Katherine Mansfield as a writer of short stories. Discuss.

Ans.

Katherine Mansfield is a well known name in the field of short story writing in the 20th century. She was born in Wellington. New Zealand in 1888. She belonged to a very rich and prosperous family and so her early life was quite enjoyable and comfortable. She was sent to Queen’s College, London when she was fifteen. Her early education was completed in her home town. She has always been a good student and was interested in the study of various types of literature and novels and stories which later helped her much in forming her a perfect story teller. After leaving college. she returned to New Zealand but was not interested in her life there. She was not pleased with the boredom because she felt that there was no novelty or adventure there. Therefore, she decided to return to London and take part in various literary activities. She joined literary circles which contributed a lot to widening her knowledge of literature. Consequently she realized within herself that she is destined to be come a writer and so started making efforts to get training and knowledge by her studies. She concluded that before beginning the work of writing, one must learn to ‘live’. She developed relationship with a number of well known writers like Middleton Murry. She came into contact with him in 1912 and lived with him for six years. Then they married. It was the period of World War which had a very deep impact on her and in moulding her ideas, she had some tragic experiences also which leave the impression on her literary works. Her own brother Leslie was killed in war and she could never forget him. He has been talked about directly and indirectly in many of her stories. In many of her writings, she recollects their rich childhood experiences in New Zealand. She died in 1923, at the age of 35, after a short stormy life.

Katherine Mansfield is a writer of short stories and during her life time, five volumes of her stories were published. As a writer of stories, she followed the footsteps of the Russian novelist and short story writer Chekov, whose works she admired greatly. She was an impressionist in her art and sought to portray things and ideas quite objectively. She has revealed the significant moments in human relationship, the curious and subtle spiritual adventure and the poignant ironies of contrasting human emotions. Here she was different from Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf who are thoroughly autobiographical, Katherine Mansfield studied life objectively and understood her characters widely. They were different from herself in both-temperament and nature. some of her stories have the setting in New Zealand background and life, while in others, she presents the weariness and frustrations of life. Her stories are noteworthy for a note of sombreness and are characterized by a haunting sense of pathos as we find in To the Bay, the Garden Party and The Fly. They have the glimpses of her deep psychological understanding of hu man mind. Most of them reveal the tragic realities of human life but they are not frustrating but a source of courage and fortitude. They teach us to face life bravely because it is never good to think of death.

Regarding the stories of Katherine, it has been said that from the first, she exhibited an astonishing assurance in technique and in control of her subject-matter. Her touches have no artificiality or lightness, rather they are deep and subtle. Her details are everywhere picturesque, unfaltering and telling. She builds up to the intensification of a single emotion, mood or psychological situation. But she was not a perfectly impressionistic artist, rather there is in tensity of feeling and maturity of vision. There is pity and piercing sympathy everywhere. Along with broad and crude satires, she is the master of subtle ironies of life. Her depth of insight and feeling have been expressed in delicately sensitive prose. They impart an impression of poetic lyricism and she is nowhere sentimental or mawkish. She was at her best in the delineation of young children, adolescent girls and old women. As an stylist, she stands alone for pure English.