IJELLH International journal of English language, literature in humanities ISSN-2321-7065 About Us | Editorial Board |Submission Guidelines |Call for Paper Paper Submission | FAQ |Terms & Condition | More……. 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 Volume V, Issue V May 2017 122 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 Volume V, Issue V May 2017 123 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 Volume V, Issue V May 2017 124 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.