The Ignored Miserable Males

Katherine Mansfield's works as well as she herself have been a focus for discussion and debate. Typically, critics have read Katherine Mansfield's short stories as a feminist protest. The feminist research on Katherine's works either displays the self-consciousness of female under the oppression of Patriarchy or merely shows sympathy to the misfortune of women in life. All in all, the study of the male characters in Katherine Mansfield's short stories still doesn't attract a lot of attention. As Charles E. Bressler said that we should"broaden traditional feminist criticism to include an investigation not only of femaleness but also maleness"(270-71), this thesis will consider some of the typical male characters from five of his important short stories using the role theory perspective in sociology to explore their real living conditions. The long term gender prejudice has always been against female, but as a matter of fact that against male still existing. The purpose of the thesis is to rightly judge male from a new perspective. It is desired to contribute to a more objective and harmonious gender relation on the base of former research.