Psychological Novels Of Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield(1888-1923)is an outstanding short story writer in modern English literature.Her creation time focuses on the end of the 19 th century to early20 th century,which is the development stage of the modernist literary.She captures the trend of it and applies to short novels,which plays an important role.She inherits Realism.therefore,her works was not completely modernist.So in order to grasp her works,this study focuses on the above two perspectives.Psychological novels are the masterpiece of Mansfield.Due to insufficiency of studies on it,this thesis chooses it as the researching point to reveal creative themes and the techniques of expression employed,and to explore her creation motivations,thus to render Mansfield's influence in English literature.This thesis is divided into four chapters.The first chapter probes into the emergence of Mansfield's psychological novel,including British literary tradition,“the other” identity and feminine perspective.The second chapter sums up female psyche of all ages.Her short story contains various psychological characters,including the panic of innocent children,different mental state of couples,the pursuit of love of old girls and getting out of poverty of lower women.The above shows different psychological states,which cannot wholly be listed in this paper.So the second chapter is divided into four sections,they are,girls' fear of the male world,adolescent women's dreams and disillusionment,the ennui of married women,the guard of the exhausted and lonely old.Mansfield adopts different means to show female psyche,so the third chapter analyzes expressive methods: contrast gimmick,dreams and mirror principle.The fourth chapter reveals Mansfield's contributions tothe English literature,according to turning inward and writing techniques.This study indicates that Mansfield promotes the British short stories by writing,at the same time in which presents female psychological world,providing a new literary material.In a nutshell,Mansfield has revolutionized the themes and performance practices of short novels,which plays an important role in the history of English literature.