction of children

remains close to Edwardian writing and preoccupations by staging the marvellous adventures

of children as an escapist strategy leading to carefree moments. Yet she qualifies such bright evocations

of the mental landscape of childhood by considering this space as liminal, situated between bright

naivety and darker prospects, and this gives her text a distinctly modernist tone (Soulhat, p.104).

46
 Therefore, Mansfield’s experimentation with Modernist engagement of inner life and

psychology of characters is intermingled with her interest in the workings of children’s mind

while functioning as a mirror of both - innocence which is the original feature of children’s

world and corruption that indicates and magnifies the influence of society. It is the purity of

perception and inevitability of its contamination that fascinate Mansfield, who pays her children

and child-women much more attention and respect to anyone else.

In “Prelude” the representative figure that introduces the beauties as well as hardships

of childhood is Mansfield’s alter ego Kezia. Within the course of the story the reader is granted

permission to enter her mind and thoughts and follow her footsteps while exploring Burnell

houses and garden. In the meantime, the point of view of the little girl is carefully tailored to

reflect a true-to-life experience of a child captured within the wilderness of New Zealand nature

as well as harsh restricting world of adults.

To create a realistic portrait of Kezia’s perception, Mansfield insists on low-angled

perspective and corresponding diminution of the size of the focalizer and magnification of the

proportions of surrounding scenery. According to Mieke Bal’s explanation, the perception “is

a psychosomatic process, strongly dependent on the position of the perceiving body”, therefore

“a small child sees things different ways from an adult, if only as far as measurements are

concerned” (Bal, p.142). The reader is encouraged to face the grandness of the giant men-

servants, “immense plates of bread and dipping” (Bliss, p.3) or the height of “Japanese

sunflowers gr[owing] in a tiny jungle” (Bliss, p.15). Moreover, Kezia’s vision is to a great

extent determined by her selection of details that are to be explored and emotionally processed.

Lengthy passages of descriptions are thus presented not only to create a certain background to

the story but they serve as a place of interaction and emotional projection of the child’s inner

world:

47
 On one side [the paths] all led into a tangle of tall dark trees and strange bushes with flat velvet

leaves and feathery cream flowers that buzzed with flies when you shook them—this was the frightening

side, and no garden at all. The little paths here were wet and clayey with tree roots spanned across them

like the marks of big fowls’ feet (Bliss, p.15).

To emphasise the imaginative power of Kezia’s perception the narrator contrasts the

internal focalization of children to the external commentary. While Kezia’s glance out of the

window is that of kaleidoscopic nature through the coloured glass: “Kezia bent down to have

one more look at a blue lawn with blue arum lilies… and then at a yellow lawn with yellow

lilies and a yellow fence” (Bliss, p.4), narrator’s depictions function as a more plain and

pragmatic bridging between the fractions of the story. An important aspect characterising

children’s perception is thus coined in “sensorial filters” that according to Delphine Soulhat

have the power to “magnify colours and sounds, which render the children’s experience of

hyper-sensitivity” (Soulhat, p.101).

The state of heightened vividness that has already been explored in Bertha’s story, is in

the case of Kezia similarly sparkled by the notions of rich and colourful imagination that equals

the world of fantasy to that of reality: “Through a square hall filled with bales and hundreds of

parrots (but the parrots were only on the wall-paper) down a narrow passage where the parrots

persisted in flying past Kezia with her lamp” (Bliss, p.6). It is just one of the numerous instances

where Mansfieldian characters engage the fairy tale manner of applying zoomorphic and

anthropomorphic features to every-day objects. Kezia keeps seeing her surrounding in a lively

way, perceiving the lamp as “the bright breathing thing” (Bliss, p.6) and the starry sky as

“hundreds of black cats with yellow eyes” (Bliss, p.9) while employing typical child language,

described by Monika Fludernik as a “portrayal of a figural point of view since it has

connotations of lack of knowledge of the world, naivety, innocence and the like” (Fludernik,

p.71).

48
 Along with the creation of her fantasy world, Kezia is also the one that sets its rules.

However, a critical situation emerges when children’s world collides with that of adults or when

the reality of life proves to be irreversible. The best example of such critical notion is offered

in the episode with the killing of the duck. After chopping off the duck’s head narrator observes

that nearly all children “were frightened no longer” (Bliss, p.23) as their wonder and surprise

prevailed and they no more associate the duck with the living and moving animal but perceive

it as a new object. Kezia, on the other hand, senses the pervasion of the unfamiliar notion of

death and shrieks in despair: “Put head back!” (Bliss, p.23) as if it was possible to reverse the

event but impossible to end up in a non-existence. Such reaction suggests Kezia’s gradual

maturation, as according to Delphine Soulhat she “feels fate as ominous, and this is nothing but

an intuition of death” (Soulhat, p.107). Narrator’s commentary that “the white duck did not

look as if it had ever had a head when Alice placed it in front of Stanley Burnell that night”

(Bliss, p.25) closes the episode and shatters Kezia’s illusion of purity and permanency of

childhood and life.

