The Beginning Scene of Katherine Mansfields A Cup of Tea - Essay Example

The Beginning Scene of Katherine Mansfield’s «A Cup of Tea” In this little slice of life description, which begins this odd little story, Katherine Mansfield introduces the main character, Rosemary Fell, and draws a rather complete picture of her from an unidentified third person’s point of view. It is as if we are hearing gossip or a gossipy story told later, perhaps years later, as evidence by the conversational tone and the decided cadence of idle society repartee The description is not entirely flattering as we first hear the rather critical monologue of the narrator and then move closer to the character, moving first from the character description into expository explanation of her history to the final relating of what happens, including little snippets of dialogue. Though we do get closer, we never get close to Rosemary Fell. We are always distanced, allowing us to understand her and also to feel superior to her in some ways. The end of this description sets us up for the rest of the story, introducing the contrast of the rich, rather plain, shallow and privileged Rosemary Fell to the pretty, unassuming and quiet little waif. The first couple of lines become extremely important and obviously astute at the end of the story: “Rosemary Fell was not exactly beautiful. No, you couldn’t have called her beautiful. Pretty? Well, if you took her to pieces…..But why be so cruel as to take anyone to pieces?” (Mansfield, K. 2002, 362-4) This is an interesting comment on the narrator, possibly the author’s self opinion, that she could be decidedly cruel, because the subject was an easy victim and fit the role or possibly that it is her nature, but she will display the control of herself for our admiration. We really do not know what might have been going through the author’s mind at the time of the writing, whether or not she pictured the narrator as herself or another character. However, we do know that the narrator is decidedly a member of the “inner circle” taking a poke or two at Rosemary Fell, and she is another character. I say she after careful consideration of the text. The narrator is definitely female. The ending of the first paragraph where the narrator mentions the guests at Rosemary’s parties includes famous people and, “artists – quaint creatures, discoveries of hers, some of them too terrifying for words, but others quite presentable and amusing,” is a very telling phrase. Pilditch terms it as predatory, “The predatory comes to the surface in many stories--one woman preying upon another as in ‘A Cup of Tea’” (Pilditch 146) I tend to disagree slightly with this as it is more patronizing than predatory, since her “victims-discoveries” do reap benefits and generally emerge unharmed. She seems not to actually prey on her “discoveries”, but rather just to use them while allowing them to use her in return. There is language used throughout this story that hints that she is a predator, but she never actually preys on anyone. Mansfield masterfully manipulates time and point of view, habitually beginner her stories from the third person observer and then moving to the point of view of one of the characters as dialogue begins using interior dialogue to tell the story. She controls our distance form the main character by how much of the character’s thinking she chooses to reveal. She manipulates scene almost like Shakespeare does in his plays by simply using the costumes and immediate surroundings to tell us where we are. Mansfield controls time by simply changing mode, as she does in this story by making the switch from, “…he would explain…” to, “…today it was…” By eliminating “would” we move from past remembrance to immediate past. That is, in the first example, the scene is a remembered scene in the past, while the second example is an interesting impossible time of present in the past: “today it was…” Using these techniques she transports the reader from one viewpoint to another and from one time and place to another, and she does it without our even noticing. Another technique she uses is her dialogue. She tells us a great deal about the characters, even the narrator, through dialogue. We can clearly identify the relationship between Rosemary and the shopkeeper in the antique shop by modes of address and the register of the speech. The shopkeeper addresses her as “madam”, even when we might use “you”. This establishes the relationship between them as servant to mistress, even though he is not directly in her employ. Rosemary addresses him as “you” when she asks him to keep the little enamel box for her, reinforcing the master-servant relationship. The use of very casual speech patterns and even slang in monologue (the narrator’s), also establishes the status, education level and relationships among the characters, including the narrator.”She had a duck of a boy.” However, in the interior dialog very standard English is used, as in, “Even if one is rich…” Mansfield managed to vary the dialogue subtly to accomplish this feat. We do not see until later that the young girl she picks up is uneducated, as evidenced by her poor grammar and vocabulary. Mansfield also uses things or objects, especially art, as devices in her stories to focus within the frames she constructs (much like Woolf in ‘To the Lighthouse’ ). (Smith 146-9) In this story we are introduced to a tiny enamel box priced at the somewhat astonishingly high price of twenty guineas. The painting on the top of the box is described in detail. Then, outside, she enlarges and reverses this image. The scene is in horrible weather and she is the larger figure with the young waif in rags by her side. This introduces the idea that Rosemary’s “discoveries” are objects to her, perhaps her own version of objets d’art. The narrator has mentioned this earlier when she described the party guests. It seems insignificant in this passage, but it explains why Rosemary sends the girl away with three pounds at the end of the story. (Interesting how much less this little treasure was worth than the tiny enamel box.) That is also set up in this passage as we are told the price of this box, and we experience Rosemary’s reaction to the price. Another thing to note here is the use of the word, “creatures”. It is used in the beginning to describe some of the guests at Rosemary’s parties, “…artists – quaint creatures, discoveries of hers…” This