Although one of the famous short story writers, Katherine Mansfield is not a popular name with Vietnamese readers. Compared to her contemporaries such as DHLawrence, Virginia Woolf..., Mansfield is still a rather "unfamiliar land". She had a few short stories published in anthologies decades ago, but Garden Party was her first time on her own.
Garden Party (Box and Writers Association Publishing House, 2023) is a collection of short stories that represents all the themes in Mansfield's works. It is a mineral-rich underground literary vein, with a concise, feminine and sensitive style. Looking back at the female writer's legacy after a hundred years, it can be seen that she was ahead of her time, with somewhat progressive views towards feminism.
Writer Katherine Mansfield
British Association for Modernist Studies
Little things
Just a few weeks ago, novelist Judy Blume was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people. And a year before that, Annie Ernaux, through her personal memoirs, was also honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Both cases show us that the world is slowly turning, with seemingly random stories but deep inside there is a new power.
When asked why Judy Blume made the list, many people answered that it was because her books were in the genre of
Her chick-lits enlightened pre-modern teenagers about what menstruation was, and how to deal with each "strawberry drop". Likewise, for Ernaux, it is not easy to imagine the subject of abortion, adultery... one day winning a Nobel Prize. Never before have such personal experiences been so important as they are now.
Like Ernaux, Mansfield's short stories are often short and take place between two extremely short time periods. It could be a day in the story On the Bay, or a brisk evening in the story Garden Party. As for On the Bay - Mansfield's longest short story - apart from the description of a misty island, it does not contain much about the daily activities of the characters in that land.
In this work, she describes how depressed men are, to how women and children rush to the beach... And that's it. Throughout the story, we see nothing but women sunning themselves on the beach, a maid walking into the bushes and a little child huddled next to her grandmother... However, it is from these strokes that the world of women suddenly appears, with all the fatigue and responsibilities they have to bear (leading to the fact that if there is a long day without men, the only thing they will do is enjoy themselves).
And because it is not focused on events, Mansfield's strength lies in delving into the psychology of the characters. Not stopping there, the female characters are often built with relatively special personalities, as strong, dominant people, thereby making men bow down to them. Expanding the point of view, it can be seen that Mansfield's short stories in some aspects also reflect a relatively impressive, somewhat modern feminist perspective.
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
Advanced femininity
This theme can be expounded upon through the short story The Colonel's Daughter. The story tells that after the death of their father, two girls, Constantia and Josephine, seem to relive their youth, when the barriers that had been put in place by their old father who hated marriage have now disappeared.
This seems to have a convergence, when we see it has similarities with the novel We Always Lived in the Castle by the "Queen of Gothic" Shirley Jackson, published later. There, sisters Merricat and Constance also lost their father and relied on each other to survive. Even more special is the number of syllables and the initials of the two characters in the two works are similar. Jackson wrote that novel when he was almost in crisis, leading to the wish that the two sisters would live together on the moon, where the hurt could not reach. This rather special image has been the subject of debate among many experts for a long time, and in Mansfield, we see something similar.
Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923) was a famous New Zealand short story writer and literary critic. She is considered one of the most influential and important authors of modernism. She died at the age of 35 from tuberculosis. Although she wrote for only a short time, she published many impressive short story collections, such as At the German Inn, Happiness and Garden Party...
Since ancient Greece, the moon or Artemis has been a symbol of women. Mansfield has followed this exactly when she writes: "She remembered the previous times she had come here, crawling out of bed in her nightgown under the full moon - lying motionless on the floor, her arms spread out as if nailed to the ground. Why? Why? The big, pale moon had made her do it." It is not difficult to see that the pleasure and desire described here are extremely feminine and sensitive.
Sensitive femininity is also seen in short stories that tend towards realism and humanity. Stories such as Garden Party, Mother Parker's Life... in addition to the somewhat detailed descriptions of upper-class life, the differences between the two classes, as well as the distinctions in that society, are also depicted somewhat vividly.
While the young lady in the Garden Party suddenly finds the death of the poor can be beautiful, Parker's mother - a maid when her son died - sees nothing but bitterness, and needs a place to cry alone. But it has to be a secluded place, because she doesn't want to cry in front of strangers. This is not pretentious or making a big deal out of it, but this detail shows us that no matter where or what class, women will still retain the virtues that made them.
Like a somewhat sharp look that goes from cruel, intelligent, to sympathetic, through extremely outstanding short stories, it can be seen that Mansfield has built for himself an "empire" of his own: small, fragmented, but also thorny, full of femininity and progress. Reading Mansfield is to feel the unusual things in the ordinary, from which to see a strange flow.
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