A Study of Katherine Mansfield's Bliss
Katherine Mansfield's story, "Bliss," is about sex. Yet, because Bertha's sexuality does not manifest itself in an immediate desire for a heterosexual sexual encounter it is difficult to determine how sexuality figures in the story. The presentation of sexuality in Mansfield's stories is so unique that most critics contributing to Jan Pilditch's The Critical Response to Katherine Mansfield do not realize how deeply sexuality figures in the stories and do not refer to it in their analyses. Cherry Hankin theorizes that Mansfield's stories are about the psychological impact on a character when fantasy and reality conflict, yet she never defines fantasy as sexual, and feels the fantasy, in "Bliss" that is destroyed is that Bertha and Pearl are "creatures of another world'" (Pilditch, 188). Likewise, one anonymous reviewer, who fails to identify Bertha's bliss as a sexual manifestation, writes, "It was an illusion. The intercommunication was due, not to a magic of mutual comprehension but to a common desire" (Pilditch, 52). These critics misunderstand the sexuality portrayed and do not pay due attention to the shifting voice of narration, for the description of the shared moments is not written as Bertha's thoughts, but as a third-person narration. The women's communion together does happen and is not an illusion. The revelation at the end of the story marks Bertha's loss of innocence and initiation into the confusing world of sexual relations. Vincent O'Sullivan writes,
"Bliss" may be the obvious story of the epiphany which distorts, or even tricks," and, "
both the illumination, and what remains when it fades, have to do with the way in which their author regarded the complications of sex..." (Pildich, 143, 146). The nature of sexuality in "Bliss" is illuminated through the reading of other of Mansfield's "adult" stories because her view of female sexuality is consistent. "The Daughters of the Late Colonel," "Carnation," and "Psychology," as well as "Bliss,"
Cited: Alpers, Antony, editor. The Stories of Katherine Mansfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Murdoch, Iris. An Accidental Man. London: Chatto and Windus, 1971. Pilditch, Jan, editor. The Critical Response to Katherine Mansfield. London: Greenwood Press, 1996. Anonymous review of "Prelude," Katherine Mansfield 's Stories. The Times Literary Supplement, March 2, 1946, p.102. (Pilditch, 48-53). Hankin, Cherry. "Fantasy and the Sense of an Ending in the Work of Katherine Mansfield." Modern Fiction Studies, XXIV, 1978, pp. 465-474. (Pilditch, 183-190). O 'Sullivan, Vincent. "The Magnetic Chain: Notes and Approaches to K.M." Landfalt, Christchurch, New Zealand, June 1975, vol. 29, no. 2, 114:95-131. (Pilditch, 129-153). Porter, Katherine Anne, "The Art of Katherine Mansfield," The Nation, October 23, 1937, Vol. 145, p. 435. (Pilditch, 45-53) Sewell, Arthur. "Katherine Mansfield—A Critical Essay." Auckland, New Zealand, 1936. (Pilditch, 41-45).