摘 要

凯瑟琳•曼斯菲尔德（Katherine Mansfield）是 19 世纪末 20 世纪初颇负盛名的英国短篇小说家，被誉为“英国的契诃夫”。在英国小说的主流一直都是长篇小说的情况下，曼斯菲尔德却另辟蹊径，钟情于短篇小说，并创作出了大量优秀的作品。长期以来，对于其小说的研究多集中于其独特的写作技巧和表现风格， 事实上，早年的生活和一些特殊的经历，使得曼斯菲尔德成为了一名女权主义者。本文将从女性主义的理论视角，以曼斯菲尔德塑造的女性人物形象作为切入点， 通过对其小说作品中有女权意识的人物形象和无女权意识的人物形象的分析来凸显曼斯菲尔德的女性主义意识，深刻揭示当时父权制社会对女性的压制。

关键词：凯瑟琳•曼斯菲尔德；女性主义；父权制；

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 3
   1. An introduction to Feminism 3
      1. The first-wave 3
      2. The second-wave 4
      3. Post-modern feminism 5
   2. Katherine Mansfield's female characters 6
      1. Characters with feminist consciousness 6
         1. Vera in a Dill Pickle 6
         2. Bertha in Bliss 8
      2. Characters without feminist consciousness 9
         1. Rosemary in A Cup of Tea 9
         2. Rosabel in The Tiredness of Rosabel 11

2.3 Katherine Mansfield's special opinions about feminist consciousness 12

1. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

Bibliography 15

An Analysis of Katherine Mansfield's Feminist Consciousness in Her Short Stories

Introduction

Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923) was a New Zealand-born British writer at the beginning of the 20th century. Peculiar bumpy journey of vagrancy, keen and meticulous observation and imagination, poetic brushstrokes and innovative narrative techniques were used in the art of her short stories and brought her great fame. Margarita Esther once said: “Like Joyce Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, her novel is “an important part of the new dawn.” (Margarita Esther 65) and she was one of the mover and promoter of modernism.” In her short life, Mansfield created about 88 short stories, mainly in her three novels: In German Apartments (1911) Happiness (1920) and Garden (1922), The subject matter mainly involved love, family life and marital crisis, the hardships and misfortunes of lower working women, and children's lives.

Katherine Mansfield lived in a period when British literature changed from tradition to modernity and modernism flourished. One of the basic characteristics of feminist literary creation is to explore the identity of female writers. Katherine Mansfield, as a female writer with multiple consciousness and mixed cultural identity, is eager to obtain a credible, natural and stable identity out of her own needs. Although Mansfield has never been a radical feminist and has never publicly expressed her identification with feminism like some other radical female writers, her works are full of the complex spiritual process of pursuing female self. Her works in different periods are closely related to the theme of identity exploration, which reflects her feminist thoughts in different ways.

Smith Angela thought that “Mansfield's life seems to be an aimless journey, with no beginning and no ending.”(Smith Angela 153) She always be in a state of constant displacement, puzzles all her life and always wondering the question “who am I?” This is not only due to her complex personal experience, different personality, chaotic

identity, but also due to her identity and status as a woman and a female writer. As a child, she was separated from her parents and finally broke up with from them. From then on, she cut off the connection with the past and she had no roots for life. As an immigrant, she cut off the traditions that connected her past, present and future. As a woman, she abandoned her traditional role of wife and mother in a patriarchal society. As a New Zealand writer, she was excluded by two parts, unaccepted by London's mainstream culture, and unwilling to bow to the awkward and brutal reality. She felt that no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did could not really fit in, just like an onlooker, ostensibly observing her life soberly, but in fact she was a little worm bound by her own cocoon. These messy identities tore her apart, leaving her with a wound that would never heal. Only in her creation can she remove the mask and show all kinds of embarrassment, difficulties and frustrations in the process of female self-pursuit and identification.