The infiltration of the world of adults into that of children is mainly visible in the scenes

of children’s games and role-playing. These scenes are generally composed as imitations of the

conversations that children overheard among adults:

“How is your husband?”… “Oh, he is very well, thank you. At least he had an awful cold but

Queen Victoria—she’s my godmother, you know—sent him a case of pineapples and that cured it im—

mediately. Is that your new servant?” (Bliss, p.19).

Despite the humorous, nearly grotesque character of children’s tea-party, the game

offers a significant reflection of the nature of the contemporary society. As Harriett Feenstra

puts it, children’s game projects their subconscious awareness “that various social roles entail

particular speech patterns and behavioural codes” (Feenstra, p.64). Moreover, the linguistic

imitation of social barriers also bears the role of criticism of the values and conventions of

49
society. The game serves as a premonition for little Burnell girls who will soon became

society’s members and inherit the duties and restrictions that accompany particular roles.

According to the rules in the Mansfieldian world, it is a moment of crisis that brings the

changes and revelation within characters’ conscious mind. In “Prelude” the principal crisis does

not have climactic features as that in “Bliss” but arrives at the very beginning of the story when

the Burnell household experiences the uprooting of the family circle and moving into a new

house in the countryside. Each character perceives this situation differently while the individual

responses to the situation are recorded in distinctive accounts interwoven into the structure of

the narrative. Burnell children are challenged to explore the new surrounding as “everything

familiar was left behind” and “everything looked different” (Bliss, p.5). They are displaced and

destabilized and to regain the balance they have to adapt to the new place and its roles.

However, the situation of the Burnells is eased by the presence of Kezia’s grandmother

who functions as an intercepting figure for all members of the household. According to Todd

Martin “Mrs. Fairfield represents the Victorian woman and the perceived cultural stability

which that presumes” (Martin, p.80). She is the practical and patient mind of the family who

holds the whole circle together: “It was hard to believe that she had not been in that kitchen for

years; she was so much part of it” (Bliss, p.13) More than direct insights into the character’s

mind, the reader is offered her various portrayals constructed by her daughters and

granddaughters whose personalities usually stand in a sharp contrast to that of Mrs Fairfield.

Despite being fairly established in their social roles, sisters Beryl and Linda bear only

very little of the feminine features of a nurturer or caretaker. Thus instead of following the

example of their mother, both women prefer to engage in day-dreaming and abstract thoughts

while embracing the roles of the “two opposing versions of late Victorian womanhood - one

constrained by marriage and the other desiring it” (Martin, p.80). Regardless of the constant

interactions between the two sisters and their preoccupation with seeing and being seen, they
50
do not understand each other’s perspectives and remain alienated – Linda being “mysterious as

ever” (Bliss, p.29) and Beryl engaged in an egocentric observation.

While occupying the role of a romantic husband-seeker, Beryl believes that her

withdrawal from the urban area drastically reduces her chances for finding a respectable man

and happiness in life. Living alongside her married sister, Beryl is inclined to constant

questioning of her own position and prospects. According to Miroslawa Kubasiewicz, Beryl

“constantly plays a role which social expectations have imposed on her, of an attractive young

girl waiting for a prince who will protect her, provide her with status, and 'save' her”

(Kubasiewicz, p.56). Beryl engages in a continuous self-observation and rehearsal of her social

skills while projecting her adolescent view of love into private performances in front of her

imaginary potential lovers: “If I were outside the window and looked in and saw myself I really

would be rather struck”… How beautiful she looked, but there was nobody to see, nobody”

(Bliss, p.19). Beryl’s fantasy world is therefore very different from that of Linda or Kezia as it

does not respond to the mystique of the substantives but centres around Beryl’s varying

portrayals of self.

Moreover, to prove her fitness for the role of a wife, Beryl repeatedly adopts the tasks

that Linda resists to perform for Stanley – that of a companion and flatterer while claiming to

enjoy the same food and sports to suit Stanley’s will. Nevertheless, in the episode of writing a

letter to Nan Pym is Beryl allowed to evaluate her behaviour, dive deeper into her personality

and criticize her false self, while projecting her fear of alienation from society into the process

of alienation between her private and public self. She claims that “it was her other self who had

written that letter” (Bliss, p.29) and within the process of estrangement she gets as far as to

address the despised part of her personality as 'you': “It’s marvellous how you keep it up,” said

she to her false self” (Bliss, p.30). Similarly to Bertha, Beryl’s moment of revelation is

characterized by the employment of specific linguistic attributes that range from hinting to

51
exaggeration and subsequent reformulation of accusations of the 'false self' by the 'true self' that

is actually never revealed and functions just as a contrast to Beryl’s hypocrisy and pretention.

