The Growth Of Katherine Mansfield's Artistic Mind

The period of Katherine Mansfield(1888-1923), the New Zealand-born short story writer, critic and poet, witnessed the transition of British literature from tradition to modernism and the vigorous development of modernist literature. Such great novelists as Joyce, Lawrence and Woolf were at their creative peak and had produced novels one after another. KM, however, found her way in the field of short story which had long been neglected by other British writers. KM with her exquisite and delicate artistic sensibility and genius creativity, spared no effort in innovating and exploring short story techniques, made great achievements in this field, thus transforming the 20^th century British short stories. She enjoyed a name of "Chekhov in English" and "Joyce in short story".One basic characteristic of modern literature is the exploration of identity. KM as a woman writer with multiple consciousness and mixed cultural identity, out of her own need, longed to obtain a trustworthy, natural, stable and fixed identity. Therefore, this thesis interprets KM's representative works in her different creative periods, analyzes the theme of self-exploration inside and outside her works, and furthermore, follows the track of the growth of her artistic ideas and innovative techniques, and proves that KM has made her unique and irreplaceable contribution to the turning of British short story from tradition to modernism.The thesis is divided into six chapters besides introduction and conclusion. It analyzes the text of KM's representative works in her four creative periods chronologically. Her short but creative career reflects her ever-evolving understanding of "Self. The analysis of her representative stories in each period systematically demonstrates the development of KM as a woman writer.Introduction is about the general knowledge of Modernist literary exploration of...