the book report of a cup of te

Recently, I read a short story named a cup of tea. The author Katherine Mansfield, a cultural feminist narrated this reality mirroring but fictional story in the third person. The story was set in the nineteen-twenties, in Britain, which indeed made a great difference in story. The nineteen century’s Britain was in the so-called Victorian era. Accompanied with the boom of industry and the enhancement of national power, British society was filled with variety of social problem and social contradiction.  At the same time, feminist movement blossomed and up surged swiftly and violently. As a result, feminine literature in Britain began to be sprouted and developed rapidly. Hence, Katherine Mansfield threw herself into literary creation and paid close attention to cultural feminist too. This story was written in her early stage, and during her early stage, her literature mainly focused on the young woman who struggled for their lives hard. Compared to her early stage, the literature written in her later stage mainly laid emphasis on the married life of middle-aged women. Both of them kept a watchful eye on women’s social status. For instance, The Career Women, one of the work in her early stage, deeply revealed the fact that the young women’s fear of sexual harassment, which mirrored the low social status of women in that society vividly. But through this story, Katherine Mansfield wrote something out of women’s social status. She satirized the fragile friendship between female, ugly human nature of jealousy and the class society. In the story Rosemary Fell, a young, wealthy woman, went shopping and was approached by Miss Smith, a poor girl who asked for money to buy tea. However, Rosemary pretended to be kind and drove the girl to her plush house, which satisfied her vanity infinitely. His husband Philip, came and didn’t want to leave Miss Smith in his house. He utilized Rosemary's jealousy by telling her how pretty Miss Smith was. Rosemary retrieved three pound notes, and sent the girl away presumably.

From my perspective, through the plot of this story is a bit out of time, but author’s exquisite process of words and profound theme are really afforded for thought. I enjoy Katherine Mansfield’s words of contrast. She captured Rosemary Fell’s expression and movement and many details before and after by using her succinct but meticulous style of writing, which made a striking contrast. In addition, she cared for Miss Smith hypocritically and flaunted what she possessed actually.  What Rosemary Fell did and what she thought contrast strikingly too. On the other hand, Miss Smith’s behavior and Rosemary Fell’s behavior also contrast distinctly. The all purpose of these three contrast was to mirror different kind of social problem. First is Jealousy, which was indeed an ugly kind of human nature, and it can undoubtedly give rise to many events especially between female. Second is false. People often conceal the ugliness in their heart by doing goodness hypocritically. Third is the lamentable class society, and this was what the author want to satirize most. Through her words, I can feel her strong eager of social equality instead of different class of society. In a word, to be one of the female, her words exposed the ugliness and darkness in female relationship, which showed her disgust of distorted interpersonal relationship between female. Which deserved to be mentioned is that Rosemary Fell’s husband, a male, utilized Rosemary's jealousy, the weakness of female, to carry his point. As far as I am concerned, the author maybe wanted to express that if we female did not change ourselves, we would be fooled with and looked down upon by the male forever and we female would not gain the equality of male in the true sense. After reading this book, I thought I would read more by this author and encourage others to read this book for the reason that Katherine Mansfield’s writing style was succinct as well as meticulous, which often reveal some profound theme that can set me thinking a lot.

2016-05-09

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