Equally to Bertha, once Beryl gets to the core of the problem and wonders whether there ever

was “a time [she] did not have a false self”, the stream of thoughts is cut off by a sudden

distraction – Kezia opens the door. Beryl’s inner self which is not presentable within society is

instantly buried under the public façade once she hears there is a man coming for the lunch

along with Stanley. Beryl’s personality yields to the mirror reflection that confirms her

attractiveness as the principal and most valued feminine feature within society and the

preceding episode of revelation is forgotten along with Beryl’s aspiration for a change.

The vivacity of consciousness and passivity of action are accordingly captured in the

figure of Beryl’s sister Linda whom the reader gets to know at the very beginning of the story

along with Burnell children and Mrs Fairfield. The initial encounter is marked by a bitter feeling

as Linda is portrayed as an indifferent and uncaring mother who characterizes the unanimated

objects as “absolute necessities that [she] will not let out of [her] sight for one instant” while

abandoning her own children with “a strange little laugh” (Bliss, p.2). Linda’s lethargy and lack

of maternal love are openly revealed before the reader and his judgemental eyes as during the

course of the story she remains in the state of melancholy, interacting with others as if “from a

deep well” (Bliss, p.10).

However, along with the criticism the story also uncovers a sympathetic attitude to

Linda’s situation. Aihong in her essay on 'Women characters in Katherine Mansfield’s Short

Stories' articulates Mansfield’s idea of questioning the rooted belief of society that “women are

born with a maternal instinct” (Aihong, p.105) and therefore childbearing and domestic duties

are their prime interest in life and the only sphere where women can triumph. Therefore to

satisfy the expectations of the society they have to succumb to these roles - either blissfully or

mournfully. Linda is among those who mourn, therefore her roles of a wife and mother are

52
reduced to the physical performance reflected in notions of growing and swelling, while her

mind remains detached and uninvolved. Moreover, she engages in a childish behaviour which

is in a contrast to that of Berta as it comes consciously, functioning as a shield towards the

duties of her present life. As Aihong points out, in childhood there are “no responsibilities to

shoulder, no sexual role to play” and “troubles in life are taken care of by the adults” (Aihong,

p.106). Therefore, instead of being a mother to her own children Linda remains a child herself

while requiring the support of Mrs Fairfield: “There was something comforting in the sight of

her that Linda felt she could never do without” (Bliss, p.14). Moreover, along with the

regression to a child-woman and unburdening of adult obligations comes also the release from

the real world to that of reverie and imagination. Linda’s passivity is very much connected to

the fact that instead of performing activities in the outer world Linda stimulates the vivid

movements of her mind. Therefore, an outer description offers an image of Linda as being

constantly tired and day-dreaming, enclosed by the dim world of solitude, lying “in a rocking-

chair, her arms above her head, rocking to and fro” (Bliss, p.26). On the other hand, accordingly

to Kezia’s child perception, Linda’s mind is dynamic and obsessed with details that become

magnified and animated under her inquisitive gaze:

In the quiet, and under her tracing finger, the poppy seemed to come alive. She could feel the

sticky, silky petals… and the tight glazed bud. Things had a habit of coming alive like that. Not only

large substantial things like furniture, but curtains and the patterns of stuffs and the fringes of quilts and

cushions (Bliss, p.12).

The lengthy descriptions of Linda’s imaginary world support the claim of her being

detached from everyone and everything that constitutes the unsatisfactory reality of her life.

However, despite engaging in hallucinatory reveries, Linda’s mind stays attentive to perceiving

her position and identity within her family’s world. This alertness is visible in the scene of

Linda’s encounter with the aloe tree. Through different perceptions of the tree Linda expresses

53
her varying desires of dealing with her present condition. By imagining the aloe as “a ship with

the oars lifted” (Bliss, p.27) Linda metaphorically communicates her desire to catch the oars

that “rowed far away over the top of the garden trees, the paddocks and the dark bush beyond”

and flee from the traditional way of life. Aloe’s thorns, on the other hand, function as weapon

that Linda uses to fight against the conventional notion of being protected and subdued by her

husband. Similarly to Harry in “Bliss”, Linda’s husband Stanley is a contrastive figure revelling

in the energetic lifestyle of a successful businessman and breadwinner. His pragmatic mind

focused on winning and gaining stands in a sharp contrast to that of Linda who resents Stanley’s

influence and criticizes the fact that by the withdrawal of the family in the countryside he

created an isolated kingdom for himself. Therefore, by admiring Aloe’s thorns Linda expresses

her wish to be strong and independent woman: “at the sight of them her heart grew hard…

Nobody would dare to come near the ship or to follow after… Not even my Newfoundland

dog” (Bliss, p. 27) Instead of dwelling under the protection of her dog-like affectionate husband

Linda articulates her wishes to find protection from him and his marital demands.

