Thesis (M. A.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Karen Bearor, Florida State University, School of Visual Arts and Dance, Dept. of Art History. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 25, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 62 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-13T12:10:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-12-09. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2015-07-13T12:24:10Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000833908.pdf: 869254 bytes, checksum: f6748d4f810680a80b85ef4c44c000f3 (MD5) / O presente trabalho pretende fazer uma análise dos contos da coletânea Bliss & other stories (1920), da autora neozelandesa Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923). Propomos a verificação da desconstrução da noção de gênero e dos discursos historicamente categorizados nas narrativas, considerando a constituição dos personagens dos sexos masculino e feminino e suas relações. Abordamos a relação entre personagens de ambos os sexos, os distintos focos narrativos, os símbolos, e, a partir de tais apontamentos, observamos que a categorização de gênero e de sexo é resultado de desdobramentos sociais. Ao ponderarmos a representação do gênero nas narrativas mansfieldianas, estamos ampliando a questão para as instâncias sociais, uma vez que a literatura é a representação de perspectivas do real. Tomamos como base teórica a crítica feminista de Virginia Woolf, a teoria da performatividade de Judith Butler e o conceito de exotopia de Mikhail Bakhtin, a fim de avaliarmos os aspectos culturais de gênero, a tradição literária de autoria feminina, as identificações ideológicas e a constituição de personagens ficcionais / This study analyzes of the short stories from the collection Bliss & other stories (1920), by the New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923), proposing the verification of the deconstruction of gender roles and of the historically categorized discourses in the narratives, and considering the constitution of male and female characters and their relationships. Therefore, we address the relationship between characters of both sexes, the different points of view, the symbols, and, from these concepts, we observe that the categorization of gender and sex is a result of social developments. In pondering the representation of gender in Mansfield's narratives, we expand the matter to social instances, since literature is the representation of the perspective on reality. We use, as a theoretical basis, Virginia Woolf's feminist criticism, Judith Butler's gender performativity and the concept of exotopy by Mikhail Bakhtin, in order to assess the cultural aspects of the gender issue, the literary tradition of women's writing, the ideological identifications and the creation of fictional characters

This thesis reconsiders in detail the connections between a selection of innovative female modernist writers who experimented variously with stream-of-consciousness techniques, May Sinclair, Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf. It describes in this context the impact of the philosophy and thoughts of both William James and Henri Bergson upon these women writers’ literary work. It also argues for a fundamental revision of existing understandings of this interconnection by considering the feminist context of such work and recognising that the work of these four female writers in effect incorporates a ‘gendered’ reading of James and Bergson (encountered both directly and indirectly through the cultural and intellectual zeitgeist). In establishing a feminist perspective as key elements of their aesthetic the thesis explores the vital influence of existing tradition of female autobiography upon their reception and usage of both James and Bergson. The latter’s impact on such women writers were so distinctive and powerful as the work of these philosophers seemed to speak directly to contemporary feminist concerns and in that context to represent a way of thinking about society and culture. This echoes and has parallels with existing attempts at revisions of patriarchal society and creating new spaces for female independence. In the above context the thesis reviews existing research on the impact of James and Bergson on these four writers and offers new insights into how each of them made use of these two seminal thinkers by analysing the relationship between theories, selected literary and philosophical texts. Stream-of-consciousness ought to be seen as a distinctive, specific tradition connected with feminist concerns and as a way of writing the inner and hidden self, rather than just a narrow formal feature of literary texts; it offers women a continuing, creative exploration of its possibilities as fictional practice. The female modernists included in this account represent the celebrated: Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, together with writers largely and unjustly forgotten in subsequent periods: Dorothy Richardson and May Sinclair. However, the thesis demonstrates that such female modernist writers gained much from being part of a range of informal networks, being almost within a tradition in which they learnt, borrowed and reacted to each other; an interconnection that requires new critical recognition.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of Katherine Mansfield's literary indebtedness to Anton Chekhov. Throughout the critical writing about Mansfield there are many suggestions that her work is similar to that of Chekhov, but, these allusions are, for the most part, vague in pointing out specific likenesses.

