One of the themes that can be found in the stories of Katherine Mansfield centres upon the role, status, sexuality, and “place” of women in society. According to Chantal Cornut-Gentille d’Arcy, “Mansfield’s succinct narratives … are triumphs of style, a style which challenged the conventional parameters of nineteenth-century realism, constrained to plot, sequential development, climax, and conclusion” (244). More specifically, maintains that “even though Mansfield never acknowledged any profound engagement with Freudian approaches to sexuality or psychic disorder … Mansfield moved in a context which undoubtedly indicates she was aware of Freud’s ideas and discoveries” (245).
This is evident in ‘Life of Ma Parker’, which describes the life of a widowed charwoman who has experienced nothing more than tragedy throughout her life and who most recently has had the horrible task of burying her loving little grandson (Lohafer 475). Ma Parker is written by Mansfield from both a......
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