Nevertheless, Linda’s dreamy theories of gaining freedom do not form any actual

response in her outer life that remains steady and unchanged. Linda seems to accept her fate

similarly to the rest of Mansfieldian heroines: “I shall go on having children and Stanley will

go on making money and the children and the gardens will grow bigger and bigger, with whole

fleets of aloes in them for me to choose from” (Bliss, p.28). Her fear of the unknown, expressed

in the concept of dark demanding “THEY” who “were members of a secret society” (Bliss,

p.12) weakens Linda’s determination to change her circumstances. As Richard Brock observes

in his discussion of Mansfield’s New Zealand Stories, Linda’s lack of resistance serves as an

echo of Mansfield’s recognition of different ways in which the women of early 20th century

society restricted themselves. Instead of “actively attempting to scale the walls” of the “self-

imposed domestic prison” Linda lingers in the passive idle, waiting to be “let out” (Brock, p.63).

54
 However, in spite of emphasizing the inalterability of women’s condition in society,

Mansfield offers subtle consolations and suggestions of the changes that the future may bring

for the younger generation. Kezia’s spirited and adventurous character that cherishes the

beauties of nature rather than the social order implies her role of a negotiator between the social

and natural. As there is no climactic event at the closure of the story the narrative is open-ended

and continues to a flow in a real-life manner, abandoning the Burnell house at the moment of

Kezia’s dropping of the cream jar belonging to Beryl. The reader is therefore proposed to

witness both, Kezia’s wanderings in the wilderness as well as her attraction to the objects

representing feminine life and role-playing. This disunity brings up the core question of Kezia’s

future that overreaches the ending of the story: whether she will subdue to the demands of

society and follow Beryl and Linda’s example of scarifying freedom in exchange for a

comfortable life or she attempts to enforce her own unique voice to question the righteousness

of the patriarch rule.

Also in the rest of the short stories within the collection Bliss and Other Stories

Mansfield continues her endeavour to win reader’s recognition of the problematic nature of

contemporary conventions through hints and suggestions anchored in the narrative presentation

of individual characters. The last subchapter of the thesis will focus on analysis of the short

story “Je ne parle pas français” where Mansfield employs the third type of narrative method by

portraying her main character through the first-person narration that enables her to get a direct

access to his thoughts entangled in a complicated game of role-switching identity.

5.3 Analysis of “Je ne parle pas français”

The narrative method of the short story “Je ne parle pas français” is quite rare within

Mansfield’s later works as the only collection that comprises of several stories written in the

first-person narration is In a German Pension, composed at the beginning of Mansfield’s

55
writing career. However, in case of Raoul Duquette, the main protagonist of “Je ne parle pas

français” the first-person narrative seems inevitable as it offers a direct portrayal of character’s

mind and fully reveals some of his core features. Being a writer with an inclination to

dramatization and theatre-like performance, Raoul seizes the opportunity to present himself

within the span of the short story. As Sarah Henstra observes in her essay 'Looking the Part:

Performative Narration in Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood and Katherine Mansfield’s “Je ne parle

pas français” ' Raoul’s first-person command “makes him the show’s director as well as its star,

so that the theatricality of the story appears to be more directly a product of his personal

outlook” (Henstra, p.132). As a commentator of his life’s show Raoul revels in exaggerated

speech and exclamations: “Good God! Am I capable of feeling as strongly as that?” (Bliss,

p.33) while delivering his account to an unidentified 'you' as in: “That’s rather nice, don’t you

think…” (Bliss, p.33) that might either denote Raoul’s addressing the reader or his

schizophrenic notion of interacting with his other self: “All the while I wrote that last page my

other self has been chasing up and down out in the dark there” (Bliss, p.34).

The ambiguity of the narrative is even increased by Raoul’s presentation of a wide range

of different narrators that correspond with distinct identities he employs during the course of

the story. According to Sarah Henstra Raoul’s monologue “establishes normative position of

foreigner, lover, artist, homosexual, abandonee, and wife” (Henstra, p.139) while revealing

these in a complex game of switching roles and occupations. Raoul’s first major identity is that

of an aspiring writer and student of English literature. As a male and Parisian, Raoul is offered

much more freedom and ambition to any of Mansfieldian women. Nevertheless, even though

he chooses to lead a liberal life of an artist he soon encounters the reality and becomes bound

by various demands and expectations imposed by the society that pushes artists to struggle for

originality and innovatory way of expression. Therefore Raoul endeavours to win the reader

and his admiration by constructing a very detailed observation, dramatization and metaphoric

56
language with tendency to adopt radical standpoints: “I don’t believe in human soul… I believe

that people are like portmanteaux – packed with certain things, started going, thrown about…”

(Bliss, p.31).

