The art of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories

Katherine Mansfield was one of the most famous

women writers in the early 20th century. In some sense,

she was also the real founder of the literary of the New

Zealand nation. She was born in Wellington, New

Zealand in Oct. 1888. At the age of 14 she went to

London to study at Queen’s College. During the three

years of studies she often wrote short stories for the

college journal. As she was dissatisfied with the dull and

leisured life of her family. She went to London again in

1908 and determined on writing as her career. Since then

she lively mostly in England. In 1923 she died of

tuberculosis in France. During her short 35 years of life,

she had written some poems, literature comment, and

also translated the Russian writer Anton Chekhov’s

works, but what really established her fame as a

prominent writer were her short stories.

It had been a tradition in English literature that short

story, as a short literary form, was often overlooked by

people. James Joyce, Mansfield’s contemporary, was not

accepted by people in England when his short story

collection “Dubliners” came out. D. H. Lawrence,

Virginia Woolf, and many other contemporaries,

achieved their success by long novels. But Katherine

Mansfield managed to establish her reputation by short

stories only. She dedicated her whole life to this literary

type, left behind us rare art treasure.

Mansfield’s short stories showed great ingenuity.

She drew materials from her own experience, chose

trifles as her subjects. Her theme was confined but

significant to life: the growth and self-consciousness of

the female; the relation between men and women;

children’s innocence and the cruelty of the reality. She

pursued high writing techniques, the four of which were:

description of details; more atmosphere than plot and the

perfect blend of feeling and setting; interior monologue;

symbol. Her language was written in a prose style spiced

with poetic flavour.

There is a tradition lies in the creation of fictions in

English literature: The writer often gathered materials

from his own early or past experience. “Katherine

Mansfield never wrote things that were not experienced

by herself. Every thing in her fiction, undoubtedly, were

based on her own experience.”1 Most of Mansfield’s

subjects were recollections of her family and her

childhood spent in New Zealand. In her total less than a

hundred articles, about 60 were at the background of

New Zealand. Choosing trifles as subjects was also the

similarity among women writers. Jane Austin’s fiction

plot originated from several families in the country.

Katherine Mansfield’s plot seemed to develop in

narrower surrounding which was not conspicuous: one

family, subtle relations among a few family members,

etc. So the theme she discussed in her fictions was not

grand or extensive. They were mainly confined in these

aspects: the growth and self-consciousness of the female;

the relation between men and women; children’s

innocence and the cruelty of the reality.

There were a series of female characters in Mansfield’s stories. Rosabel in “The tiredness of Rosabel” was a teenager. She viewed the complicated world with her innocent and childish eyesight. The young women appeared in “Miss Brill” and “Picture”. Their ideals always conflict of the reality. Ma Parker in “The life of Ma Parker” was a representative of the old women, who had experience the happiness and hardship

of life, the understanding and estrangement of human world, the beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering.

Mansfield wrote not many stories about men and

women. In these stories, the writer mixed into her own

misfortune with men and drew this conclusion: man and

woman won’t have happy and satisfactory endings

because woman is always the sacrifice of cold and

domineering man. “The little Governess”, “The Flower”,

“The man without a temperament” “Jene Parle Pas

Francais” belong to this kind.

Stories on children constitute half of her total

creation. To a great extent, they were based on the

writer’s recollections of her own childhood. In such

stories, she discussed the subtle relationship that was

simple but hard to understand between children and

children, children and adults. “Sixpence” described the

punishment and forgiveness of the father to the child.

“Her first ball” depicted the first association of the girl

with the adult society. “At the bay” wrote one day the

children spent with the whole family in a seaside villa. In

“The garden party”, the children touched the dark side of

society at the first time. “The doll’s house” showed us

the influence of the social class on children. Mansfield

described the children’s inner world vividly, exquisitely

and acutely. Her New Zealand stories on children

account for the most important part of her contributions

to art.

