The Little Governess

The Little Governess

"The Little Governess" is a 1915 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in "Signature" on 18 October 1915 under the penname of Matilda Berry, and later reprinted in "Bliss and Other Stories". [Katherine Mansfield, "Selected Stories", Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes]

Plot summary

After receiving advice from the lady at the Governess Bureau, a young and naive English governess is off on the train from France to Munich, from where she will go to a new house for work. There an old man sits in her quarter - though it was originally for ladies only - and they start talking. She finds out he is German; he lets her look at his newspapers. Then the train stops because of a hitch on the track, and he buys her some strawberries; the train gets going again. He insists on showing her round Munich and she agrees. At the station, he walks her to her hotel, and she sees the shabby room she was supposed to stay in all day and wait for Frau Arnholdt to take her to her new house.

They take a stroll in Munich, then go to a museum, then to the English Garden. She doesn't have the time and wants to return to her hotel, but he suggests having an ice cream before she does do. Then he takes her to his flat and there he kisses her without her consent. In shock, she runs out into the street and takes a cab back to the hotel, where she is told Frau Arnholdt came and left when the manager told her he didn't know when she would be back.

Characters

*The Little Governess
*The lady at the governess bureau
*Porter at the train station
*The gentleman sitting opposite her on the train. He is German.
*Frau Arnholdt, a woman supposed to take her from Munich to her new house in Augsburg.

Major themes

*Naivety
*Appearances vs Reality
*Disillusionment
*Vulnerability

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://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/mansfield/bliss/governess.html Full text]


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