The Narcissistic Characters In Katherine Mansfield's Stories

Katherine Mansfield is an important figure in the modernist development of the short story in Britain in the 20th century. Due to her significant innovations in this literary genre, Mansfield and her stories have always been the interest of literary critics most of whom choose to make criticism of her works from the following perspectives: (1) the influence of Mansfield and her works on the genre of the short story; (2) biographical criticism; (3) text analysis; (4) feminist criticism. As Mansfield is famous for her vivid representation of the interior life of her characters, there are also some critics who try to analyze her stories from the perspective of psychological criticism. However, the narcissistic complex manifested by many of her characters has been ignored for a long time. So the writer decides to have a comprehensive analysis of Mansfield's characters from the angle of narcissism. During the analysis, the writer also wants to point out Mansfield's skillful adoption of narrative skills and their effects on characterization to show the genius Mansfield has in writing techniques. As the close relationship between Mansfield's life and her writing has been figured out and proved by many critics, based on her biographies, letters and journals, the writer tries to trace the sources of her narcissists'narcissism, ambivalent feelings and confusion about identities from Mansfield's personal experiences.The whole thesis consists of five parts. The first part is a brief introduction to Katherine Mansfield's position in the realm of the short story and her major works. It also states the writer's reason to write the thesis. In Chapter One, after introducing the origination of narcissism and some important theories about it, the writer has a detailed classification of the narcissistic characters in Mansfield's stories. The writer points out that the narcissism of Mansfield's characters has three manifestations: (1) preoccupation with unrealistic fantasies; (2) self-adoration and split personality revealed through mirror images; (3) egoism. Chapter Two focuses on two major narrative skills adopted by Mansfield and...