However, Raoul’s confession produces an adverse effect as each of his revelations is

accompanied by self-appreciative and congratulatory affirmations whose impression is highly

satiric and according to Sarah Henstra creates an “elusive narrative gap between what a

character says and what the text intends us to hear” (Henstra, p.125). The constant comments

on the character and quality of presented exposures emphasize Raoul’s self-centredness,

narcissism and obsessive self-observation that similarly to Beryl results from his inner feelings

of doubt and insecurity. To mask the truth and win the recognition of surrounding society Raoul

silences his authentic self and follows the one formed by the influence of fashionable stories

presented through cinema and literature: “According to the books I should have felt immensely

relieved and delighted” (Bliss, p.38). Correspondingly, through emotional alienation from the

rest of the world Raoul intends to restrain his interaction with other people to a means of feeding

his hunger for sensations rather than forming sincere relationships. This radical notion is visible

in Raoul’s treatment of Dick, a fellow writer from London, and his acquaintance Mouse, both

of whom remain a matter of interest for the main protagonist only until the possible curiosity

of their story. Once it is shattered, Raoul returns to his former life while keeping only the

remembrance of those moments that add to the artistic value of their story.

Raoul’s struggle for recognition as a writer is according to Miroslawa Kubasiewicz

connected to the fact that he cannot gain acceptance by presenting any of his other roles

(Kubasiewicz, p.57). Through hints and suggestions Raoul reveals that his other major

occupation is that of a pander and a male prostitute who delights in the favours and presents

that accompany this job. Raoul gradually acknowledges his feminine self, exposes his girlish

features and portrays himself as a charming woman: “I am little and light with an olive skin,

57
black eyes with long lashes… Plump, almost like a girl, with smooth shoulders, and I wear a

thin gold bracelet above my left elbow” (Bliss, p.36). Raoul’s description according to Sarah

Henstra “sets the tone for an unconventional embodiment of gender norms” (Henstra, p. 132).

Therefore, along with the problematic nature of transgression between the stages of maturation

that Mansfield reflected in her female characters of Bertha, Beryl and Linda, she also focuses

on deviations within the gender roles. When Raoul’s feminine self takes the lead he succumbs

to narcissist observation and sensitivity: “I felt hurt. I felt as a woman must feel…” (Bliss, p.38)

while submitting to victimization and manipulation coming from the outer sphere of society.

Raoul’s impersonation of an object of desire for others is therefore in a sharp contrast to his

manipulative self of a writer that organizes story’s content and offers only subtle glimpses

through which the reader gets the chance to learn about the origins of Raoul’s fragmented

identity.

One of the principal hints that elucidates the notions of Raoul’s character is his

unwillingness to talk about his upbringing: “About my family—it really doesn’t matter. I have

no family; I don’t want any. I never think about my childhood. I’ve forgotten it” (Bliss, p.34).

Raoul’s negative attitude towards childhood resonates with Mansfield’s belief of its vital

importance in individual’s life. Raoul’s rootlessness and alienation generates hidden longing

for affection and social closeness that is reflected in the instances of Raoul’s speaking through

a degraded dog-like narrator:

But after all it was you who whistled to me, you who asked me to come! What a spectacle I’ve

cut wagging my tail and leaping round you, only to be left like this while the boat sails off in its slow,

dreamy way (Bliss, p.38).

However, each disappointment within his relationships switches Raoul’s character back

to his domineering self that scrutinizes rather than feels and connects. Therefore, even the great

moment of epiphany that Raoul experiences after noticing words “Je ne parle pas français”

58
(Bliss, p. 33) while sitting in his regular café cannot be perceived as ingenuous. Despite being

comprised of emotions and exaggerated language similar to that of Bertha, Raoul’s revelation

does not bring any actual change within his self-perception as it is based on a singular feeling

whose value is substantially reduced by Raoul’s self-conscious commentary: “After all I must

be first-rate. No second-rate mind could have experienced such an intensity of feeling” (Bliss,

p.33). Raoul’s dramatization of the experience contributes to its portrayal as a theatrical

rehearsal and ironizes his attempt to deceive the reader. As Miroslawa Kubasiewicz observes,

the only conclusion that Raoul meets through his attentive role-playing is that by “refusing to

recognize and accept the spontaneous voice of this other self, he relinquishes the opportunity

to discover who he really is” (Kubasiewicz, p.58).

