INTIMACY AND ISOLATION: A TENSION WHICH INFORMS THE WORK OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Abstract
This study explores a theme which occurs consistently in the work of Katherine Mansfield: the tension between the need for intimacy and the desire for isolation. Throughout her writing she reveals the human being's need of security, community, and intimacy while moving toward independence, individuality, and isolation. When her stories and poems are categorized in the stages of human life which they reveal, it becomes apparent that Mansfield recognizes the tension as it exists in various forms throughout life. The child is dependent on parents for security and love and so must court approval which sometimes is only acquired through a loss of personal freedom. The adolescent, propelled toward adulthood, feels the need of adult intimacy but is repelled by the fear of that new experience and isolates himself on the threshold between the two worlds. In adulthood, isolation is the primary value in relationships with the larger world, although intimacy is desirable in relationships with the opposite sex, especially for those who are dependent. Marriage is the relationship in which the intimacy/isolation conflict is most carefully explored, and in the stores about permanent bonding, intimacy seems to be affirmed in spite of the powerful contrary force. In single adulthood the terrors of isolation are explored. The stories about death reveal the human terror of ultimate isolation, repeat the tensions of other stages of life, and reinforce the awareness which is gradually revealed in her work. Human isolation may be the result of an unfeeling universe, but it is more often the result of human egoism and the impulse to exclude aspects of life. Life must ultimately be faced alone, but the experience of life must be shared if human beings are to find happiness and fulfillment. In Mansfield's world, isolation and human loneliness are the most common human experiences, but she believes that intimacy must triumph over isolation.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
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