Plan: General background

Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923)

Katherine Mansfield, the daughter of a wealthy banker, was born in New Zealand and educated in I .ondon at Queen's College. A talented cellist, she studied music at the Royal Academy of Music, but later realized that her true calling was writing, not music. In 1911, through a chance meeting in Germany, she became friend to the well known literary critic and editor John Middieton Murry. They were married in 1918. By the end of the war, she had be­come an invalid, moving from climate to climate for relief from incurable tuberculosis. She died in France on January 9,1923, at the age of thirty four.

She began to write at an early age. Her contribution to English literature mainly makes the form of short stories. Katherine Mansfield's first stories and sketches were published in the peri­odical "The New Age", to which she became a regular contributor. Her first story "Prelude" written in 1918 made her famous. Her second book, the collection of stories "Bliss and Other Stories" was published in 1921. Her third collection "The Garden Party and Other Stories" appeared a year later. Katherine Mansfield's style was often compared to that of Chekhov. Like him she wrote stories, which depended more on atmosphere, character, and nuances of language than on plot. The stories of Katherine Mansfield are not tales of action, nor have they complicated plots. She describes human conduct in quite ordinary situations. Yet, they are expressive of a vast range. Many of her stories center on children and on old people in isolated circumstances and are deeply affecting in their sympathetic portrayal of the lonely, the rejected, and the victimized.

For example, in her short story "The Doll's House" the au­thor shows how the snobbery of the adults has intruded into the world of children and has made them selfish and cruel. The Kelvey girls are isolated from the other schoolgirls, because they are poor and their father is in prison. T he girls of the story (Emmie Cole. Isabel Burnell, Lena Logan, Jessie May) exhibit a high degree of class consciousness and snobbery. The isolation of the Kelveys is described in the following way: "Many of the children, including the Burnclls, were not allowed even to speak to them. They walked past the Kelveys with their heads in the air, and as they set the fashion in all matters of behavior, the Kelveys were shunned by everybody. Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking flowers." From all the girls only the Kelveys were not allowed to see the marvelous doll's house, which was presented to the Burnell children. "Only the little Kelveys moved away forgotten: there was nothing more for them to hear." The story is very short but it provokes a deep feeling of sympathy in the hearts of readers. The social cruelty to which the Kelveys arc subjected by the children and adults around is represented skillfully.

Katherine Mansfield regarded Chekhov as her literary teacher. In collaboration with Kotelansky she translated Chekhov's dia­ries and letters into English. Once she called herself "the English Chekhov". But differing from Chekhov, Katherine Mansfield de­dares that life must be taken as it is. She does not see any necessity to change it.

Her writing is objective, but the reader can easily feel her sympathies and antipathies. She is very sensitive to class distinc­tions, and her sympathy is always on the side of the poor. Any kind of selfishness and pretence on the part of the rich people is treated with ironic objectivity. Her short story "A Cup of Tea" is an example of it.