However, in spite of his careful tailoring of different masks there are certain instances

of Raoul’s own mockery of his pretention: “I confess that something did whisper as, smiling, I

put up the notebook: “You—literary? you look as though you’ve taken down a bet on a

racecourse!” Still, Raoul makes sure to close the commentary with dismissive standpoint: “But

I didn’t listen” (Bliss, p.39) which baffles the possibility of a positive outcome of the moment

of self-recognition.

Raoul Duquette’s Paris that according to Sarah Henstra represents a cultural landscape

of “exile, a setting of alienation, inhospitality, and disempowerment” (Henstra, p.136) is

therefore determined to generate Raoul as “a Parisian, a true Parisian” (Bliss, p.34), meaning

“gigolo, literary dilettante, homosexual, liar” (Henstra, p.126). Despite being a male and a part

of the patriarch elite within the contemporary society, Raoul’s situation proves to be equal to

that of Mansfieldian women. His infatuation with role-playing charade and inability to

contradict the conventions contribute to the irreversibleness of his situation that will most

probably continue without change throughout his future years.

59
 Conclusion

The first part of the thesis dealt with the depiction of influences on Katherine

Mansfield’s life and art while tracing their reflections in her writings. As a very conscientious

and attentive observer of the world, Katherine Mansfield established her commitment towards

the literary circles through a detailed portrayal and critique of the contemporary society of the

end of 19th and beginning of 20th century. By focusing on her own experience of the convention-

bound surrounding she favoured the familiar subjects described within their family circles as

well as broader frame of society. However, for the portrayal and analysis of the aspects of

familiarity of every-day life Mansfield decided to employ many of the innovatory ideas and

techniques associated with Modernism and Literary Impressionism. The most thought-

provoking concepts that influenced the writings of contemporary authors were associated with

the mental switch from capturing the objective reality to the portrayal of the subjective

perception and impression embedded in the minds of literary characters. In addition to the

subjectivization and introspection, Katherine Mansfield also adopted the inventive notions of

individualization through distinctive dramaturgy of voice, revelation of complexity of one’s

identity, evocative language and fragmentary treatment of narration based on movements of

mind rather than an actual plot, while adapting and encompassing these notions in the

innovatory short story form.

All these methods and techniques enabled Mansfield to construct true-to-life individuals

whose daily experience of real world contrasts with the uniqueness of their inner worlds.

Therefore, the readers of Mansfieldian stories are introduced to both, familiarity as well as

novelty while witnessing the struggle between the characters’ conformity to the traditions of

the middle-class life and their desire of authenticity and freedom lost in exchange for wealth

and status. As a woman writer Mansfield focused her literary voice on exposing the

characteristics of feminine space where the triviality of the surface contrasts with the other level
60
of meaning that condemns conventions that victimize women and force them to subdue to the

patriarch rule and its roles instead of developing their unique identities.

Moreover, to win the involvement of the reader and open a discussion of suggested

issues, Mansfield became a supporter of 'creative' literature and employed detail and

imagination to trigger the self-identification with literary characters while offering enough

space within the narrative comprised of ellipses, hints and suggestions that stimulate the active

participation of the reader who is challenged to analyse and interpret the situations of the

protagonists dealing with existential struggle for freedom and identity.

Katherine Mansfield’s technique and approach to the construction of individuals was in

the second part of the thesis illustrated on exemplary stories taken from the collection Bliss and

Other Stories. The selected short stories “Bliss”, “Prelude” and “Je ne parle pas française” seem

to be of the greatest relevance to the topic of the thesis, as they represent three narrative methods

employed by Mansfield – first-person narration, third-person narration and parallax, while

offering the clearest presentation of Mansfield’s intentions and depicting the portrayal of basic

Mansfieldian characters types through figures of child-women Bertha, Beryl and Linda, little

Kezia and feminine Raoul as the instances of the main deviations from the official norm set by

the society. Characters’ individual responses to the singular 'moments of being' are anchored in

their distinctive approach to imaginative perception as well as ability to verbalize the truth.

Even though the individuality of each character differs, all of the principal Mansfieldian

figures share the alert consciousness that reflects their victimized situation initiated by the

requirements of expected pattern of behaviour issued by society. Conventional behaviour

therefore represents the surface presentation of the characters who are required to perform or

aspire to perform roles of wives, mothers, or other formal members of the public. Contrastively,

the inner world of characters focuses on searching for a method of independent thinking and

61
recognition of authenticity that in the course of the short story comes to revelation during the

brief instances of crisis affecting protagonists’ regular pace of life.