Though the materials were not extensive, the theme

was confined, Katherine Mansfield expressed her love

and hatred. To express the theme explicitly, she used

very high writing technique. One of which worth

mentioning is her description of details. Mansfield laid

stress on describing details, she regarded details as “the

lives in life”. But it’s not easy to explore “the lives in

life” since not all common trifles had this feature. It must

have something fresh, something attractive on itself. The

writer’s observation must be sharp so that he could

capture it from the kaleidoscopic life. Katherine

Mansfield had an uncommon ability of this kind. In “Sun

and Moon”, before the dinner, Sun and Moon saw a table

of beautifully furnished food. They were even joyful

when they saw a plate of ice pudding in the refrigeration.

“It was a little house. It was a little pink house with white

snow on the roof and green windows and a brown door

and stuck in the door there was a nut for a handle”. They

went to the dining--room. They were almost frightened.

“…all the lights were red roses. Red ribbons and bunches

of roses tied up the table at the corners. In the middle

was a lake with rose petals floating on it. “That’s where

the ice pudding is to be,” said cook. Two silver lions

with wings had fruit on their backs, and the salt cellars

were tiny birds drinking out of basins. And all the

winking glasses and shinning plates and sparkling knives

and forks—and all the food. And the little red table

napkins made into roses…” These descriptions of details

displayed the children’s fairyland, their illusion. But

when the children went back to the beautiful dining—

room after dinner, “Oh! Oh! What had happened. The

ribbons and the roses were all pulled untied. The little

red table napkins lay on the floor, all the shining plates

were dirty and all the winking glasses. The lovely food

that the man had trimmed was all thrown about, and

there were bones and bits and fruit peel and shells

everywhere. There was even a bottle lying down with

stuff coming out of it on to the clothe and nobody stood

it up again. And the little pink house with the snow roof

and the green windows was broken—broken—half

melted away in the centre of the table.” “I think it’s

horrid—horrid—horrid!” Sun sobbed.” The child’s

illusion had been destroyed. “wailing loudly, Sun

stumped off to the nursery!” These vivid descriptions of

details, under the writer’s ingenious arrangement, gave

readers intense artistic appeal.

Katherine Mansfield’s short stories had the

characteristic of impressionism. It did not stress on the

dramatization of the story or the completeness of the

plot, but concerned more on atmosphere and the

expressing of feelings. Her plot was rather simple and

sometime there’s hardly any plot. While reading her

stories, we always just can’t tell what the story was like,

what we remembered deeply was the atmosphere and

feelings in the story, and the sense we experienced. In

her story emotion and scene were blended happily to

reach an artistic conception, her own poetic artistic

conception.

Mansfield’s “The first ball” described the mood of a

girl, Lira, when she at the first time took part in a ball.

Literally, Mansfield described nothing else except the

simple conditions of what lira saw in the ball and her

mood. “If we ask when the ball begin, lira thought it was

hard to answer.” It began when she sat down in the

carriage. In fact, it began when she made up at home.

How excited she was! She was so excited that she almost

dared not go to the ball. While dancing “an old

experienced man” make her realize that the first ball was

but the beginning of the last ball, she was depressed. Just

for politeness, she had to accept another invitation to

dance, but at once she got excited again. She couldn’t

recognize “the veteran” who woke her up. The story

ended in lira’s cheerful dance. The story was ended, but

the atmosphere created by lira’s change of emotion still

affected readers. Isn’t the life so? Clearly knowing the

first ball was but the beginning of the last ball, we still

wait for it cheerfully. It’s natural, and it should be.

Mansfield was also good at describing scene. Her

another short story “At the bay” drew materials form her

retrospection of the early life in New Zealand. One and

another single parts which were segmented each other

constituted a complete picture of a day’s life. It showed

the life’s rhythm and tone from day to night of a very

representative New Zealand family. With her keen

observation, the writer depicted every small picture. In

this story, before the main characters appeared the writer

cost several paragraphs on depicting the beautiful

scenery of the early morning. The light mist at the bay,

the dew on the flowers and grass, the breeze, the singing

bird, the sheep flock, the herder and his dog. It’s like a

piece of delicate water-color picture, a soft song.

The scene she described was the real objective

scene in eyesight, meantime, was the imaginative scene

in heart. The relation of the two was that of interweave of

the scene and the character’s inner activities. Only by so,

the moving effect of the blend of feeling and setting can

be achieved. Mansfield never wrote scenes alone. She

poured her own emotion into the description of the bay.

