Psychology | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

William Lipincott | Loves Ambush | 1890

Psychology is a short story by Katherine Mansfield first published in Bliss and Other Stories (1920).

As luck would have it, I've managed to select three very different types of Mansfield stories for the #1920Club reading week.

Miss Brill was set in post-war France with a focus on loneliness and that confronting moment when we see ourselves as others see us. The Wind Blows was set in New Zealand and reflected Mansfield nostalgic phase after her brother was killed towards the end of WWI. Psychology is probably set in Europe with it's mentions of a studio apartment, a sommier, and the importance of taking tea (which could be English or NZ I grant you). It is also one of her more highly developed interior stories, with narrative shifts, mutable personalities and oodles of symbolism.

All three share the Modernist style that Mansfield was renown for. Modernism is a late nineteenth/early twentieth century movement that grew out of industralism and the rise of city living. It was also a rejection of the certainty that embodied Enlightenment thinking. It reflected the chaos and upheaval felt during WWI and it's aftermath. It was a time of innovation, experimentation and embracing everything new. Old cultural norms were considered out-dated and of no use in this brand new world. Parody, irony and revisionism were employed to critique the past. Stream of consciousness, technological advances and abstraction became the new philosophy.

It's not always easy to remember that Mansfield's modern style of writing was unusual and innovative at the time; it now seems so normal and natural.

In Psychology, she explores the idea of an individuals public, private and secret self. What should be or could be revealed, what should be suppressed or ignored and what is bubbling away underneath influencing our behaviours and actions almost against our wills?

Their secret selves whispered: “Why should we speak? Isn’t this enough?”

Her two main characters torture themselves with their unspoken sexual desires versus their desire for freedom and the maintenance of their individual selves. There is an attempt to separate the sexual from the emotional with plenty of symbolism in the form of lamps, fires and tea sets.

For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn’t as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter — not did she enter his like a queen walking soft on petals.

They complicate matters with denial and restraint and aloofness, resulting in both of them finishing the afternoon tea feeling unsatisfied and out of sorts.

A curious bohemian ending surprises us with the arrival of the 'elderly virgin, a pathetic creature who simply idolised her (heaven knows why).' Instead of turning her away as usual, this time she embraces her and her dead bunch of violets (more symbolism). It made me wonder if this was Mansfield exploring her own complicated sexual feelings about men and women.

Especially as we then see the writer at work, critiquing the psychological novel and dashing off a quick note to the gentleman that mirrors the conversation she just had with the virgin. Quixotic and contrary to be sure!

This barely touches on the depths within this brief story. I suspect I could spend hours and write pages and pages on all the symbolism, psychological nuances and themes explored by Mansfield. But I will spare you that this time, and merely suggest that if you want to experience a quintessential Mansfield short story that gives you lots to chew over, then Psychology is the one for you.

A big thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting the #1920Club.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

The Wind Blows | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

The Wind Blows was first published in the Athenaeum on 27th August 1920 and then included in Bliss and Other Stories (1920), although I have also spotted on the Katherine Mansfield Society page that they claim it was published in 1915. So I dug a little deeper.

I discovered a reference in J. McDonnell's Katherine Mansfield and the Modernist Marketplace: At the Mercy of the Public (2010) that refers to an earlier story titled, Autumns: II that Mansfield published under her pseudonym, Matilda Berry in Signature in 1915. She claims that this was an

important precursor to her mature work. Indeed, she later returned to the story, rewriting it from a first-person to a third-person narrative perspective for publication as The Wind Blows in the Athenaeum,

Phew! I'm always pleased when I can sort out a discrepancy.

I read one of Mansfield's short story collections about thirty years ago (egad! where did that time go?) on the recommendation of a friend. I enjoyed them, but remember nothing about them now. Back then, I would treat a short story collection much like a novel. I would just keep reading one chapter after the next until I tired or had something else to do. As a result, the stories blur together into an homogeneous mess.

Since then, I have learnt to take it slow with short story collections. One at a time. Let each one sit and settle before attempting another. If I'm not done with my reading time, then I change books and authors completely.