Nevertheless, the outcome of Mansfield’s stories bears primarily a negative message as

the revelations of the main characters usually do not evoke a solution but its denial. The reader

is inclined to believe that the well-crafted masks of the protagonists representing distinct roles

staged within society will remain part of their identity as the glimpse of their true self revealed

in the moment of epiphany proves to be unsuitable for public consumption. However,

Mansfield’s awakening of her characters along with her insistence on reader’s involvement in

their construction supports the reader’s recognition of the problematic nature of contemporary

conventions and initiates their debate.

62
 Bibliography

Primary Source

Mansfield, Katherine. Bliss and Other Stories. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922. Print

Secondary Sources

Achiri, Samya. "The Transcendental Selves of Women Characters in Katherine Mansfield’s “At the

Bay”: The Case of Linda." International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature 3.6

(2014): 98-101. Web. 10 Feb 2015.

Aihong, R. E. N. "Women Characters in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories." Studies in Literature and

Language 5.3 (2012): 101-107. Web. 10 Feb 2015.

Anderson, Walter E. "The Hidden Love Triangle in Mansfield's" Bliss". Twentieth Century

Literature (1982): 397-404. Web. 12 Feb 2015.

Bal, Mieke. Narratology: introduction to the theory of narrative. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto

Press, 2009. Print.

Brunetière, Ferdinand. “L’Impressionnisme dans le roman”, La Revue des deux monde, 1879. Web. 1

Mar 2015.

Brock, Richard. "Disapprobation, Disobedience and the Nation in Katherine Mansfield's New Zealand

Stories." Journal of New Zealand Literature: JNZL(2006): 58-72. Web. 12 Feb 2015.

Casertano, Renata. "Katherine Mansfield: Distance, Irony, and the Vertigo Perception." Journal of New

Zealand Literature: JNZL (2000): 100-113. Web. 12 Feb 2015.

Childs, Peter. Modernism. 1st pub. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Cox, Sidney. "The Fastidiousness of Katherine Mansfield." The Sewanee Review (1931): 158-169. Web.

12 Feb 2015.

63
D'Arcy, Chantal Cornut-Gentille. "Katherine Mansfield's “Bliss”: “The Rare Fiddle” As Emblem Of

The Political And Sexual Alienation Of Woman." Papers On Language & Literature 35.3 (1999): 244-

269. Art Source. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.

Feenstra, Harriett. "Circling the Self: the short story innovations of Katherine Mansfield and Virginia

Woolf." Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies2 (2009): 2009-2010. Web. 12 Feb 2015.

Fludernik, Monika. An introduction to narratology. 1st pub. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Ford, Ford Madox. Critical Writings of Ford Madox Ford. University of Nebraska Press, 1964. Web.

12 Feb 2015.

Furlong, Sinéad Helena. "Vision and Voice in Mansfield’s “At the Bay” and Woolf’s The Waves.

Trinity College, Dublin. 89-103. Web. 12 Feb 2015.

Friis, Anne. "Katherine Mansfield: Life and Stories.” Einar. Copenhagen, 1946. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Greenwood, Lillian Bethel. The Technique of Katherine Mansfield. MA thesis. The University of British

Columbia, Vancouver, 1965. cIRcle UBC Library. Web. 1 March 2015.

Gray, Nancy. "Un-Defining the Self in the Stories of Katherine Mansfield." Katherine Mansfield And

Literary Modernism. London: Continuum, 2011. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 12

Mar 2015.

Gunsteren, Julia van. Katherine Mansfield and Literary Impressionism. Rodopi, 1990. Print

Henstra, Sarah. "Looking the Part: Performative Narration in Djuna Barnes's Nightwood and Katherine

Mansfield's "Je Ne Parle Pas Français"." Twentieth Century Literature (2000): 125-149. Web. 1 March

2015.

Holmes, Tom. "Katherine Mansfield as Literary Fauvist." Academia.edu. Web. 1 March 2015.

Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London and New York: Routlege, 1981.

Web. 13 April 2015.

64
Kimber, Gerri. A Literary Modernist: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of the Short Story. Vol. 12.

Kakapo Press, 2008.

Kleine, Don W. "An Eden for Insiders: Katherine Mansfield's New Zealand."College English (1965):

201-209. Web. 12 February 2015. Web. 12 Mar 2015.

Kokot, Joanna. "The Elusiveness of Reality: The Limits of Cognition in Katherine Mansfield’s Short

Stories." Katherine Mansfield And Literary Modernism. London: Continuum, 2011. eBook Academic

Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 12 Mar 2015.

Kubasiewicz, Miroslawa. "Authentic Existence and the Characters of Katherine Mansfield." Katherine

Mansfield And Literary Modernism. London: Continuum, 2011. eBook Academic Collection

(EBSCOhost). Web. 12 Mar 2015.

