Little Governess

by Katherine Mansfield, Ann Brumfit (Editor)

Il mondo di Katherine Mansfield è fatto di dettagli che solo il suo occhio - ora sarcastico, ora ironico, ora tenero - sa cogliere. I grassi avventori della pensione tedesca, che ingurgitano crauti e sentenziano sulla vita, si accompagnano a cameriere che si fanno passare per baronesse, baroni che sembrano bachi da seta, cantanti vanesi che sognano piume e trionfi, comparse del cinema senza futuro, piccole istitutrici irretite da vecchi mandrilli, inquilini inadempienti e mosche coraggiose che annegano nell'inchiostro. Gli sporchi caffè di Parigi si alternano a lucidi garden-party sfiorati dalla morte, a peri fioriti che condensano la felicità un attimo prima che vada in frantumi, a compartimenti per signore sole che corrono nella pioggia verso il nulla. Basta un tocco di penna, leggero e obliquo, per svelare l'incrinatura, l'infrangersi delle illusioni, la banalità della caduta. E per fare di questi racconti piccoli indimenticabili capolavori.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, British Literature, Audiobook

22 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

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

[Mai · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a Night...

"It's better to mistrust people at first than to trust them".
"It's safer to suspect that people have evil intentions rather than good ones"
These are truly wise words, a words that we shall never forget.

This old man was just so creepy. And what a scary night and scary people.
I can feel her fear and confusion.
She is so naive though, like how could you think that just because a person is old, he can be trustworthy.
Thank god that this didn't go as south as I thought it would.

This story was very interesting thought because in just few pages the writer was able to capture the fear that women have to go through in this cruel world.
Thank god we're not living in this era and people have evolved.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sad story in the end. An inexperienced young woman travelling alone to Munich by train for a job is presented with a variety of male behaviours and inevitably picks the wrong one to trust.

[Boadicea · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ominous, chilling, twisted little tale involving naivety and seduction!

[Adri · Rating 5 out of 5]

damned if you do, damned if you don’t

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

My shayla

[Angel . ink · Rating 4 out of 5]

First printed in 1915 in the magazine Signature under the pen name Matilda Berry it's age is surprising as the way it's written I assumed it was much more modern!
It's thought the story was written in response to women's victimisation, isolation and lack of support for one another and could be inspired by Mansfield's own experiences of international travel as a solo woman.

[Kateryna Kryvoviaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great story! Mansfield doesn't stop surprising me with her deep understanding of human psychology. It is a wonder to see how she can catch the essence and symbols of what is going on in one's soul.

[Lucía García · Rating 4 out of 5]

So sad being a woman, so sad knowing what was going to happen. This is a terrifying story that sadly a lot of us can relate to, it doesn't matter that it was written over a century ago, the woman experience hasn't really changed that much.

[Hildaguard Houdini · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed analysing this, made me severely uncomfortable as a woman, too accurate.

[Night veil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mansfield’s The Little Governess is a portrait of innocence betrayed-every polite smile hides suspicion, and every gesture carries a hidden threat. Trust is fleeting; danger lingers in the most genteel corners.

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚
The Little Governess exposes the subtle brutality of a male-dominated world: a young woman’s naivety meets a society rife with condescension, manipulation, and predatory control.
Innocence offers no protection-hostility lurks behind every polite face.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gud

[Kiara · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8/5 stars.

She was incredibly naïve and he was a perverted bastard. Her story was awful - he stole her first kiss, made her lose her job and left her with nothing. I can't help but feel bad for her.

[Sheree Wood · Rating 1 out of 5]

A horrid little story that was completely predictable and disappointing. Surely I missed something as I can't fathom why this book gets so much acclaim. Maybe it was just too deep for me!

[Georgie · Rating 4 out of 5]

it is truly awful seeing just how universal the ‘female experience’ continues to be, but whatever, “it’s a bit hard, but we’ve got to be women of the world haven’t we”