A Study of the Mansfield’s Short Stories

Abstract

This article is about the woman characters in Katherine Mansfield’s short stories.

As a woman writer, Mansfield is very much concerned with the position of women in society. Stories of women take up most of her compositions, in which she captures various women’s plight and pain. Her women characters can be neatly divided into three categories: victims in the family, invisible women at workplace, doll and rebel. Poor or rich, single or married, Mansfield’s women characters are all victims of their society. A discussion of Mansfield’s stories about women can enrich understanding not only of the complicated conditions of women in western society at her time, but also of her contributions to modern literature, especially to the female culture.