Psychology

by Katherine Mansfield

Short story.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Audiobook, School

Unknown Binding

About the author

Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp) was a prominent New Zealand modernist writer of short fiction who wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield.

Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.

Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.

Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.

Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.

Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.

Reviews

[Paula Mota · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5*

Os dois, assim junto do fogão, conservaram-se silenciosos durante uns momentos. Calados, saboreavam nos lábios sorridentes, demorando-se, as saudações deliciosas do encontro.
De si para si cada um deles murmurava:
‘Para que havemos de falar? Não será isto bastante?’
‘Mais do que suficiente. Nunca tinha pensado numa coisa destas.’

“Psicologia” é um conto que capta na perfeição um impasse amoroso, aquele momento em que os astros se alinham e uma forte amizade pode tornar-se algo mais ou estagnar devido a um momento de hesitação e insegurança. Quem nunca...?

A emoção especial, particularíssima, daquela amizade residia na mútua e completa renúncia. Como duas cidades abertas, no meio de uma extensa planície, essas duas criaturas conservavam-se indefesas uma perante a outra.

[madii ੈ✩ ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this MIGHT be sally rooney writing about marianne and connell.

"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."

a 1919 situationship and no one can tell me otherwise. the intimacy and vulnerability in mansfield's writing here really packed a punch and I LOVED IT. it has a timelessness in its content also, centred around the complexity of human connection & all that is left unsaid between two people.

[Brona's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2020/...

[Pegahh · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And he smiled too. They looked at each other and they both smiled. But their smiles were not really smiles—they were a little grim, a little helpless. They grinned at each other like two conspirators.”

So glad that I got to read a story about this feeling.

[lily ❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok, not really sure what the deeper meaning was but I did like the complex relationship between the two main characters. Despite Mansfield being a Modernist whose texts don't really have much of a plot, I do really love the way she writes and her beautiful descriptions of nature and that was the same for this text. I am interested to see what my English teacher has to say about this short story.

[Дмитрий · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psychology - 3 stars. Мне показалась скучной. Тема та же, что и в A Dill Pickle, но по-модернистски туманнее. А лучшим ее рассказом о любви (нелюбви, предательстве, неверности) я считаю Bliss.
Pictures - 5 stars. Классный рассказ с довольно-таки смелой концовкой.

[Alexia Petrovski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the worst and definitely not the best. But I somehow liked it more than the others. I just wish more happened

[luch · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was weird

[Menna Raafat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this faded part and these knots; but this is not what I expected of Mansfield.

[Harry · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Modernism and Modernity] I preferred Bliss, this felt less clear and muddled.

[Zen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As this story was ending, I started thinking about all the times I would curl up in my bed and hug my cats. Simply because we all understood each other.

The thing is, I spent many a weekend with a "friend with benefits". But she really wasn't a friend, and I didn't love her. She was so completely focused on her own selfish pleasure, she was never able to understand my unspoken feelings.

When the weekend would end, I would gladly send her off home. And contentedly, and at peace with myself, I would crawl into bed with the two kitties.

I am now twice the age of the two people in the story, and no longer feel any regrets about how many opportunities I missed because the clock chimed "6 o'clock! Time to go!" and I made a stupid, hurried assumption and sent someone off home Oh well.

But I still, to this day, dearly miss all my kitties I have hugged and curled up with throughout my life.

This was a thoughtful, interesting story.

[havokkhead · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found myself reading so many classic stories by men and have made it a mission to put a spotlight on the women in the past. I started with a few in December and I'm glad I kept on going. I found this book in a random collection and I didn't expect the start to have me blushing. The writing of their interactions, of their thoughts, of all the emotions that ran through them in this short book was kind. It was gentle and soft and compelling. Like rocking a boat on still water.

[Night veil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katherine Mansfield’s “Psychology” centers on a brief visit between a woman and her close male friend-an encounter that seems ordinary on the surface but is charged with unspoken emotions.

Their conversation hovers between intellectual discussion and something far more intimate.

Mansfield captures the delicate tension between desire, restraint, and the often-unspoken complexities that shape human connection.

[emma *ੈ✩‧₊˚ · Rating 3 out of 5]

i meannn i liked looking at the cute little situationship they had! the domesticity that mansfield highlights in her works is also thoroughly enjoyable. i won't lie, i didn't rly get it and am still confused but slay!

[John Cates]

A short story - kept thinking of the Beatles song - "All the lonely people, where do they all belong....."

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for uni

[Forked Radish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Modernism, meh!

[olive · Rating 1 out of 5]

they say that classics are in the canon because they stand the test of time. not sure who determined this because this story was testing MY time.

[Kathi Sharp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to BJ Harrison on his Classic Tales Podcast

[Cipriyani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a sweet short story /
I think about it so often

[Haewon Im · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note that this is a review not just on 'Psychology', but one that encompasses several literary works in a similar time period.)

The most important search for me this semester was not a job search like most of my friends these days are heavily invested in, but it was about finding out who I am. I was deeply moved by Carl Jung’s way of explaining the human psyche with a persona and her shadow, and especially his explanation that the true self should be a synthesis of the two. I’ll use this framework to understand my own psyche.


I have learned through the women in the novels (Teresa, the woman in Psychology, and Rosemary) that it is perfectly normal to feel conflicted between my persona and my shadow. While my persona is quiet and doesn’t come forward in many circumstances, my shadow points the opposite direction. My shadow loves being the center of attention, thought I don’t show it in an obvious manner. But a shadow, while it can personally feel shameful to oneself, is not necessarily absolutely bad, just as how Teresa yearns for love.


However, the desire to be noticed remains a shadow because over it looms a bigger shadow, which is fear of rejection. It is similar to the man and the woman in Psychology and has the same consequence to me- I often times don’t dare to get what I want because I am so afraid of being let down. This shadow has an origin- it was formed over many years due to an upbringing that involved too many expectations and high hopes by my parents. Considering the after-effect that it had, my teenage years can even be called a trauma. This trauma inflicted a semi-PTSD that I am still learning to overcome. The first time I overcame it was by looking at my traumatic experience as a teenager square in the face and charging towards it like La Folle did. Acknowledging my trauma and deciding to delve into it was the first step.* Of course, acknowledgement and a bit of self-investigation of the issue didn’t solve everything all at once, but it was like taking the first step beyond what I had grown comfortable to believing. Because after all, overcoming a trauma is meant to be a step-by-step process, just as La Folle wobbles slowly and uncertainly for the second time to cross the bayou.


Achieving my true self is an act of balance. I have to keep reminding myself that my shadow is something to embrace. But in order to embrace my shadow, I first need to understand that, learning from Rollo May, no experience is either good or bad, regardless of how it makes me feel. Even suffering is not something to be fixed, but rather to be accepted in Poe’s way of Silence. In case dealing with Silence is too straining, an easier way is to seek help from others. The woman in Psychology magically comes to peace at the end of the story after an emotional turmoil. All that happened in the midst of the transition was the visit from the old virgin, who was able to give the woman a sense of connection and confirmation of affection she was lacking.


The self-realization that I have been trying to achieve over the past years will continue through the rest of my life, but one thing I now know for sure is that the first step is to notice your shadow. Say hi to it. Then stare at it long enough to figure out what it looks like and what is making up the shape. As you keep staring at it in silence, don’t forget to remind yourself that for there to be a shadow, there must be light shining above your head.

And one more thing, feel free to soak up the warmth that it graciously offers.