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For Monday-Thursday: Mansfield, Stories: Miss Brill, Her First Ball, The Singing Lesson, The Stranger



NOTE: Be sure to watch the video lecture in the post below and answer the question as a comment (or e-mail the response to me with your two reading response questions). 

Answer two of the following: 

Q1: In “Miss Brill,” the title character reflects, “How she loves sitting here,
watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play…They were all on the
stage. They weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting” (112). In what way are people in many of Mansfield’s stories actors on stage, both observing and performing? Why might this be a general critique of her society itself?

Q2: At the end of “The Stranger,” John laments, “Spolit their evening! Spolit their being alone together! They would never be alone together again” (138)?  Why does his wife’s experience with the  dead man ruin everything for her husband? Why would this admission spoil their life together—and their ability to be ‘alone’?

Q3: Mansfield writes many stories about young people emerging in society, which connects with our class’ theme of education. How might stories like “Her First Ball” and “The Young Girl” connect to similar themes in Northanger Abbey and Wuthering Heights? How are the girls one or both of the stories ‘educated’ by bad parental figures (or none at all)?

Q4: How does Mansfield make us question the ‘happy ending’ of the music teacher and her fiancé in “The Singing Lesson”?  What clues are sprinkled throughout the story of the nature of this match—and why the teacher is so willing to ignore the obvious?

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