A Comparative Study Of Mansfield’s And Ling Shu-hua’s Short Stories

Katherine Mansfield is one of the most important writers in the periodwhen British modernism was on the rise. She changed the art history ofEnglish short stories, and gave short stories a new definition andposition in the history of English Literature. Ling Shu-hua is a famousfemale writer who stepped into Chinese literature world after the NewCulture Movement. As an outstanding writer, she brought a breath of freshair to Chinese literary at that time, and showed us a neglected aspectof the society. The two authors’ literary works include short stories,novels, poems, proses and translations. But both of them are good atwriting short stories. Their exquisite short stories won them importantplaces.Considering the similarity of the theme, characters and style in theirworks, many scholars have paid great attention to comparative studiesof the two authors’ short stories. Judging from the previous studies onMansfield and Ling Shu-hua, the scholars focused more on the impact studyand case analysis, but less on the different characteristics of the twowriters’ writing styles.Based on a close reading, this dissertation willmake a parallel comparative study of Mansfield’s and Ling Shu-hua’s shortstories. It will focus on the themes, characters and artisticcharacteristics shown in their works, in order to point out thesimilarities and find out the differences between two writers’ writingstyles. This dissertation falls into three parts:In Chapter One, the author mainly discusses the two writers’ short storycreation, introduces and summarizes the research situation of Mansfield’sand Ling Shu-hua’s works at home and abroad. Although there exist a lot of biographies, chronologies and researches, but lacks pertinence on thetwo writers’ short stories. In this chapter, the author will introducethese short stories in stages. It contributes to a more comprehensiveunderstanding of the two writers’ writing style, and helps to conductresearch with comparable works.Chapter Two is the comparison of the characters in the two writers’ shortstories. The characters in these works are divided into "female","male"and "child". At the same time, through the analysis of the characters,it reflects some common themes and selections in the two writers’ stories.Mansfield and Ling Shu-hua always paid attention to the fate of women,and they were also famous for using children view and phrase. In thischapter, the author not only analyzes these two kinds of characters, butalso tries to compare the male images. Though in the secondary position,the male characters are still helpful to give readers a complete pictureof the works.The third chapter is to discuss the artistic characteristics in the twowriters’ short stories. The author shows the commonness and individualityof the two writers’ works through the analysis of structure, psychologicaldepiction and language style in their works.