is then linked to the “creatures” painted on the enamel box and finally connected to the young waif who stops her on the curb, though she is not identified as a “creature” until later in the story. Still, the connection is set up here with the first two examples. It leads us to conclude that Rosemary does actually see them as all the same, objects to possess. Katherine Mansfield sets the mood in this story first with the description from the narrator, and shifts it smoothly to something more serious, yet still interesting to see and experience, as she describes the weather when Rosemary exits the shop. This passage is the most poetic of the selection, quite surprising in prose of her time as Deen comments. "Mansfield, who evolved ‘a marvellous sensory notation hitherto undreamed of outside of poetry’. (Mulberry Tree 75)." (Deen 29) Though the description is quite poetic, it takes us into a more pensive mood: “Rain was falling, and with the rain it seemed the dark came too, spinning down like ashes. There was a cold bitter taste in the air, and the new-lighted lamps looked sad. Sad were the lights in the houses opposite. Dimly they burned as if regretting something. And people hurried by, hidden under their hateful umbrellas.” (Mansfield, Katherine 1992) The rain moves us from the warmth of the shop to cold of the street. We also see the darkness and coming down with the rain, and “spinning down like ashes” sets up a metaphor of the change and the coming of evening, the transition to the outside reality as an ending or destruction of something, perhaps the enjoyment of shopping. The cold, bitter taste in the air contrasts with the mention of an extra special tea, which would, of course, include special treats, warm and sweet. The sad lights and hateful umbrellas complete the picture of the spoiled young woman who now feels uncomfortable and wants comfort to come to her, so she does not have to exert herself to cross the street to the car. She personifies the lamps as they seem to regret something just as we are told that Rosemary regrets leaving the little box, because things comfort her. We sympathize at this point without even considering the absurdity of her discomfort. It isn’t until much later in the story that this scene become so telling. However, the poetic expression serves also to add poignancy to the scene, encouraging us to sympathize. The last part of this passage has an almost ominous feel to it as Mansfield describes Rosemary’s mood and feelings of vulnerability as she “emerges from shelter”. It is described as a horrible moment, and we are not told that the young girl stopping her is anything else. In fact, Mansfield describes her as thin, dark and shadowy, so we initially think of her as unpleasant, possibly dangerous. It sets up a bit of suspense, and we actually identify with Rosemary as we do not know what will happen. In looking at this passage as a whole, we can see that Mansfield uses her fiction as a method for commentary on the status and imposed roles of women. Without even seeing the last, quite disturbing scene, where Rosemary is depicted as her husband’s pet, we can still see that she is typical of her status, filling her life with shopping and giving parties. We don’t see her subservient role clearly here, except that we are initially told that she is not beautiful and not really pretty, then we are told that she has been married for two years. Her married state is given importance by its position as second behind her looks. This is a clue that looks are also important in her circle. We can guess that her brilliance, as from the description, is both one reason she is married to a rich man, but also a reason that she seems a bit lost, taking comfort in owning things and collecting “creatures”. In Mansfield’s time, women were still chattel and could not vote most places. We see this little snippet of Rosemary’s life as both enviable, since she can have anything she wants, and sad, because her life is so limited by her gender. We see two other females in the passage, both of whom are much lower class than Rosemary. The shop girl “staggers” under the load of the flowers Rosemary purchased, and is almost invisible to her and to us. We hardly notice her at all. The young waif, however, is quite visible as an absolute opposite of Rosemary: underprivileged, hungry, perhaps even homeless. However, she is free. Katherine Mansfield has not been seen as a feminist writer until somewhat recently, though writers like Brigid Brophy certainly numbered her among the feminists. (Stenger 49)Perhaps this is because she never preaches, but simply shows us life as it was in her time (she died in 1923) Her fiction does not focus upon the status of women directly, but their status and their conditioning to that status is certainly partly responsible for their thoughts, attitudes and actions. Each of the women in this passage is conditioned to their status. In fact even the one man who appears is conditioned to his status, which is based upon economics. So we see that she has shown us class divisions and yet not preached about them. Just as Van Gogh used his art to make statements about the peasants of rural France, Mansfield paints prose portraits as a statement about class and gender conditioning and discrimination. We don’t have to be told that the differences among the characters in this passage are arbitrary and unfair. We can see it and we react to it. The unnoticed nudge may be far more powerful than the visible ram, because it can be repeated over and over again. Works Cited Deen, Stella. "Elizabeth Bowen 1899-1973." Modern British Women Writers: An A-To-Z Guide. Ed. Vicki K. Janik, Del Ivan Janik, and Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. 27-34.. Mansfield, K. (2002) Selected Stories, ed. And intro. By A. Smith, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.362-4) Pilditch, Jan, ed. The Critical Response to Katherine Mansfield. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. Smith, Angela. Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf: A Public of Two. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Stenger, Karl L. "Brigid Brophy 1929-1995." Modern British Women Writers: An A-To-Z Guide. Ed. Vicki K. Janik, Del Ivan Janik, and Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. 47-55. Woolf, Virginia, 1992, To the Lighthouse, World's Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More