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Department of English and American Studies English Language And Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Soňa Lysková Narrative Organisation, Personal Relationships and Individual Perception in Stories by Katherine Mansfield Bachelor‘s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. 2014 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‘s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his invaluable feedback and encouragement. Further, my grateful thanks go to the best friends of mine, who have been encouraging me during the process and who always believe in me. Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................ 5 Chapter One: ‗Something Childish, but Very Natural‘ .................................... 11 1.1 Perception of Edna and The Development of Her Relationship with Henry ............................................................................................................ 11 1.2 Perception of Henry and His Relationship with Edna ............................ 16 1.3 Perception of The Relationship through The Use of Symbolism ............. 20 1.4 Narrative Organisation in ‗Something Childish but Very Natural‘ ............ 25 Chapter Two: ‗Bliss‘ ................................................................................... 29 2.1 Perception of Bertha and Her Relationship with Pearl and Harry ........... 29 2.2 Symbolism and The Individual Perception of The Main Characters ........ 36 2.3 Narrative Organization in ‗Bliss‘ .......................................................... 41 Chapter Three: ‗A Cup of Tea‘ .................................................................... 44 3.1 Perception of Rosemary and of The Relationship with Philip ................. 44 3.2 Narrative Organisation in ‗A Cup of Tea‘ ............................................. 49 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 51 Works Cited .............................................................................................. 55 Résumé .................................................................................................... 59 Resumé .................................................................................................... 60 Introduction Katherine Mansfield is a New Zealand modernist writer and the master of the 20th century English short story. She was born in Wellington on 14 October 1888 as Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp to her Australian parents Annie Beauchamp and Harold Beauchamp – a successful businessman. Mansfield perceived herself as the ugly duckling of the family and she eventually left New Zealand in order to pursue a career of a writer. She changed her name and moved to England, however, though she has left her life in New Zealand behind, she does return to her childhood memories in many of her stories. Mansfield lived a bohemian life, often struggling with money. In 1911, she met John Middleton Murry, who later became her husband, and with whom she pursued a relationship which some of her stories are influenced by. In 1918, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and even though she was terminally ill, she still managed to write some of her best stories. The themes Mansfield deals with in her stories are mainly love and disillusionment, traditional roles of women and men in the society, social class and the thin line between reality and imagery. Katherine Mansfield died in January 1923, leaving behind several stories and poems which were later published by her husband John Middleton Murry. Among the conventional themes of Mansfield‘s stories is the theme of love and relationships – whether the focus is on the development of the relationship itself or on the attitude men have towards women and vice versa. Further, it is common for Mansfield‘s stories to provide an insight into the events through the protagonist‘s way of perception. Therefore, the aim of the 5 thesis is to examine the depiction of personal relationships in the stories by Katherine Mansfield and the individual perception of the main characters, predominantly in relation to the particular relationship. If present in the story, the autobiographical features shall be also highlighted and analysed and to support the potential evidence, the corresponding quotation from a biography will be provided. Furthermore, the thesis shall look at the unique narrative techniques that are characteristic for Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield is the first author to use the ‗stream of consciousness‘1 which became typical of modernists‘ works. Mansfield frequently shifts the narrative perspectives in her stories and she is closely associated with the use of free indirect discourse which transitions between direct and indirect discourse which According to Julia Van Gunsteren‘s study of Mansfield‘s narrative presentation Katherine Mansfield and Literary Impressionism, free indirect discourse presents a ―compromise between direct discourse (dialogue) and indirect discourse‖. She sees free indirect discourse as a method, ―which enables the narrator to hide behind his leading character‖ (Gunsteren 107). Further, the examination of narrative organization shall be based on Mieke Bal‘s terminology and approach to the study as presented in her book Narratology, Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. My approach is to look at three stories by Katherine Mansfield, where each story is intentionally chosen from a different collection of stories in order 1 That is noted by Jeffrey Meyer‘s in Katherine Mansfield: a Darker View: ―Katherine was the first to use the ‗stream of consciousness‘ technique that was later masterfully employed by Virginia Woolf‖ (Meyers 157) 6 to analyse stories, which were written years apart. The purpose of this is to offer an insight into the development of the depiction of the relationships in the stories. The stories are therefore in a chronological order. The first chapter is dedicated to the analysis of ‗Something Childish, but Very Natural‘, which was written and first published in 1914 and republished in the collection Something Childish and Other Stories after Mansfield‘s death. The depiction of the perception of the female character Edna shall be analysed with a focus set on the development of her character in connection to the relationship she pursues with Henry. Further, Henry‘s perception and approach to his relationship with Edna will be analysed and supported with quotes from the story. Since the symbolism in ‗Something Childish, but Very Natural‘ is closely connected to the relationship between Henry and Edna and the development of the relationship is often displayed by the imagery I decided to devote a subchapter merely to the use of symbolism as a guide through Edna‘s transition in the story. The second chapter examines the story ‗Bliss‘, which was written in 1918 and published in the volume called Bliss, and Other Stories in late 1920. The analysis researches the events through the perception of the female protagonist – Bertha Young. Her perception of the relationship with her husband Harry and with Pearl shall be examined. Similarly as in ‗Something Childish, but Very Natural‘ Mansfield uses imagery to introduce Bertha‘s perception of herself and perception of the other characters. The third chapter looks at ‗A Cup of Tea‘, a story written in 1922 and published in the collection called The Dove's Nest and Other Stories. In spite of 7 the fact, that this is the shortest story from those examined in the thesis, it provides an interesting perspective on transience of how one‘s perception of herself or himself can change – such as the perception of Rosemary, which is influenced and undermined by her husband Philip. Further, Philip‘s attitude towards Rosemary and his way of achieving power and control over the partner in the relationship shall be considered. Prior to analysing the stories, a brief summary of each story further examined shall be provided: ‗Something Childish, but Very Natural‘ is a story about a 17 years old Henry, who meets a younger girl Edna one day on a train. Henry falls in love with Edna and would like to engage in a physical relationship, however, Edna acts restrained and keeps the relationship purely platonic. Through Henry‘s perception it is visible, that Edna‘s character develops throughout the story and eventually allows Henry to touch her. The transition between innocent childhood and becoming an adolescent, who acknowledges the physical aspects of a relationship, is a major theme in the story. Further the tension between perception of reality and illusion is depicted. ‗Bliss‘ presents a series of events concerning a dinner party. The story is presented through the perception of Bertha Young, who has a loving husband and everything a woman could possibly want. Bertha considers herself to be happy, because she must be happy since she has everything one could wish for. However, she does not desire her husband, until she starts to feel attracted to another woman – Pearl Fulton, who is also invited to the dinner party. The story questions the sexuality of the protagonist. As the evening progresses, 8 Bertha finds out that her husband who seemed to dislike Pearl is actually having an affair with her. Throughout the story, there are several hints, which might indicate that Bertha knew about the affair and chose to ignore
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