Katherine Mansfield
Early Works
Later Works and Themes
Kathleen Mansfield Murry, commonly known by her penname Katherine Mansfield, was born in the late nineteenth century and only lived to be thirty-four years of age. Her early death was due to the effects of tuberculosis on her body. During her lifespan however, she was able to write a variety of short fiction stories in the modernist genre. Her works gave her a great deal of notoriety during her life and her first published stores appeared in a publication known as the High School Reporter. From 1910 publications in periodicals like the New Age through the five volumes of stories published before her death, Mansfield was recognized as innovative, accessible, and psychologically acute, one of the pioneers of the avant-garde in the creation of the short story (Poetry Foundation).
She had an interesting personal life and was born into a prominent family. She was born in New Zealand in a town known as Wellington. Kathleen was the third daughter in a wealthy and ambitious family. She was the third child out of six surviving children (one child died of cholera). The birth position allotted Kathleen a lot of time for personal reflection and introspection as she recalls in her writing as feeling largely ignored by the family in general. She was also chubby, wore glasses, and was at least slightly unattractive in her developing years. These conditions definitely influenced her and her later writing.
Early Works
In May 1898 Kathleen and her sisters transferred to Wellington Girls' High School in central Wellington, NZ and soon afterwards, Kathleen's first published piece, 'Enna Blake', appeared in the High School Reporter (Boddy). There was also a note from the editor that was published...
Indeed, she sees the world as if it were a play, and she sees herself as part of the play, with her own part to follow. For Miss Brill, the knowledge that she is part of the play is comforting and connects her to the others in the park, giving her and them a shared awareness that she still does not quite understand. The way the two she sees as
"Mansfield's characters share the topical hopelessness that characterized much of early Modernist writing. Characters like Miss Brill seem to be living on the brink of personal disaster; the sense of community has vanished; they are largely alone" (Devi). Miss Brill must face the dreadful truth that the community she felt so much a part of could easily go on without her. By the time she reaches her dark room,
It's all the fault, she decided,... Of these absurd class distinctions." Mansfield blatantly shows us the indifferent heartlessness that the wealthy feel toward the poor, when Laura wants to stop the garden party out of respect for a worker who has died on the road outside their gate: Oh, Laura!" Jose began to be seriously annoyed. "If you're going to stop a band playing every time some one has an accident,
The scene is full of hope and joy, and the use of light helps to illuminate this mood. Once Laura crosses the road, the scene is described quite differently. At first it is "smoky and dark," however Laura does manage to see in some of the cottages flickers of light in the shadows. These flickers of light represent flickers of hope, but they are far less luminous than those which
Psychoanalysis and Literature Narrative and Psychoanalytic Approaches to Mother Daughter Relationships in Literature There are several different types of narrative forms utilized by authors in texts and short stories to describe mother daughter relationships. Traditional forms include personal experience narratives where characters are traditionally well defined with personalities and unique identities. The extent to which modern authors have employed narrative techniques to create true to life characters has been well researched throughout history.
Superstition relates to the sense of exploration and the hunger for knowledge in the contemporary human heart. The themes of light and darkness in the modern context has developed to signify knowledge and ignorance - the former being banished by knowledge like shadow by light. In this way, the main themes of the story take on a symbolic significance for the contemporary world, and remains relative to the paradigm
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