Essays on Katherine Mansfield

The question of defining one’s gender has long been an issue. Contrary to the modern biological reduction that purports itself to be self-evident, people across the millennia have found different ways of being male or female. As always, art has been one of the greatest ways culture has had to depict this. Particularly, the lead young female characters in two short stories by women authors in the twentieth century will allow the reader to see one precise way of construction of the female gender, and the male one by subtraction. In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” and ...

“Miss Brill” by Katherine Mansfield and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” are two exceptional literary works that each tell the reader a story of loneliness and solitude in their own unique way. Both heroines of these stories make a conscious choice to withdraw themselves from the world around them, to set themselves apart from it, to become silent, passive observers instead of partaking in life in all its wondrous and endless forms. Both of their lives are shrouded in sorrow and tragedy that is directly connected to their solitude, yet in very different ways, and the endings ...

The point of view is a perspective from which the author chooses a narrator to tell a story. The third-person narrators are usually observers but not characters in the story. Kate Chopin in “The Story of an Hour” uses the third-person omniscient narrative, which captures the reader and makes him sympathetic to Louise Mallard. The reader has a possibility to see how the woman interacts with other characters, her thoughts, and feelings. Indeed, the omniscient narrator is able to tell the story of Louise’s hour of evolution and freedom but the happiness lasted only for an hour before ...

Rita Dove and Katherine Mansfield were not contemporaries, nor do they write in the same genre. But two works, one from each author, are worth comparing and contrasting since both have a similar underlying theme, which leads the reader to a contrary conclusion. “DayStar” is a poem by Rita Dove that has to do with the life of a busy mother who is only able to leave her perpetual duties for an hour a day. Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” is about a woman who is an avid people watcher who uses her avid imagination to find meaning in every exchange happening in earshot ...

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An Alternating Arrangement Analysis The portrayal of women in the short stories “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield are quite similar to each other. The four most prominent themes when it comes to women and feminism in both stories are the image of a mother, women and physical appearances, assigned tasks to women, and social class. In the succeeding paragraphs, this essay will try to analyze and explain how those themes are present and are related from ...

'’'The Garden Party’' is a remarkably rich and innovative work that incorporates Mansfield's defining themes: New Zealand, childhood, adulthood, social class, class conflict, innocence, and experience.” . Kathrine Mansfield’s adult life was unconventional. The Garden Party harkens back to her youth and childhood in Wellington, New Zealand. The protagonist, Laura is a young lady growing up in a wealthy family in New Zealand. While not strictly autobiographic in nature, Laura could well be how Katherine Mansfield saw herself at that age. She is helping her family to prepare for a garden party to take place in the afternoon. In the morning, ...

Introduction

Life has different attractions, points of interest, meanings or attitudes that varies across one’s existence. What might have seemed funny engaging at a young age might be considered irritating or upsetting at a more advanced age. This change in the attitude towards life is part of a process, the process of getting older and it is underlying the generation conflict. The generation conflict theme is common to the short stories that will be comparatively analyzed in this paper, respectively: Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. The generation conflict has distinct ...