The Wind Blows is one of the stories set in New Zealand during Mansfield's nostalgic phase, it also feels rather biographical. A young girl, Matilda, all fidgety and flighty thanks to a windy day is straining against the boundaries put in place by her mother. She doesn't want to darn the socks or bring in the washing and escapes instead to her music lessons. She feels misunderstood and out of place. Until she and younger brother, Bogey, run down to the sea to watch the ships leave port.

A sudden twist in the story and we realise that Matilda is remembering this windy day by the sea with her brother. She and Bogey are, in fact, already on board the ship, leaving New Zealand for good. Liberty and freedom is theirs!

"Look, Bogey, there's the town. Doesn't it look small? There's the post office clock chiming for the last time. There's the esplanade where we walked that windy day. Do you remember? I cried at my music lesson that day-how many years ago! Goodbye little  island, good-bye. . . . "

I've been in Wellington on a windy day. It really does howl around your legs and hair and clothes, unsettling even the most placid temperament. Matilda is a typical teen chaffing against authority and the confines of family life. She's ready to fly the coop, but has nowhere to go. The windy day exacerbates her angsty feelings; it's another form of opposition.

As Bogey and Matilda sail away, we see this as Matilda (KM) saying goodbye not only to her home town but childhood as well. Gillian Boddy's Katherine Mansfield: The Woman and the Writer (1988) confirms the biographical element in this story. My understanding of the timeline is that her first draft in 1915 was written prior to her brother, Leslie's death in October. The rewrite, obviously reflects her grief at this unimaginable loss.

Clearly based on the memories she had shared with Leslie during the summer of 1915, this story has a strange power. Matilda is K.M., she used the pseudonym Matilda Berry at this time, while Bogey was the family name for Leslie, which K.M. later transferred to Murry (her husband).

Thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for once again hosting the #1920Club. Hopefully I can fit in one more short story before the end of the week.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

Miss Brill | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

Miss Brill is a short story by New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in Athenaeum on 26 November 1920 and later included in The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922). 

I knew I wouldn't have the time or reading energy to tackle a novel published in 1920 for this week's 1920's Club with Kaggsy and Simon; so I chose a short story (or two). Just a little dipping of the toes into the bohemian waters of 1920!

Until I read this story, I knew very little about Mansfield's rather short and tragic life. I had thought that I might find a story which referenced WWI and the Spanish Flu that swept around the world in 1919, little realising that Mansfield had enough health concerns of her own to go on with. In December 1917, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 29. She was dead five years later.

For someone so young, she managed to leave behind a huge body of work, mostly in the form of short stories, book reviews and letters. She grew up in a 'socially prominent family' in Wellington. Her childhood included a few years finishing off her schooling in Europe. She returned to NZ and started writing seriously, but found the 'provincial life' not to her liking and in 1908 she moved permanently from NZ to London.

She enjoyed a bohemian lifestyle in London, having relationships with men and women, as well as meeting Virginia Woolf and D H Lawrence. There was a miscarriage, a couple of on again/off again marriages, eventually resulting in her mother cutting her out of her will.

Her beloved baby brother was killed in Ploegsteert Wood, Belgium, 6th October 1915 causing her to feel nostalgic about their childhood in NZ. Her reminiscences eventually lead into a prolific period of writing.

She died on the 9th January 1923 and was buried at Cimetiere d’Avon, Avon, France.

But let's get back to poor Miss Brill.

Her story may be short, but it packs a punch. Miss Brill is an ageing, unmarried woman who lives quietly on her own, her only pleasure is walking around the Jardins Publiques to people watch. The story opens with a sense of excitement and anticipation. The long winter is over; the new Season is begun. Miss Brill brings out her fox stole from storage for the occasion. She freshens it up, brushing it's fur, and rubbing the life back into it.

She heads out feeling smart and self-contained.

But, as you learn to expect from Mansfield, there is an underlying sadness or melancholy that swells up when you (or Miss Brill) least expect it.

By the end of this short story, Miss Brill is confronted to see how others perceive her. She goes from feeling like all the world's a stage with everyone a player, including herself, to realising that she is a figure of ridicule, on the outside of a brand new world dominated by youth.

Loneliness, isolation and illusion. Themes that have taken on a new meaning in our own brand new coronavirus world.

Thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting the #1920Club.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)