IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065
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ISSN :2455-0108
IJO-Science
(INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ONLINE OF SCIENCE)
Volume V, Issue V May 2017 121
IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065
SUNIL DATTATRAYA ALONE ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH SHRI LEMDEO PATIL MAHAVIDYALAYA MANDHAL, DISTRICT: NAGPUR, MAHARASHTRA RASHTRASANT TUKADOJI MAHARAJ NAGPUR UNIVERSITY NAGPUR, MAHARASHTRA INDIA
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES AND CHARACTERISATION IN KATHERINE MANSFIELD’S “A CUP OF TEA”
Abstract Katherine Mansfield, a pioneer modernist short story writer, wrote many interesting short stories in her short life which show psychological working of the human mind. Her most famous collection is “The garden Party and Other Stories”. A number of her stories such as “Bliss”, “The Fly”, “Miss Brill”, “The Doll’s House” and “The Dove’s Nest” are very popular among readers all over the world. She is an amazing storyteller who demonstrates a mastery over the craft of story writing. The purpose of the present paper is to study her famous and much-anthologized story “A Cup of Tea” so as to bring out the brilliant use of narrative techniques to delineate the protagonist’s character. A close study of the short story shows that the protagonist is not really like what she wants others to think of her as. Mansfield achieves this effect by cleverly controlling the narration of the story and effectively using point of view, characters, dialogues, themes, indeterminacies, and gaps to get the desired result. In conclusion it can be said that by making clever use of narrative strategies, Mansfield succeeds in showing the real face of the protagonist without ever directly mentioning it. Keywords: Narrative techniques, characterization, point of view, indeterminacies
Every reader concludes that Rosemary Fell, the protagonist of the short story “A Cup of Tea” by Katherine Mansfield, is self-centered, hypocritical, and class-conscious. A chance meeting with a poor girl prompts Rosemary, an upper-class wife, to take her home with her
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IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065 out of compassion, so it seems, however, through her skillful and masterly use of narrative techniques, Mansfield successfully brings out the real selfish nature of Rosemary Fell without coming out and saying so even once. Although it is true that by the end of the story the readers can see for themselves what kind of person Rosemary really is, it is the art of narration which gives a glimpse of the true self of Rosemary to the careful readers and thus prepares them for the last revelation. Indeed, the real strength of the story lies in the fact that how the author uses the various elements of short story such as narration, plot, characterization, dialogues, themes, ‘gaps (things left unsaid in the story,…)’ and ‘indeterminacies (passages that careful readers agree are open to various interpretations)’ (Barnet, Berman and Burto, p. 6) to show the inner self of the protagonist without explicitly saying anything about her. This essay will try to prove that the narrative technique of the story contributes to reveal the real selfish, self-obsessed, and hypocritical nature of Rosemary Fell. Katherine Mansfield’s “A Cup of Tea” narrates an interesting episode in the life of Rosemary Fell, a representative of the privileged upper class of the early twentieth century, is accustomed to living life on her own terms and doing whatever she feels like doing. However, she finds it difficult to buy an expensive article from her favourite shop. Disappointed, she leaves the shop and on the street meets an impoverished girl by accident who is too poor to afford a cup of tea. She takes her home for tea and tries to be nice to her. At home, Philip, her husband returns and praises the girl for her beauty. A little later, Rosemary Fell tells her husband that she has given three pounds to the girl before allowing her to leave the house as she is not willing to stay there any longer. One way in which Katherine Mansfield reveals the true self of Rosemary Fell is the clever use of narrative voice. She uses third person limited point of view to tell the story whereby the narrator tells the readers about the thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and observations of the protagonist only. The choice of this perspective certainly enhances the interest of the story since it establishes the significance of the main character and we are immediately drawn into the world of Rosemary Fell. Never in the entire story does the narrator address her by her husband’s surname, in fact, the readers are not even told the surname of her husband. Interestingly, she is always Rosemary. The narrator does this to underline that she is not influenced and controlled by her husband and is free to make her own decisions without thinking about the consequences of her actions. This becomes important as she often likes to get assurances from her husband. Moreover, the narrator tells us that her husband ‘absolutely adored’ (Mansfield, p. 42) her, but he or she doesn’t tell us
