Introduction
Katherine
Mansfield is arguably New Zealand’s most famous
writer. Born Kathleen
Mansfield Beauchamp in Wellington, New Zealand on 14 October 1888, she lived in
England and
Europe from
1908 and died of tuberculosis at Avon-Fontainebleau, France, on 9 January 1923. Although she was a
prolific critic and letter writer, it was for short fiction
that she has earned her reputation as one of the foremost
Modernist writers. In a
German Pension, her first book of short stories, was
published in 1911.
A Background to
In a German Pension
Although the broad details of the period when Mansfield wrote the
stories of In a German
Pension are well established, there are nevertheless
some marked discrepancies between her main biographers,
Antony Alpers
and Jeffrey
Meyers, over some aspects. A useful starting point is
Mansfield’s
arrival in London in 1908 and the resumption of her
acquaintance with the Trowell family, whom she had known in
Wellington. She had carried on a
correspondence with one of their sons, Tom, for several
years, but within a short space of time Mansfield had fallen
in love with his twin brother, Garnet. He was a violinist in a
travelling opera company, and they began an ardent
correspondence when he went on tour. Mansfield moved into the Trowell house
in November 1908, but she left
in January after a row with
Garnet’s
parents over her relationship with their son. The next month
she met George
Bowden, a teacher of speech and singing, and they
married in a registry office on 2
March 1909. Mansfield had instigated both the
relationship and marriage, but she left him on their wedding
night. From there she went to live with Garnet while he was
on tour; after a month they separated, and Mansfield discovered
not long after that she was pregnant.
Meanwhile Mansfield’s mother, Annie Beauchamp, had
become concerned enough about her daughter to sail from New
Zealand, arriving in London on 27 May. Alpers claims that she did not know of
the baby during her visit, but came to end Mansfield’s
friendship with Ida
Baker, which had horrified her with its suggestion of
lesbianism. Beauchamp took Mansfield to the Bavarian spa of Bad Wörishofen because “the most
widely recommended cure for girls with Kathleen’s difficult
complaint was a course of cold baths and wholesome
exercise. She was sent there to be hosed.” (96) Meyers on the other
hand describes Beauchamp arriving in London to find
Mansfield
destitute and pregnant.
[(48)](#bibl-meye1978) He argues that Beauchamp was unable
to restore the situation to any appearance of respectability
and consequently, she decided to conceal the scandal by
taking her daughter to a convent in Germany and leaving her there.
[(49)](#bibl-meye1978) At the spa,
Mansfield was
initially booked by her mother into the Hotel Kreuzer, but moved in
mid-June to the cheaper Villa
Pension Müller. It was this that provided the
inspiration for many of the stories of In a German
Pension. Mansfield miscarried during the summer
after sustaining an injury from lifting a heavy trunk. Also
while in Bad Worishofen she
met Floryan
Sobienowski, a Pole who introduced her to the work of
various European writers including Stanislaw Wyspianski.
Back in London at the end of 1909, Mansfield made a second attempt of her
marriage to Bowden. This was unsuccessful, but
while she shared his flat for several weeks she showed him
some of her writings from Bavaria. He recommended she show
them to A.R. Orage, editor of the
weekly review New Age. He was impressed, and published a series of
her stories in the magazine as “Pension Sketches” during
1910. Charles Granville, another contributor to New Age, was the
driving force behind publishers Stephen Swift & Co. The
company was known for its entrepreneurial support of
promising new authors, and Mansfield was paid a £15 advance for
her ten “Pension Sketches” and two further stories. In a German Pension
was published by Stephen Swift just prior to Christmas 1911, and ran to three
editions before the bankruptcy of the publishers meant Mansfield ceased to
gain any further royalties.
The Stories of
In
a German Pension
In a German
Pension makes an intriguing comparison to Mansfield’s later
work. The stories display characteristics of the later,
“mature” fiction yet they offer nothing to the reader hoping
to find in them the inscription of an emergent New Zealand
identity. The characters and contexts of the stories are in
fact entirely European, set firmly in the cultural and
political environment of pre-World War I Europe. This is
most evident in the contrasts between the Germans and the
English. The German characters are gross and corporeal,
constantly eating, perspiring and discussing their
ailments. As “Germans
at Meat” demonstrates, this renders them both banal
— “This morning I took a half bath. Then this
afternoon I must take a knee bath and an arm bath … then I
do my exercises for an hour, and my work is over” (13)
— and menacing: “He fixed his cold blue eyes upon me
with an expression which suggested a thousand premeditated
invasions.” (10) By contrast, many of the stories feature a
young female English narrator who is reserved and
fastidious. She is a sardonic commentator on German foibles
and foolishness:
“Oh!” cried Elsa rapturously… “how I know that! You
know ever since Fritz and I have been engaged, I share
the desire to give to everybody, to share
everything!”
“How extremely dangerous,” said I.
(“The Advanced Lady”, 94)
Yet while she shocks her German acquaintances with her
disregard for ‘traditional values’, she is nevertheless a
vulnerable figure.
