Katherine Mansfield

In "A Cup of Tea," Rosemary walks into a shop and sees a beautiful and expensive little box that costs twenty eight guineas. She asks the proprietor to keep it for her, and it seems evident that...

Basil comes across as quite a cruel, unfeeling man. The callous way he breaks off his engagement to Miss Meadows only to renew it later on as if nothing had happened is something that most of us...

“A Cup of Tea” can be seen as a withering satire of the selfishness and materialism of the affluent upper classes. The protagonist of the story, Rosemary Fell, is a lady of leisure who likes...

Initially, Rosemary plans to take on Miss Smith as a project; she is going to listen to her problems and help her, because Rosemary has suddenly embraced the idea of "noblesse oblige" and...

The theme of Katherine Mansfield's "An Ideal Family" is that of the problems of growing old. Mr. Neave sits in his chair at his office and reflects that his son Harold does not take his position...

This, like so many of Katherine Mansfield's short stories, is based around class-consciousness and the completely different worlds that people of different classes live in. The central conflict is...

Despite that she is very wealthy and has everything material she could want in life, including a fine husband, Rosemary is discontented for reasons she doesn't understand. She comes out of an...

Katherine Mansfield makes it clear that female jealousy in "A Cup of Tea" comes from personal insecurity rather than simply desiring what others have. Rosemary is an intelligent, rich, and lovely...

Katherine Mansfield, like her friend Virginia Woolf, was trying in the years during and after World War I to write in a new way, a way that would use language to reveal truths the Edwardians...

A major theme in Mansfield’s work is that of the young (usually female) protagonist learning about the world, becoming aware of the complexities and the darker side of life and human nature. This...

In "A Cup of Tea," the wealthy Mrs. Fell is approached by a poor young woman named Miss Smith, who asks for enough money to buy a cup of tea. Mrs. Fell is delighted with her. Feeling as if she is...

The direct method of characterization is used by the narrator to describe a character with explicit detail. This means that the character's physical characteristics will be clearly explained...

Stream-of-consciousness is a literary technique quite commonly used by modernist writers such as Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. It gives us a unique, privileged insight into...

"A Married Man's Story" by Katherine Mansfield is an unfinished story whose confessional narrative is a series of revelations that also are unfinished; nevertheless, they build upon one another to...

I must admit that one of the qualities I really appreciate about the short fiction of Katherine Mansfield is the way that her stories often linger on in our minds and can haunt us. Out of the many...

Mansfield uses a form of third-person limited narration that gets us inside of Miss Meadows's head. At the same time, the third-person perspective keeps a distance between the reader and Miss...

The question refers to Mansfield’s story “An Ideal Family.” Mr. Neave’s dream life articulates his fears and anxieties about how life has passed him by, his loneliness in the midst of his family,...

Ian French of the short story "Feuille d'Album" by Katherine Mansfield appears at first to be what the title indicates: a person on a page of an album (feuille=page) since he is static in his...

Insecurity is an important theme in the story. Reggie is very apprehensive at the prospect of asking Anne's parents for her hand in marriage. Reggie is full of self-questioning and reproach; he...

The issues focused on in the short fiction of Katherine Mansfield seem to try to explore and depict the various challenges facing women in her context. In particular, the position of women in a...

Miss Meadows is in agony as her day begins, feeling torn apart because she has received a letter from the man she hoped to marry telling her he thinks it is a "mistake" to go forward with their...

It's important to understand that Modernist literature was a reaction to Victorian literature, where there were strict rules of conduct and social expectations, a sense of order, and usually a...

Katherine Mansfield was privileged and sent by her parents from New Zealand to London to be educated. She studied music and writing. After returning to New Zealand, her rebelliousness and...

Katherine Mansfield closely ties setting to theme in “The Garden Party” as she highlights the sharp contrast between the upper and lower classes. Mansfield describes the elaborate party plans for...

I think that it is a little of both. Loneliness works both ways. Sometimes our feelings of inadequacies lead us to isolate ourselves, when the people in our lives do not see them the same way,...

Very interesting question. Well, of course to a certain extent every author's work is dependent to a large extent on their life. Katherine Mansfield was born in New Zealand, but throughout her...

In the story "Her First Ball" the young girl starts out nervous about the ball, a metaphor for life. When gets caught up in the magic, and then disillusioned when the older man paints a sad future...

[ While Enotes educators do not compose essays, we are glad to assist with ideas as to the composition of comparison/contrast. ] Certainly, Katherine Mansfield's short story named after a Chopin...

Katherine Mansfield presents us with the demise (end) of love in these two short stories. In "Bliss," Bertha Young is ecstatically happy with her life as a young married mother; however, we sense...

This is a beautiful story! I short, it is about a young woman who has never been to a ball before. She goes with her cousin. She is at first enchanted by all the beautiful people. The men come...

Interestingly, both of these stories feature female protagonists who are variously trapped in positions of poverty, dependence and oppression of various types. Note how in "The Little Governess"...

If we look at a range of Mansfield's excellent short stories we can see that two families are used again and again in her fiction. In "The Garden Party" for example, the Sheridan family, with their...

One theme may be that social class is real. The plot involves a man and a women who used to be lovers who meet again. Then man expresses a feeling that social class does not mean anything, and...