Bliss+relationship+to+Mansfield's+life


 * __LINKS BETWEEN 'BLISS' AND MANSFIELD__**

By the time of her death, Katherine Mansfield had established herself as an important and influential contemporary short story writer. Her appeal can be traced to her focus on psychological conflicts, her oblique narration, and her complex characters that seem to be on the brink of a major epiphany.

One of her finest short stories, ‘‘Bliss,’’ serves as prime examples of these defining qualities. The protagonist of the story, Bertha, experiences a sense of rapture as she reflects on her life, which later turns to disappointment and resignation as she discovers that her husband is having a love affair with her friend. Mansfield’s //Bliss, and Other Stories//, published in 1920, secured the author’s literary reputation. While readers and critics at the time generally lauded the short fiction collection, a few reviewers objected to its controversial subject matter—infidelities, discussions of sexuality, cruel and superficial characters. Today ‘‘Bliss’’ is one of Mansfield’s most frequently anthologized stories and still resonates with modern readers.

'Bliss', like many of Mansfield's stories contain many links or references to her own life. These include Mansfields scathing and cynical view towards the upper-class society she was brought up in. Bertha's character helps portray the restrictive life and marital betrayal many women of the 1920's experienced. These reflect Mansfield's own thoughts and emotions as a woman of this time and class.

Another aspect of Mansfield's life which exists in 'Bliss' is sexual confusion. Bertha's character constantly experiences a strange attraction to mysterious women. At this point in her life her latest crush is on her new 'friend' Pearl Fulton. Another aspect of the story which reinforces this idea is the presence of the pear tree. While trees and fruit symbolise life and prosperity, pears themself are symbolic of female sexuality. Pears are also ..... which negates the need for a male for reproduction or fertilisation.

All of these ideas relate to Mansfield's own feelings of sexual confusion and bisexual tendancies. During her early years she had a number of affairs with women before marrying George Bowden and later John Murray.

Like Bertha, Mansfield was also a victim of adultery. Her second husband John Middlleton Murray had an affair with Princess Bibesco. Mansfield dealt with the affair with the composure that was expected of an upper-class woman. She wrote to the Princess and told her to stop writing her husband love letters as it is "not done in our world". Women of this era had little power over their husband and were often help responsible for driving their husband to have an affair. If made public the wife would be publicly humiliated - seen as lacking the qualities needed in a wife and a failure as a mother.