Discovering The Mystery

Mansfield (1888-1923) is a central figure in the development of modern short story and also plays an important role in both British and New Zealand literary history. She was born in New Zealand, then came to England and began her literature career. She is one of the few major writers who are dedicated to short story writing. As a master of short story, she has a very special talent, which distinguishes her from any other short story writers. Most of Mansfield's short stories are about women and children, and have rather simple plots. The characters are never sophisticated, and the settings are constantly unobtrusive—a party or a ball can be the place where a delicate Mansfieldian story is put up. The theme of Mansfield's short stories is to show the most subtle and peaceful beauty of the world, but by employing innovative narrative techniques (especially symbolism) she imbues her short stories with a new and strong perspective. Katherine Mansfield's reputation is of a writer with an exquisite and delicate sensibility. Mansfield aims at capturing the"flashes"upon the"inward eye"and creating a kind of"special prose"(Collected Letters, 2001:101); her literary concern is the mentality of human beings. Actually she achieves her ideal so well that readers can feel everywhere the subtle feeling, mood and atmosphere expressed in her short stories.The thesis is intended to study symbolism in Katherine Mansfield's short stories to explore her symbolic device and the artistic effects of symbolism in the representation and discovery of the mystery of the characters'inner world.The first section in Chapter 1 is an introduction of Mansfield's living and writing background, which is very important to her writing. And a general survey of Mansfield's great contribution to modern short story follows. The last section of this chapter is about the structure and content of the thesis.Chapter 2 focuses on the discussion of the theory concerned in this thesis—"symbolism". In general,"symbolism"refers to the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events or relationships. In terms of stylistics,"symbolism"is regarded as an important rhetorical writing technique. This thesis mainly discusses the relationship between"symbolism"and Mansfield.Chapter 3 is the discussion and classification of eight major types of symbols which are constantly adopted by Katherine Mansfield. There are 7 types of imagery symbols including natural setting, animal, food, character, clothing, characters'habitual action and title. In addition, there's another type named consciousness symbol such as dream and illusion of characters which is often adopted in Katherine Mansfield's short stories. The focus is to study her application of symbolism in some of her best-known works.In Chapter 4, the author mainly explores and illustrates six effects of various symbols embodied in Katherine Mansfield's short stories, which include conveying abstract state of mind or feeling; revealing the reality; strengthening the theme; supporting the concept; portraying the character and heightening the impact. In a word, the advantage of symbolism in Mansfield's short stories lies in its function of arising people's rich association and widening the field of vision of the soul.Chapter 5 is a conclusion of Katherine Mansfield's employment of symbolism in her short stories. Various kinds of symbols appear throughout all of Mansfield's short stories and are wonderfully used for different effects and functions. Such would be Mansfield's special genius to define her great achievement in the writing of short stories. To sum up, the symbolic devices are frequently and delicately used in Mansfield's short stories. Mansfield often uses color, light and sound to create her hero or heroine's mood and employs many natural elements to establish symbolic images. Thus she makes her stories more poetic and artistic. Due to this, readers should walk through Mansfield's"the Forest of Symbols"to grasp and appreciate her stories'essence of art.