Katherine Mansfield was one of the few writers in English who managed to establish a reputation based entirely on the form of the short story. This article explores Mansfield’s short story ‘Bliss’, illustrating in particular how the author employs symbolic imagery as a means of satirizing her characters. Mansfield is considered a literary modernist. In her writing, she arrived at a unique prose style that used associated imagery within an integrated symbolic language. The ‘tall, slender pear tree in full bloom’ (p. 177), is possibly the central image of ‘Bliss’.
In this story, Mansfield uses imagery as an effective means of satire. Viewed from Bertha’s perspective, Mrs. Norman Knight’s pretentious coat, adorned with a frieze of monkeys, seems to enhance the woman’s simian appearance. This particular image is later reinforced when she describes Mrs. Norman Knight as “crouching before the fire with her banana peels” (p. 180). She also laughably alludes to the recurring image of the moon in Eddie Warren’s ludicrous ‘tremendous white silk scarf’ (p. 179) and matching white socks.
Bertha is satirized through the colors of her outfit that evoke the previous description of the pear tree: ‘A white dress, a necklace of jade beads, green shoes and stockings… She had thought of this scheme hours before standing in front of the He drew. room window’ (p.178). Although imagery is frequently employed in aesthetic art, Mansfield clearly uses it for instructional purposes, since satire is largely viewed as an instrumental device. Through her complex figurative associations, she highlights Bertha’s ingenuity and the absurd mediocrity of her guests.
‘Bliss’ is told from an unbiased perspective that invites the reader to evaluate the characters with little or no influence from the author. It is written in the third person, although there are rare moments of the second person, evident in the use of the word ‘you’, displayed in the line: ‘What can you do if you are thirty years old and, turning the corner of your own street, you suddenly invades a feeling of happiness’ (p.174). Mansfield’s choice to address the reader directly here serves to further immerse you in his narrative. ‘Bliss’ also launches into the story with little narrative exposition.
An important feature of the modernist short story is that it discarded the plot in favor of the epiphany. The epiphany in literature is a deeply dramatic scene in which a character (or reader) is enlightened by some sort of revelation. Mansfield knowingly employed him as the focal point in many of her stories, for example in ‘Bliss’ the whole narrative framework seems to work as a setup for Bertha to realize that her husband is having an affair with Pearl Fulton: ‘Her lips said, ‘I adore you,’ and Miss Fulton laid her fingers like moonbeams on her cheeks and smiled her sleepy smile’ (p. 85). This shocking revelation is cemented by the fact that Bertha was under the illusion that she shared a deep friendship with Miss Fulton, evident in the scene where the two women admire the pear tree: ‘How long were they there? Both, as it were, trapped in that circle of supernatural light, understanding each other perfectly’ (p.183).
Katherine Mansfield instrumentally employed imagery and symbolism as an effective means of satirizing the naiveté and pretensions of her characters in ‘Bliss’.