Mansfield's Movement

I don’t even know where to begin when broaching a person/subject, such as Katherine Mansfield and her short stories. I did not realize she was such a woman of flux as she bounced from New Zealand, England, France, and Switzerland, in addition to bouncing from man to man to woman throughout her lifetime. I had researched her a little at the beginning of class as I believed she might be more liminal in nature (I quickly discovered that “flux” was certainly more appropriate). I also found it odd that her relationship with Ida Baker/Leslie Moore/L.M.) was not described in greater depth in any of our readings as she was coined as Mansfield’s “wife” in Hermione Lee’s article (382). Further, she seemed to know Baker from 1908 until 1923 based on information provided in the “kirjasto” biography on Mansfield. Another article contends, “‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’ is a gentle satire on Mansfield’s close friend, Ida Constance Baker, and on Ida’s moody and irascible father, a ‘dried up old stick’ who shot himself after World War I” (Meyers ix). Maybe I’m more interested in Mansfield’s complex and somewhat disreputable side of life as opposed to her short stories that portray threads of her life’s perspective?

Nevertheless, she certainly posited a lot of her life’s views into her work(s). Beginning my reading of Mansfield’s Prelude was appropriate as it placed its reader in her New Zealand homeland. It also exhibited another parallel as Linda, Lottie, and Kezia Burnell began their move from one place to another at the short story’s start—similar to Mansfield’s childhood. As the title suggests, this move leads the reader to a more significant and deeper meaning. As I read through this story, I felt that Linda and Kezia were very Mansfield-like. Linda’s relationship with Stanley seemed similar to the New Zealand writer’s relationship with men, possibly Garnet Trowel. One of her biographical accounts noted, “She returned to Garnet, travelled with his opera company, became pregnant…” and later gave birth to a “still born child” (New Zealand Book Council). Mansfield’s personal experience seemingly evolved into Linda’s horrific dream. She sees the “lovely kingfisher perched on the paddock fence” and, in the following paragraph, she “caught the tiny bird and stroked its head with her finger…. As she stroked it began to swell…it grew bigger and bigger and its round eyes seemed to smile knowingly at her” (Mansfield 89). The “loud” attractive male kingfisher presents the musically inclined Trowel, and the swelling “tiny ball of fluff” that “had become a baby with a big naked head” presented a glimpse of Mansfield's stillborn infant who never truly came to be. Linda Burnell is also viewed as a “delicate sensitive invalid” (Meyer viii). Mansfield, too, was an invalid—not simply because she had tuberculosis. She longed for security and stability in her life. “Mansfield’s marriage stories reflect[ed] her own fear of abandonment and betrayal, her self-destructive jealousy, and her guild about being an invalid” (Meyer xiii). As much as Mansfield delivered her adult perspective, she also presented a child’s view.

Hermione Lee comments about this story’s “funny child’s eye view, its tiny coloured details, [and] its fluid movements between banal realities and inner fantasy”(385). I mentioned earlier that Kezia held Mansfield-like characteristics. I say this as it directly relates to another vivid depiction of a duck’s graphic death. As Pat chops off the duck’s head, Kezia is horrified and wants to fix something that cannot be mended. She has been horrified for an instant, but moves on within minutes as she finds the servant’s earrings. Mansfield seems to reveal her nature’s essence—an event can change one forever and alter one’s view, but one will move on without a second thought. I could be completely off, but it certainly seems fitting for Mansfield. For me, thirty years of this author’s life is wrapped up in the few stories that we’ve read.

The “coloured details” and “fluid movements” that Lee points out are reminiscent of what appear in Woolf’s short stories. I find construction of Woolf’s and Mansfield’s stories to be very different. They bare similarity because they incorporate bursts of color, images of nature/gardens. Yet, their styles are very different. Woolf’s short stories flow, but only as the clips of memory connect somehow, and, at the same time, are deliberately fragmented—dashes and clips of repeated words and images seem to burst forth. It seems more progressive than Mansfield’s stories. Mansfield’s works were more traditional as they maintained a more cohesive thread. Her words thread together to present a scene, which has the ability to burst forth. I realize that Woolf was six years older than Mansfield, but I am a bit confused, however, regarding who influenced whom. Was it typical for women writers to use the images of the garden and specific flowers—or was it Woolf’s influence over Mansfield or vice versa?

Overall, I would say that I am intrigued by this author more than the others we have discussed in class. Stating this, however, I find a greater respect for Woolf and Eliot and their works. Moreover, Mansfield’s flux is far more interesting than Forster’s—at least from a biographical account.