Kuivalainen, Päivi. "Emotions in Narrative: A Linguistic Study of Katherine Mansfield’s Short

Fiction." The Electronic Journal of the Department of English at the University of Helsinki, 5

(2009). Helsinky English Studies: Electronic Journal. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.

Littell, Robert. "Katherine Mansfield'." The New Republic, 1922. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.

Manfred, Jahn. "Focalization." The Cambridge companion to narrative (2005): 94-108. Web. 12 Mar

2015.

Mansfield, Katherine. The letters and journals of Katherine Mansfield: A selection. Penguin books,

1977. Print.

Mansfield, Katherine, and John Middleton Murry. Journal of Katherine Mansfield. London: Constable,

1927. Print.

Martin, W. Todd. "'Why Haven't I Got A Real 'Home'?': Katherine Mansfield's Divided Self." JNZL:

Journal Of New Zealand Literature (2013): 66. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.

Maurois, Andre. Poets and prophets. Cassell, limited, 1936. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.

65
Mitchell, Lawrence J. "Introduction." Katherine Mansfield And Literary Modernism. London:

Continuum, 2011. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 12 Mar 2015.

New, W. H. Reading Mansfield And Metaphors Of Form. Montreal: MQUP, 1999. eBook Academic

Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Patea, Viorica. "The Short Story: An Overview of the History and Evolution of the Genre." DQR Studies

in Literature 49 (2012). Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Sadeq, Ala Eddin. "A Study of the Conscious and Unconscious Perception of the Status of Happiness

in Katherine Mansfield's Short Story Bliss." Studies in Literature and Language 4.3 (2012): 15-22. Web.

12 Mar. 2015.

Seal, Bobby. "Gender, Truth and Reality: The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield. “Psychogeographic

Review. 18 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.

Smith, Angela. "Katherine Mansfield And Rhythm." JNZL: Journal Of New Zealand Literature 21

(2003): 102. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.

Soulhat, Delphine. "Kezia in Wonderland." Katherine Mansfield And Literary Modernism. London:

Continuum, 2011. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 12 Mar 2015.

Tomalin, Claire. Katherine Mansfield: a secret life. 1st American ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.

Print.

Wagenknecht, Edward. "Katherine Mansfield." The English Journal 17.4 (1928): 272-284. Web. 12

Feb. 2015.

Whitridge, Arnold. "Katherine Mansfield." The Sewanee Review 1940: 256. JSTOR Journals. Web. 13

Feb. 2015.

Woolf, Virginia. "Modern Fiction." Collected essays. Vol. 1. Hogarth P., 1967. Web. 1 Mar. 2015.

66
 Resumé (English)

The literary work of Katherine Mansfield is mainly characteristic for the uniqueness

of its writing style and innovatory approach to the exposition of the inner life of characters. The

purpose of this thesis is to explore the main formative influences on Mansfield’s literary voice,

provide a characterization of the Mansfieldian literary persona and examine how the author

deals with the construction as well as reflection of character’s inner world.

The first part of the thesis offers a theoretical background that deals with the possible

inspirations of Mansfield’s themes and technique. It traces the main notions that enabled

Mansfield to construct individualized literary characters with specific narrative presentation,

manner of perception and level of awareness of inauthentic behaviour within contemporary

society. The second part focuses of a close analysis of Mansfield’s literary style within the

selected short stories from Bliss and Other Stories collection and considers the effects of

different perspectives employed by the characters while commenting on their relationship to

the core questions of role-playing, convention and self-recognition.

67
 Resumé (Czech)

Charakteristickými rysy literárního díla Katherine Mansfieldové jsou hlavně

jedinečnost stylu a novátorský přístup k vykreslení vnitřního života postav. Cílem této práce je

přezkoumání klíčových vlivů, které se podepsaly na povaze její literární řeči, představení

charakteristických stránek jednotlivců a objasnění procesu, kterým autorka postupuje při

utváření a vykreslení jejich vnitřního světa.

První část práce poskytuje teoretické zázemí, které zkoumá možné inspirační zdroje

ovlivňující náměty a techniku Katherine Mansfieldové. Taktéž zaznamenává hlavní metody,

které autorce umožnily vytvořit individualizované literární postavy se specifickým narativním

projevem, způsobem vnímaní a úrovní povědomí o neautentičnosti jejich vystupování

uplatňovaného v souladu s konvencemi dobové společnosti. Druhá část práce se zaměřuje na

podrobnou analýzu autorčina literárního stylu reflektovaného ve vybraných povídkách ze

sbírky Blaho a jiné povídky. Prostřednictvím rozboru jsou zohledněné víceré roviny prezentace

postav, které úzce souvisí s problematikou konvencí a sebeuvědomění.

68