Solitude and self have been common topics for discussion and scrutiny by philosophers, scholars and writers. However, it was not until the turn of the twentieth century, with women 's enlightenment, that one notices women writers ' interest in understanding their selves in moments of solitude. Women who were conscious of drastic social changes often examined their lives and explored their selves in solitude. Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf represent women writers of their time who shared a common interest in portraying women's quests for self in solitude. The present study shows how the solitary state is a significant precondition for modern women to reflect on their lives or explore their selves at a time when society was undergoing drastic changes. A close study of Katherine Mansfield 's "Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding" (19 l 0), "Kezia and Tui" (1916), "Prelude" ( 1918), "At the Bay" ( 1922), and "All Serene!" (1923) shows that Mansfield always offers her women characters punitive consequences in the endings because of their compromise with their mundane conditions even though they have gained some sense of the self through contemplation and meditation. In the case of Virginia Woolf, she situates her women characters in isolation and contemplation, and often presents her women characters as active seekers of self through meditation and alienation. Autonomy, authenticity, and vision define these women's emerging self in such novels as Night and Day ( 1919), Orlando ( 1928), and To the Lighthouse ( 1927). The present study reveals Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf as two exemplary women writers who examine women in moments of solitude through the interplay of social and psychological reality. Solitude is a recurrent condition and theme in their fiction that is often presented in "contrapuntal" manner (Dunbar ix). The contrast between women 's public and performative existence and their private and unmasked self characterises the fiction of Mansfield and Woolf, allowing the two writers to examine patriarchal oppression of women's acquisition of self against the backdrop of modernity. Mansfield and Woolf's treatment of solitude is particularly important as it sheds light on their shared views and friendship. Solitude is treated as a critical state, a condition, a private space, an attitude, or a refuge from performativity for women in their texts. Yet they have adopted distinct writing strategies in dealing with the subject owing to their difference in experience and literary outlook. Mansfield creates heroines who are more practical and modest in their approach to the subject of self-construction. Woolf creates women characters who often resort consciously to solitude to challenge and reflect upon gender norms, gain a better sense of their selves, and deploy various means to attain self-realisation.

Hester Pulter’s (1605-1678) work was discovered in 1996 in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. Pulter composed her poetry in the 1640s-1650s, but her works were not compiled until the 1660s. Overall, her manuscript contains one hundred and twenty poems and emblems in addition to an unfinished prose romance. Pulter recalls her personal life in her poems, and the collection includes her elegiac and lyrical poems on different topics such as politics, religion, childbirth, and the death of her children. In her elegiac poetry, Pulter explores of the experience of childbirth and sickness through a set of conventional Christian ideas about death. However, Pulter’s elegiac poetry also breaks away from Christian conventions, often through the use of astronomical imagery. In this thesis, I argue that Pulter’s grief and consolation strategies sometimes differ from her contemporaries; however, she eventually finds consolation using imagery drawn from her knowledge of the new astronomy, allowing her to reconstruct her identity. Through comparing Pulter with her contemporaries such as George Herber, Katherine Philips, and John Donne, Pulter’s poetry, which has been unstudied until recently, provides an example of a woman writer who is familiar with the seventeenth century poetical conventions; however, she is able to alter them to what is relevant to her condition.

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Despite the devastating scope of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918, curiously few references to the flu exist in literature. Katherine Anne Porter offered one of modernism's only extensive fictional treatments of the pandemic in her short novel “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” decades after her own near-death encounter with the flu. Porter was able to give voice to an experience that had traumatized others into silence by drawing on an early form of magical realism. Magical realism's ghosts—everyday presences rather than otherworldly beings to be feared—are of particular relevance to “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” since ghosts “haunt” Porter's semi-autobiographical Miranda throughout the story, acting as correctives to Miranda's (and Porter's) desire to isolate herself from the familial and regional heritage that burdens her with unwanted and often conflicting ideologies. Ultimately, in using magical realism to explore her sense of self and to articulate the alienating effects of her near-death experience, Porter is able to embrace her complicated heritage and her fractured past, reclaiming interconnectedness while maintaining her individuality.

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