Feminist Narrative Voices In Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories

Katherine Mansfield is one of the most significant female writers in bothBritish and New Zealand literature history. Due to her innovative writing techniquesand deep concerns on female fate in the patriarchal society, Mansfield enjoys along-lasting reputation as “the Master of Short Stories”.The narratological innovations and the feminist consciousness of Mansfield’sworks have long been two of the main research focuses. However, there are still someproblems existing in these researches, in which feminist studies and narrativeresearches run on parallel channels and the intercourse between them is stillunfortunately neglected. So far, few studies has addressed to the combined studies ofnarrative devices and feminist ideas or how Mansfield invests her feministconsciousness in the narrative devices.Thus, in light of Susan Lanser’s feminist narratology, this thesis attempts toexplore how Katherine Mansfield demonstrates her feminist consciousness throughthe narrative voices. Firstly, this thesis introduces the development of feministnarratology and demonstrates how it assimilates the advantages of both narratologyand feminist criticism and avoids their respective one-sideness. After brieflyintroducing various voices in Lanser’s feminist narratology, this thesis then takes thenarrative voices applied in Mansfield’s works as a cut-in to explore how Mansfielddemonstrates her feminist consciousness. Then this thesis concludes that throughvarious narrative voices Mansfield truthfully demonstrates the tragic and vulnerablefates of women controlled by men, and successfully establishes her feminist narrativeauthority in her works.