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IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065 what her feelings about her husband and son are. The narrator making a mistake while telling the name of her son suggests that she can be so interested in herself that she might even confuse her son’s name for a moment. This clearly shows that she cares about herself more than anyone else and attaches more importance to herself. Along with narration, Mansfield dexterously handles characterization, themes, dialogues, indeterminacies, and gaps throughout the story to demonstrate the hypocritical world of Rosemary. The first few paragraphs of the story introduces the protagonist and tells the readers about the high status she enjoys in society. The significance of the opening scene of the story can hardly be overestimated since this is where the narrator starts to give hints about the real nature of Rosemary by describing innocent-looking details and holding back what he or she really wants the readers to know and thus allows readers to draw their own inferences. She favours a particular little antique shop only because the owner of that shop is ‘ridiculously fond of serving her’ and talks to her in ‘low respectful tones’ (Mansfield, p. 42) and not because it is the best shop. One may wonder why Rosemary favours that particular shop and the answer is not difficult to find. It is because the shopkeeper treats her like the most important customer he has ever had. Rosemary believes in being true to her social status as is clear from the incident at the antique shop. Upon failing to buy an article because of its high price, she unflinchingly tells the shopkeeper to keep it for her without showing that she thinks it to be too expensive for her. The narrator unfolds the story by cleverly controlling the amount of information he or she gives about various characters, by the dialogues between the characters, and by using fitting diction. The narrator’s choice of words to describe Rosemary’s state of mind when she comes out of the shop and finds that it is raining make the readers feel that her pride has been dented and she is hurt. The narrator uses words like dark, cold bitter, sad, dimly, regretting, hateful, and pang to describe a rainy winter afternoon as well as the gloomy state of mind of Rosemary. In doing so, he or she successfully suggests that outwardly happy and jovial Rosemary is actually inwardly unhappy over the shop incident. On realizing that she is approached by a girl of her own age for the price of a cup of tea, Rosemary exclaims ‘How extraordinary!’ (Mansfield, p. 44) for she finds it difficult to believe that people do not have enough money to satisfy their daily needs which shows that she is blind to the other side of the world that is poor, hungry, and miserable. Rosemary decides, on the spur of the moment, to take her home for a cup of tea instead of giving her money. It is interesting know that Rosemary does so not out of compassion for the girl but it seems ‘such an adventure’ (Mansfield, p. 44). This incident couldn’t have happened at a more appropriate time for
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IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065
Rosemary since it gives her an opportunity to leave behind her disappointing experience at the shop and once again be in control of the situation in which the poor, hapless girl has found herself, and in the process satisfy her own ego. Furthermore, it allows Rosemary an escape into a world of appearances and relieves her from the frustration and sadness of the incident at the shop. She wants to take her home as a kind of trophy to be shown to her friends as if to tell them to look at the thing she has found. It is equally interesting to note that the narrator doesn’t describe any thoughts of pity or compassion for the girl in the heart of Rosemary. All she thinks of is how to use this incident for her utmost benefit and amazement and how she can romanticise it. She accepts that she wants to take her home ‘to please me’ and ‘to hear – anything you care to tell me’ and not because she genuinely wants to help her (Mansfield, p. 44). Although it cannot be said with any conviction that Rosemary was heartless and completely indifferent to the girl, it is just that she was more concerned about her fancies than the girl’s misery. Indeed, it is true that she was quite touched by the girl’s wretched condition, however, it was not her primary motive in helping her. She wants to help the girl in order to prove to her “that - wonderful things did happen in life, that - fairy god-mothers were real, that - rich people had hearts, and the women were sisters” (Mansfield, p. 44). She is unable to complete her sentence explaining to the girl whether she is more fortunate than what she should expect because she never paid any attention to it in the first place. Rosemary’s hesitation in acknowledging that the girl looks rather stupid is in sharp contrast with the way she asserted her preferences while choosing certain type of flowers and dismissing the other types. It seems that she does so simply because she is not interested in the appearance of the girl but in trying to make the most of this opportunity to experience one of those things she has always read about. Doubtless she wants to help the girl but she expects the girl to ‘respond a little, just a little’ (Mansfield, p. 45) if she wants to be helped. She wants her to show signs of gratitude by responding or it becomes very difficult for her to help her. She is so much engrossed in her own thoughts that she even forgets the very purpose with which she has brought her home, that is, to offer her a cup of tea, and it has not even occurred to her to ask the girl her name. The language that Rosemary uses while explaining the entire situation to her husband, who has just returned home, is not the language of a person who is full of the milk of kindness and who is really moved by the poor girl’s deplorable condition. It also allows the narrator to shed light on the themes of class conflict, insecurity and jealousy. For example, she tells her husband the she ‘picked her up’ and that ‘she’s a real pickup’ (Mansfield, p. 47).
