International Journal of Secondary Education

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On Characteristics of the Plots in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories

Received: 09 May 2018    Accepted: 30 May 2018    Published: 18 June 2018
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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 The Garden Party, Bliss, A Cup of Tea, An Ideal Family 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.

DOI 10.11648/j.ijsedu.20180602.12
Published in International Journal of Secondary Education (Volume 6, Issue 2, June 2018)
Page(s) 33-36
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Katherine Mansfield, Stream of Consciousness, Shifts of Occasions, Function of Objects

References
[1] Shimei Huang. Light of Bliss; Disillusion of Hopes---On the Illusion of Blissful Feelings in Mansfield’s Short Story Bliss. Overseas English, 2013.
[2] Katherine Mansfield. Bliss and Other Stories. Createspace Independent Pub, 2016.
[3] Katherine Mansfield. The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield. Penguin Group, 2007.
[4] Kobler, J. F. Katherine Mansfield: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne Publishers, 1990.
[5] David Daiches. The Art of Katherine Mansfield. New Literary Values: Studies in Modem Literature, 1936.
[6] Alpers, A. The Life of Katherine Mansfield. Oxford Lives, 1980.
[7] Ian A. Gordon. Undiscovered Country: The New Zealand Stories of Katherine Mansfield. Longman Group, 1974.
[8] William H. Harris and Judith S. Levey. The New Columbia Encyclopedia: Fourth Edition. New York and London. Columbia University Press, 1975.
[9] Jianing Chen. The Artistic Features of Mansfield's Short Stories. Journal of Capital Normal University, 1985.
[10] Liyun Zhou. A Psychological Analysis of Laura’s Personality in Katherine Mansfield’s The Garden Party. Overseas English, 2015.
Author Information
  • College of Teacher Education, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

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  • APA Style

    Aijing Zhang. (2018). On Characteristics of the Plots in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories. International Journal of Secondary Education, 6(2), 33-36. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijsedu.20180602.12

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    ACS Style

    Aijing Zhang. On Characteristics of the Plots in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories. Int. J. Second. Educ. 2018, 6(2), 33-36. doi: 10.11648/j.ijsedu.20180602.12

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    AMA Style

    Aijing Zhang. On Characteristics of the Plots in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories. Int J Second Educ. 2018;6(2):33-36. doi: 10.11648/j.ijsedu.20180602.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijsedu.20180602.12,
      author = {Aijing Zhang},
      title = {On Characteristics of the Plots in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories},
      journal = {International Journal of Secondary Education},
      volume = {6},
      number = {2},
      pages = {33-36},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijsedu.20180602.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijsedu.20180602.12},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijsedu.20180602.12},
      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 The Garden Party, Bliss, A Cup of Tea, An Ideal Family 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.},
     year = {2018}
    }
    

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