Psychology (short story)

Psychology is a 1920 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in "Bliss and Other Stories". [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]

Plot summary

A man visits a woman for tea. He tells her this is the only place he pays attention to in terms of its furniture and so on. He also loves her 'little boy'. They then talk about the state of the novel as a literary genre - coming to the conclusion that the psycho-novel is shoddy. She feels anguished about possibly having failed in not following suit with that genre however, and he leaves. He rings the bell, then a friend of hers comes along and whilst she would usually be annoyed by her, this time she puts her arm around her and intices her to come again soon. She then sets out writing about how she liked the talk on psychology with her friend.

Characters

*a female playwright
*a male novelist
*the playwright's friend

Major themes

*friendship
*literary genres, particularly trends for novels, and the psychology-novel.

Literary significance

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

References to other works

*Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is alluded to through the phrase, 'a sandwich from the hatter's bag', i.e. Mad Hatter. [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]
*The Book of Genesis is also alluded to concerning the sandwich. [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]

Footnotes

External links

* [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/mansfield/bliss/psychology.html Full Text]