Katherine Mansfield: Hints and Ambiguities

Katherine Mansfield was a contemporary and rival of the Bloomsbury great Virginia Woolf. Recognized for her short stories, Mansfield is a “quiet” writer, one whose trademark subtleties and ambiguities enrich her narratives and almost deceptively fuel her stories forward. The short story medium, with the limited space it occupies, necessitates an ending that hints at completeness, and hint is exactly what Mansfield repeatedly does. With language that implies and nudges, she creates an atmosphere of inertia as socially constructed roles entrap her characters and prevent them from acting to change their positions; they fall into soundless resignation. Such acquiescence places her characters (mostly the females) in the role of victim, one trapped by her gender or social position. Epiphanies and self-realization arrive often with irony and with the knowledge that an inescapable fate limits social or personal prosperity.

In “Bliss,” Bertha, a young housewife of social standing and a new mother, as her name suggests, embraces society’s values, for she has “just the kind of friends they [she and her husband] wanted.” Simultaneously, she acknowledges the vapidity of such values as she exclaims how “idiotic civilization is!” Restless after a day of shopping and preparing for a dinner party, Bertha is disturbed by an inexplicable uneasiness: “Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement...or to stand still and laugh at--nothing--at nothing, simply.” The story ends with her discovering her husband’s betrayal with a mysterious female named Pearl, to whom Bertha is similarly attracted. The story ends with Bertha asking, “‘Oh, what is going to happen now?’"

The last line suggests that nothing will happen or change: "But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still.” Still connotes not only silence but also sameness. Bertha’s life is not likely to change. The nothingness that haunts her in the beginning will continue to do so. Like the pear tree, Bertha will be acknowledged for her fertility and her loveliness, but nothing meaningful will ever be expected of her; her desires will remain elusive and unfulfilled.

In “The Doll’s House,” even young children acknowledge and accept society’s cultural and economic boundaries. The story centers around the Burnell sisters and the new doll house they have acquired. Eager to display it to others, they invite their friends to visit, but they exclude the less privileged Kelvey sisters. The Kelvey sisters equally understand and accept their position as outcasts, for they “knew better than to come anywhere near the Burnells.” In this story, possession marks status. One sister emphasizes, “Isabel’s my friend.” The story itself is entitled doll’s house rather than doll house. The theocratic language that frames the story suggests a social hierarchy that extends from the parents down to the Burnell children: “‘I’m to tell,’ said Isabel, ‘because I’m the eldest. And you two can join in after. But I’m to tell first.’ ” As in “Bliss,” Mansfield ends the story with silent resignation as the Kelveys remain wordless: “Then both were silent once more.”

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