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IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065
Furthermore, this transformation, from good to bad, in her feelings about the girl is pretty obvious when she thinks of her as an ‘absurd creature’ after her husband has described the girl as ‘astonishingly pretty’, and ‘absolutely lovely’, and accepts that he was ‘bowled over’ by her beauty (Mansfield, p. 47). She even goes to the extent of giving her only three pounds instead of five as she originally intends to when she decides to drive her out of her house. Now the readers realize that it is only in order to bring to surface the suppressed feelings of insecurity and jealousy in Rosemary that the narrator chooses a girl who is ‘no older than herself’ (Mansfield, p. 44) and this is predominantly the reason she regards the girl as a romantic rival for Philip’s affection when she feels threatened by her. It is quite ironic that she tells her husband that she does not want to keep the girl against her will since it was she who insisted the girl to come home with her. In the beginning, she wants her to stay with her so that she can look after her and at the end she makes her to leave her house because she feels threatened by her. It is difficult to imagine that such an enormous change would come over her within such a short time, if she was really and honestly motivated to help her. She behaves as she does because she feels challenged by the girl’s beauty and her husband’s praise of her and her own awareness of the limitations of her beauty. It is quite obvious that her husband has intimate knowledge of the real nature of his wife and he uses that knowledge to get rid of the girl by heaping lavish praises on the girl. Knowing that Rosemary cannot stand him praising some other girl, he carefully plays with her sense of insecurity and jealousy so as to manipulate her actions and she promptly reacts by sending the girl away. On the basis of this behavior of hers, it can be inferred that her underlying feelings of jealousy and insecurity get the better of her and as a result she is no longer able to keep her appearance of kindness and acts according to her real nature. Rosemary concludes her adventure by asking her husband ‘am I pretty?’ (Mansfield, p. 48) in order to direct his attention to herself and make sure that he thinks of her and not of the poor girl and in the process she does her last act of kindness to herself. So, in “A Cup of Tea” Mansfield brings to light for the readers the real nature of Rosemary Fell without directly stating anything about her by subtly and intelligently employing the narrative techniques. It is clear that one of the main aims of the story is to comment on the callous attitude of the rich who often disguise their real selfish intentions under the mask of overt kindness. However, just as in the end the real motives of her action do not remain hidden from the readers, the various elements of narrative techniques such as point of view, characters, dialogues, and themes all combine together throughout the story to reveal the true self of Rosemary who fails to take her false appearance further for long and
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IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065 ultimately acts in accordance with her real nature. In life too people sometimes do not have any sublime aims in their acts of kindness, compassion, charity, and benevolence and if one does not let one’s guard down, then one can really see through the selfish designs of people and can take suitable steps to prevent oneself from being deceived.
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IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065
References Barnet, Sylvan, et al., Literature for Composition (Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama). Fourth. New York: Harper Collins, 1996. Print. 20 April 2017. Mansfield, Katherine. “A Cup of Tea.” Worthy Words (An Anthology of Prose, One-Act Plays and Poetry for College Students). Ed. Praveen Kumar. First. New Delhi: S. CHAND & COMPANY LTD., 2005. 42-49. Print. 18 April 2017.
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