A Quest For Self-identity:the Construction Of Female Space In Prelude And At The Bay

As an outstanding New Zealand born English female writer in the 20th century,Katherine Mansfield(1888-1923)is one of the few writers who centered on short story writing and established her fame on it.She has devoted her entire life to the experiment and innovations of short story writing both in its form and content,which credits her as a pioneer of modernist short story creation.Her keen observations,innovative "stream of consciousness" technique and the "plot-less" style have added unfailing charm to her short stories,attracting attentions from scholars and critics around the world.Being two of Mansfield's most prominent semi-autobiographical short stories written in memory of her brother through rediscovering New Zealand,Prelude and At the Bay have marked her maturity in modernist writing techniques and generated a stylist innovation in short story creation.Upon publication,each of them has made great sensation and established Mansfield as an extraordinary modernist writer.These two stories unfold some "epiphanic moments" of major characters in the Burnell family and uncover the confinement facing mainly Linda,Beryl and Kezia as well as their ceaseless quest for their own space and self-identity in their stream of consciousness.Thus this thesis intends to explore these two short stories from the perspective of spatial criticism,analyzing mainly the topographical space,mental space and textual space.This thesis falls into five parts.Chapter One gives an introduction to Katherine Mansfield and her works,briefing the literature review as well as an overview of the spatial criticism.Chapter Two analyzes in details the confinement and oppression facing female in topographical space including inner space and open space;Chapter Three explores their awakening female consciousness and construction of female space in mental space through dreams,disillusionment of fantasies and constant adventures;Chapter Four focuses on Mansfield's skillful strategies such as the cinematic narrative technique,the "plot-less" Prelude style and her ordering of spatial units,all of which have contributed to the construction of an open textual space and echoed the theme of the two stories.Chapter Five is the concluding part which includes the core idea,major findings and limitations of the thesis.The thesis finds that in Prelude and At the Bay,although females are still trapped in the topographical space,they are actually awakening and constructing their own space in the mental world;besides,the open textual space that Mansfield constructed in the textual level has echoed the theme of the two stories,which frees females from the boundaries of confinement,enabling them to quest for their own identity.