Kay Mansfield Characteristics Of Modernism

Katherine Mansfield 's writing has already become the focus of discussion in the sphere of learning of the Europe and New Zealand. The Mansfield industry or 'Mansfield mania' as critics have wryly described the phenomenal interest in this writer, has mushroomed. Mansfield has been credited in the movement toward making form in the short story from Anton Chekhov in Russia to James Joyce in Ireland ,through Katherine Mansfield in England and to Ernest Hemingway being "great storytellers" and toward being artisans in crafting a short story. Mansfield's writings were in fact deeply affected by two events-one cultural, the other social and political-which radically altered early-twentieth-century Europe's perception of itself, and in so doing contribute signally to the formation of the Modernist movement. My study of Mansfield focuses closely upon the stories and their subtexts, in an attempt both to emphasize the extent of their originality and subtlety, and to trace the evolution of one of the great Modernist innovators of twentieth-century English literature.The paper begins with a general survey of the basic arguments of Mansfield writing and Mansfield criticism for nearly a hundred years. It then moves to what still remains marginal in Mansfield criticism the issue of identity ambivalence in Mansfield's short stories and concludes that there are some good reasons for investing in some form of critical justification.Chapter one is formed by four parts and discusses Mansfield's technique of psychoanalysis in her writing and her psychological fiction. From the two parts we can see that in her writing was less dramatic but just as fundamental in its effect on the European consciousness-the publication by Freud of his early works on sexuality and the mechanism of repression. And whilst her declared approach to her art was devoutly anti-theoretical the content and layered structure of many of her stories show what appears to be a considerable debt to the lead metaphor and insights of depth-psychology.Chapter two consists of three parts and discusses Mansfield's technique of constructing plot in her fiction and her lyrical fiction. Mansfield's writings show a profound appreciation of English and continental literary tradition. This resulted in short pieces which with their apparent combination of open-endedness and taut structuring and their use of the subjective lyrical voice, caught both the poignancy and the purposelessness of life as it was perceived in the aftermath of the War. The also contributed signally to the invention of the Modernist, or literary, short story.Chapter three is formed by three parts and discusses the role of the narrator and the alienated and changed point of view. The analysis shows that the narrator's double identity and complex identity gives her an advantage of observing and commenting on people and events around her. But it also highlights her conflicted value orientation in her judgement and attitudes towards them, which, in a way, points to the author's ambivalent value orientation.Chapter four consists of four parts and discussed the symbol in Mansfield's writing and some pieces' s profound and implied symbol. Mansfield's writings show a profound appreciation of the French Symbolists and she obtained insights regarding the potency of myth and symbol in her writing. Her struggle both to reveal and to conceal this material led to the development of sophisticated techniques of indirection, linguistic ambiguity, complex and system-free symbolismThe paper concludes that Mansfield's works will always and ever occupy a place in numerous English and New Zealand literary classic and endure various interpretations. Her technique in turn assisted her evolution of a Modernist rhetoric.