At the beginning of “The wind blows”, a sad

atmosphere caught us at once. “Suddenly—dreadfully--

she wakes up. What has happened? Something dreadful

has happened. No—nothing has happened. It is only the

wind shaking the house, rattling the windows, banging a

piece of iron on the roof and making her bed tremble.

Leaves flutter past the window, up and away; down in

the avenue a whole newspaper wags in the air like a lost

kite and falls, spiked on a pine tree. It is old. Summer is

over—it is autumn—everything is ugly….” Then the

tone became more sorrow. “In waves, in clouds, in big

round whirls the dust comes stinging, and with it little

bits of straw and chaff and manure. There is a loud

roaring sound from the trees in the gardens, and standing

at the bottom of the road outside Mr Bullen’s gate she

can hear the sea sob: “Ah!….Ah!….Ah-h!”. In the last

part of this story, the brother and sister went for a walk

round the esplanade. “It’s getting very dark. In the

habour the coal hulks show two lights—one high on a

mast, and one form the stern” “A big black steamer with

a long loop of smoke streaming, with the portholes

lighted, with lights everywhere, is putting out to sea. The

wind does not stop her; she cuts through the waves,

making for the open gate between the pointed rocks that

leads to…It’s the light that makes her look so awfully

beautiful and mysterious…They are on board leaning

over the rail arm in arm.” “Now the dark stretches a wing

over the tumbling water. They can’t see those two any

more. Goodbye, goodbye. Don’t forget…But the ship is

gone, now. The wind—the wind.” By means of the

description of the scene, the writer’s endless mourning

for her beloved brother Chummie, Bogey in this story,

deeply moved reader’s heart.

Katherine Mansfield was also a pioneer in the

interior monologue, which her contemporaries James

Joyce and Virginia Woolf developed in their works as

stream-of-consciousness technique. She did her utmost to

present the character’s interior world, and she tried her

best to capture the moment when human’s heart had a

sudden consciousness of life and oneself. The creation

principle she obeyed all her life was to “melt into the

character”. She considered she must be the thing itself

before describing and re-creating one thing. “When I

described duck, I swear, I’m also a white duck with

round eyes swimming in the yellow foam bubbling pool,

occasionally having a quick glimpse of my inverted

reflection in water.”2 When she wrote “The stranger” she

felt as if she had stood in the port and waited for several

hours herself. When writing “The journey” she became

“Valena, hanging the swan-necked umbrella”. In

Mansfield’s works, the writer never appeared as a

narrator, but completely melt into the heart of the

character she created, thought in their intonations and

ways. In “The little governess”, the writer adopted a pure

childish girl’s feeling and sight to observe and

experience the surrounding world. The first sentence in

the story “Oh, dear, how she wished that it wasn’t night-

time. She’d have much rather travelled by day, much

much rather.” vividly transmitted a young girl’s speaking

manner and psychology. Towards the rude porter she met

in the station, she affirmed: “He is a robber!” The old

man in the train was “Ninety at least”. Just by a few

words, the writer sketched a girl’s knowledge and tone.

In the girl’s eye, “fat, fat coachmen driving fat cabs”, “a

policeman standing in the middle like a clockwork

doll”… All these soaked a child’s childishness and

liveliness, a childish heart was expressed so vividly,

cordially and movingly.

“The canary” is an excellent example of her using

interior monologue technique. The character was a lonely

woman, only a lovely canary accompanied her all day.

The whole story is her interior monologue she spoke to

the bird case after the bird died. The character loved the

canary so sincerely and intensively that only the bird’s

song can give her some comfort when she felt lonely.

When the canary sang, she felt working is also enjoyable.

Through the inner monologue a person living in the

hostile world appeared before our eyes.

“Miss Brill” narrates one day the spinster, Miss Brill

spent in the park. Sitting in the park and observing

people at weekends is the only happy thing in her

tedious, lonely life. That day she wore her leather scarf

specially and went to the park as usual, she sat on her

usual bench and observing coming and going people

happily to enjoy her long-expected time. But a couple of

young men abused her just for her existence. She realized

suddenly that she was ugly and unwelcome. When she

put her scarf back into the box, she heard something

crying. —That’s her heart crying. Here the inner

monologue is used to explore the character’s inner world,

and the deep consciousness of the essence of life is

perceived.

