A Compatative Study Of Themes Between Katherine Mansfield’s And Ling Shu-hua’s Short Stories

Katherine Mansfield is a New Zealand-born British female writer.She was active in the British literary world in the early 20 th century and made remarkable contributions to the development of the British short story.Ling Shuhua is an outstanding female writer who grew up during the May 4th movement of China.She is known as the representative writer of the“new lady” school.She is good at objective and calm psychological realistic novels.Mansfield and Ling Shuhua both write novels from the unique perspective of women and pay more attention to the themes of women and children.The themes of their short stories are similar to each other.However,under the influence of different social environment,cultural background,personality and other factors,their similar themes have their own characteristics.Based on the textual interpretation of Mansfield and Ling Shuhua’s novels,this dissertation makes a comparative study of the three themes of their short stories,namely disillusionment,childhood and female,in an attempt to make a more thorough analysis and understanding,and explore the realistic significance of these three themes to the current society.This dissertation is divided into three chapters besides the introduction and conclusion.The introduction briefly introduces the life of Mansfield and Ling Shuhua and their short stories,the research achievements of Mansfield and Ling Shuhua at home and abroad.The first chapter compares the theme of disillusionment in their novels,It mainly discusses the disillusionment of children,adults,and the elderly,and explores the similarities and differences in the connotation of the disillusionment theme.In comparison,in the sense of disillusionment of children,Mansfield shows the collision and friction between the adult world and the children’s world,while the children in Ling Shuhua’s works examine the adult world as spectators;In the sense of disillusionment of adults,Mansfield shows the true meaning of life through the sense of disillusionment,while Ling Shuhua shows the confusion faced by women in the era of change;In the sense of disillusionment of the elderly,Mansfield showed the indifference of the capitalist society,while Ling exposed the collapse of the traditional ethics of Chinese feudal society.The second chapter discusses the childhood theme in their novels.Both of them chose to return to their childhood,to write about the innocence and interest of children,and to praise the pure and beautiful nature of children.In comparison,the starting point of Mansfield’s creation is more the pursuit of harmony,creating a group of “child-like” adult images,focusing on the alienation of family relationships;The creation of Ling Shuhua’s childhood theme is an echo of the “discovery of children” during the May 4th Movement,creating images of a group of “little adults” and revealing the abnormal family relationship in feudal families.The third chapter mainly compares and analyzes the female themes in their novels.They share a common female consciousness in the creation of female themes and present different views on women.Among them,the common female consciousness is embodied in the scrutiny of girls,reflections on women,female rebellious consciousness and deconstruction of male power.Different views on women are manifested as follows: Mansfield’s views on women are embodied in disillusionment and escape,while Ling Shuhua’s views are more embodied in compassion and contemplation for women.The concluding chapter briefly summarizes the themes of their creation,and further explores the practical significance of the three themes of disillusionment,childhood and female to the current society.On the whole,through the comparative study of the two women writers’ creation themes,the author finds out the problems in different social environments revealed by the two women writers,which can form a certain reference significance for the current society.