This vulnerability also points to another concern of the
stories, which is developed further in her later
fiction. That is their criticism of gender relations and the
ambivalence, contradictions and power imbalances inherent in
conforming to social norms. In “Frau Fischer”, the narrator appals Frau
Fischer by stating, “But I consider child-bearing the most
ignominious of all professions” (31). The Germans are very
enthusiastic about families — “Germany … is the home
of the Family” (“Germans at Meat”, 11) — yet the
stories portray a mixture of attraction and repulsion felt
by women towards men. In “At Lehmann’s”, Sabina runs from the
embrace of the Young Man when she hears “a frightful,
tearing shriek” (60) as Frau Lehmann gives birth; in “The Swing of the
Pendulum”, Viola considers prostitution out of
economic necessity but narrowly escapes being sexually
assaulted: “I won’t kiss you. I won’t. Stop doing that! Ugh!
you're like a dog — you ought to find lovers round
lamp-posts — you beast — you fiend!” (108) A
prototype of her later characters, Stanley and Linda
Burnell, is also found in “Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding”,
where the titular character comes to question the personal
cost of her marriage: “Now they had five babies and twice as
much money; but—” (39) The
final scene, in which the Brechenmachers go to bed, is
strongly reminiscent of Stanley’s sexual eagerness and
Linda’s corresponding fear: “She lay down on the bed and put
her arm across her face like a child who expected to be hurt
as Herr Brechenmacher lurched in.” (40)
Two further stories are worthy of particular mention,
“The
Child-Who-Was-Tired” and “A Birthday”. The former story describes
a child’s experience of a brutal domestic environment, and
is of interest for its similarities to Chekhov’s story “Spat
Kochetsia”, first published in English as “Sleepyhead” in
1903. The influence of Chekhov on Mansfield has long
been the subject of critical debate, and the divergent
attitudes of Alpers and Meyers to this story are instructive:
to the former it prov[ed] that its author had
now made contact with her supposed ‘master,’ [but] at the
same time proved her imaginative freedom from his
influence
[(112)](#bibl-alpe1982), while to the
latter it is an act of virtual
plagiarism
[(50)](#bibl-meye1978). The second
story is of interest because of its close similarities to
Mansfield’s
later fiction set in the New Zealand of her childhood. The
central character, Andreas Binzer, is another prototype of
Stanley Burnell in his exaggerated self-pity, while his wife
Anna resembles Linda in her suffering caused by
child-bearing. It is the setting, however, that is most
noteworthy for its strong suggestion of colonial Wellington:
A tremendous gust of wind sprang upon the house, seized
it, shook it, dropped only to grip the more tightly. The
waves swelled up along the breakwater and were whipped
with broken foam. Over the white sky flew tattered
streamers of grey cloud. (72)
The passage is distinctive, not only for the evocation of
setting, but also for the way the wind and house are
employed as symbols to evoke character. Binzer’s sexual
demands are apparent in the wild, unfettered wind that
“sprang … seized … shook … to grip the more tightly” the
house, a vulnerable domestic domain that in turn suggests
Anna. It is the power of such images and the skill with
which they are used that conveys the strongest connection
between In a German
Pension and Mansfield’s later work.
Selected Links
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
Extensive biographical essay on Mansfield by New Zealand academic
Gillian Boddy.
[http://www.dnzb.govt.nz](http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/)
New Zealand Book Council
Biographical essay on Mansfield by New Zealand academic and
writer Vincent
O’Sullivan from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand
Literature (1998).
Essay by New Zealand academic Roger Robinson on responses by New
Zealand writers to Mansfield from The Oxford Companion to New
Zealand Literature (1998).
[http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mansfieldk.htm](http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mansfieldk.htm)
New Zealand Edge: New Zealand Heroes
Extensive biographical essay on Mansfield by New Zealand writer Damien
Wilkins. Also includes links to other relevant
sites.
[http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/mansfield.html](http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/mansfield.html)
LEARN: New Zealand Literature File
Online bibliography of Mansfield’s writings, and of reviews,
theses, articles, books and plays relating to her
work. Hosted by the University of Auckland Library. Last updated in October
2002.
[http://www2.auckland.ac.nz/lbr/nzp/nzlit2/mansfiel.htm](http://www2.auckland.ac.nz/lbr/nzp/nzlit2/mansfiel.htm)
Timeframes
Searchable database of pictures from the Alexander Turnbull
Library, Wellington and containing over
ninety images of or related to Mansfield. Hosted by the National Library of New Zealand.
[http://timeframes1.natlib.govt.nz/;internal&action=dialog.search.action](http://timeframes1.natlib.govt.nz/;internal&action=dialog.search.action)
The Brain of
Katherine Mansfield
Hypertext version of Bill Manhire’s story “The Brain of Katherine
Mansfield” (1988)
with illustrations by Gregory O’Brien. Hosted by Brown University. Also includes
links to other sites concerned with New Zealand
literature.
[http://www.het.brown.edu/people/easther/brain/index.html](http://www.het.brown.edu/people/easther/brain/index.html)
The
Katherine Mansfield Paintings
Online images of a series of oil paintings originally
commissioned by UK publisher The Folio Society to illustrate a book of short stories
by Katherine
Mansfield. The paintings are by Susan Wilson, a New
Zealand artist based in London. Hosted by New Zealand art
gallery, Jonathan Grant Galleries.
[http://www.jgg.biz/jgg/artists/wilson_bio.html](http://www.jgg.biz/jgg/artists/wilson_bio.html)