On Study Of The Female Alienation In Katherine Mansfield's Short Stories

Katherine Mansfield(1888-1923)is a prominent female writer in the early 20 th British literary field.Her prolific short stories fully display the prevalent theme of modern literature-alienation.Critics and scholars have done lots of researches on Mansfield and her works from different perspectives.The feminism studies are quite sufficient.However,most of the studies are analyses about female oppression from broad feminism perspective and few scholars have touched upon the theme of female alienation.Thus,this thesis attempts to make a deep research into the theme of female alienation in Mansfield's short stories from the special branch of feminism-socialist feminism.The thesis consists of six parts.Chapter One gives a brief introduction to Mansfield and her works,creative motives as well as the concept of alienation.Chapter Two reviews the research at home and abroad.The latter three chapters are the main body in which the thesis makes a thorough analysis of the forms and causes of female alienation with a close textual study of the selected stories including Poison,Revelations,Bliss,A Cup of Tea,Prelude,A Birthday,Sixpence,The Daughters of the Late Colonel,The Woman at the Store,Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding,based on the representative of socialist feminism Alison Jaggar's female alienation theory.In conclusion,the thesis sums up the root causes for female alienation: it is the dual influences of gender oppression and money-oriented outlook under capitalist patriarchy that result in the tragedy of female alienation.In addition,the thesis briefly discusses the limitations of the thesis and the author's literary works and thoughts.Research on the theme is of great realistic significance to appeal to modern people for concern about women's mental health,psychological balance and the guarantee of female rights and interests.