A Cup of Tea

A Cup of Tea is a 1922 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in the "Story-Teller" in May 1922. It later appeared in "The Dove's Nest and Other Stories". [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]

Plot summary

Rosemary Fell, a rich woman, goes shopping (to a florist's and to an antique shop), then walks into Miss Smith, a poor girl who asks for money for tea. Instead, she drives her to her plush house. There the girl starts sobbing; the tea and food is brought in, she eats while Rosemary smokes. Then Philip comes in and has a talk with Rosemary in the library. He says he disapproves and he finds Miss Smith pretty; jealous, Rosemary gives three pound notes to the girl and sees her off. Later, all dressed up, she goes up to her husband and asks if she can buy an expensive box she saw in the morning - whilst actually she wishes he would tell her she was pretty too.

Characters in "A Cup of Tea"

*Rosemary Fell, a rich woman
*the antiquarian on Curzon Street
*Miss Smith, the poor girl picked up and fed by Rosemary
*Jeanne, a housemaid
*Philip, Rosemary's husband

Major themes

*class consciousness
*feminism

References to other works

*Dostoevsky : Rosemary decides to help the poor girl as she feels inspired by the stories by Dostoevsky that she has been reading.

Literary significance

The text is written in the modernist mode, without a set structure, and with many shifts in the narrative.

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.studyguide.org/mansfield_cup_of_tea.htm Full Text]