The artistic technique of symbol is also Mansfield’s

favourite. In Mansfield’s stories we can find many

details she described had their symbol meaning besides

narration. The ice pudding in “Sun and Moon”

symbolized children’s illusion to life. Although the

pudding house is lovely and beautiful, it’s food for

people to eat, so the ice pudding also indicates Sun’s

disillusion is unavoidable.

Bertha Young, the heroine in “Bliss”, was always

intoxicated with the bliss of her family. In her garden,

“there was a tall, slender pear tree in fullest, richest

bloom; it stood perfect, as though becalmed against the

jade-green sky…it had not a single bud or a faded petal.”

“And she seemed to see on her eyelids the lovely pear

tree with its wide open blossoms as a symbol of her own

life.” But one day she found unwittingly her husband and

her girl friend betrayed her. Her feeling of bliss

disappeared completely. She cried: “what is going to

happen now?” But “the pear tree was as lovely as ever

and as full of flower and as still.” It deepened her agony.

The pear tree, once the symbol of the illusion of the

beauty of life, finally turned into the symbol of darkness,

ugliness and deception.

Katherine Mansfield spared no effect in pursuing

writing techniques. She was rigorous in her creative

work, carefully and strictly choosing every word, every

sentence, revising each story again and again until she

was satisfied. In a letter to John Mury3 she said she

would rather rewrite the whole article just for one word.

Due to her hard work, the words under her pen seemed to

have some magic power, they can arouse your vision,

your hearing, your smelling and touch… She wanted “At

the bay” to have some fish-like smell.4 “Turkish bath” to

have a “wet, damp, soft like mud feeling”.5 When she

wrote “Miss Brill”, she chose not only the length of each

sentence, but also the rhyme and rhythm of each

sentence. “I also deliberate the ups and downs of each

paragraph. This is to coincide with her, at the special

time on that day, I read it aloud after I finished—for

many times—like a man playing instrument, tried to get

nearer and nearer to the behaviour of Miss Brill until it

coincides.”6 By means of her intelligence and diligence,

her language had the elegance of prose and the

conciseness of poem.

In “Prelude”, Scene 5, the writer described the

natural beauty of her homeland like these: “Down came

sharp and chill with red clouds on a faint green sky and

drops of water on every leaf and blade. A breeze blew

over the garden, dropping dew and dropping petals,

shivered over the drenched paddocks, and was lost in the

sombre bush. In the sky some tiny stars floated for a

moment and then they were gone—they were dissolved

like bubbles. And plain to be heard in the early quiet was

the sound of the creek in the paddock running over the

brown stones, running in and out of the sandy hollows,

hiding under dumps of dark berry bushes, spilling into a

swamp of yellow water flowers and cresses.” From these

words we could smell the fragrance of flowers, the sound

of water, and as the writer wished, we are deeply touched

by the poetic language.

Mansfield’s lifetime was full of frustrations: the

unhappy first marriage, the loss of her beloved brother

and the torment of disease etc. But she threw herself into

the short-story writing with love and passion. Her

creation works showed that English short story, as an art

form on its own, proceeded to its mature stage in

England in the early 20th century. It got rid of the

traditional pattern of story narration plus sermon, strode

into the era of revealing the world by sketching inner

spirits. As early as in 1927, her short stories were

translated into Chinese by the famous poet Xu Zhimo.

The poet sang highly of her. In his eyes, Mansfield’s

figure represented the delicate and elegant feminine

image. In his elegy to Mansfield, he described her death

as “bright shining tear dropped from the sky.”7

NOTES

1.     Gordon,Ian: Katherine Mansfield; London:

Macmillan

2.     Letter to Blaite on Oct. 11. 1917

3.     Letter to John Mury on Oct. 11.1920

4.     Letter to Blaite on Aug. 8. 1921

5.     Mansfield, Katherine:Diary on Nov. 21 1921

6.     Letter to Richard Mury: Jan. 17 1921

Xu Zhimo: Line 2;Elegy to Mansfield