Abstract
Katherine Mansfield is a legend in the history of the modern British literature for her implicit writing style. She was regarded as one of the most prominent innovators and pioneers of English short stories. Most of her works are carefully organized in the structure, concentrating on creating the inner world of the characters instead of a clear beginning or tense conflicts, so as to invite readers to explore the subtle changes of the characters’ psychological world. There have been a large number of studies on the subjects like feminism, modernism, dream disillusionment, narrative style and rhetorical devices of her short stories, but only a few talk about the plot structure because there seems to be no clear boundaries between the beginning and the development, and the development and the ending. This thesis intends to and generalize the structural features of her short stories, including <i>The Garden Party, Bliss, A Cup of Tea, An Ideal Family</i> and so on, mainly from the following three aspects: the stream of consciousness, shifts of occasions, and the function of objects. It is found that there are some regularities in the settings of the beginnings and endings in her stories. And from the analysis of her short stories, it may help us learn more about what is artistic beauty and about how to design the story-telling process.
Highlights
The Garden Party tells about a young girl named Laura Sheridan
Aijing Zhang: On Characteristics of the Plots in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories stories mostly came from writers and critics, who held that her early works were not so successful, either for the similar characters or for her shallow understanding of the cultural background of England
In A Cup of Tea, it is a little difficult for the reader to see the personality of Rosemary and understand her actions in the story without the employment of stream of consciousness
Summary
Most of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories have simple plots and concise language, which make the stories easy to understand, but difficult to appreciate the themes. [1] The following three short stories can be taken to illustrate this. The Garden Party tells about a young girl named Laura Sheridan Laura is confused and when the party finishes, she is asked to visit the poor family. She feels quite uneasy in the process and is dubious about life and happiness. While Bliss is about a young woman called Bertha Young, who always feels happy and satisfied about her life She has deep and unutterable bliss in her heart. Rosemary Fell in A Cup of Tea is a wealthy, married woman When she finishes shopping in Curzon Street, she meets up with a poor girl called Herself Miss Smith. Rosemary picks up three five-pound notes and sends Miss Smith away out of her jealousy, she the comes to her husband and asks him whether she is pretty. [3]
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