Extraordinary Dynamism: Woolf, Mansfield and Modernism

Extraordinary Dynamism: Woolf, Mansfield and Modernism 

Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield were literary contemporaries, rivals, and had deep personal connection. Both invested in what new modes of expression could offer in the 20^th century.  This was a process in which they could share similar political and social concerns, and attain some degree of self-actualisation for themselves and women more generally. This has allowed their work to be read together and separately when considering their own contribution to modernism.

Hermione Lee outlines both the personal and professional relationship between Woolf and Mansfield ‘So the remark about ‘friendships with women’ comes out of the heart of her extremely complicated relationship with Katherine. Their friendship was intimate but guarded, mutually aspiring to be competitive (If she’s good then I’m not). It ultimately disappointed her, but it was always tugging at her.’ This uneasy relationship had a deep affect on Woolf that would continue for many years after the death of Katherine Mansfield. It suggests that this rivalry limited the process of their work, but also encouraged them to create new meaning in a competitive environment, however damaging that potentially could be.  Lee continues ‘There were many crucial things about her that Virginia failed to understand, or understood too late – her background, her marriage, her illness. She was often snobbish and unkind about her. And Katherine too was ambivalent and inconsistent.’ This inconsistency from both led to a certain depth of misunderstanding. Alexandra Harris argues ‘But the relationship would be full of reserve, defensiveness, offences given and inferred. Mansfield lashed out with criticism, giving Night and Day a cold review. They felt they were working on the same things, but that made them all the more guarded with each other.’  This was a literary and personal friendship, and yet this was consequential in terms of their own work.

"I was jealous of her writing - the only writing I have ever been jealous of."

Woolf reflecting in her journal on the death of Katherine Mansfield

However, it is important to consider the different personal, geographical and social circumstances hat Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf held and how this worked into their own writing. Mansfield for example, had a natural interest in the uneasy relationship between Empire and its colonies and complications that arose around this. Woolf wrote from a different perspective, arguably a one of privilege, although she too sought to challenge this. 

The positive legacy of pairing these two writers together thematically is what they sought to achieve when explaining the positioning of women in society and how this can be problematised. Both Woolf and Mansfield represent women who were stringently forced into roles which may not have naturally suited them. Katherine Mansfield writes about this in her short story Bliss (1918). Bertha on discovering her own sexual independence and desire, discovers her husband’s affair with a friend. This hypocrisy is painfully displayed in Bertha, whilst juxtaposing this with her husband’s sterile, unemotional and ambivalent attitude towards the affair.  Mansfield is also writing about class too; the lives of middle class women who are left to sink or swim in terms of the limited domestic roles that are available to them.  Virginia Woolf also discusses these issues in many of her works, from characters such as Katharine Hilbery in Night and Day (1919) and more famously perhaps, Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs Dalloway (1925). Characters in these stories, from both Mansfield and Woolf all have some sort of epiphany in terms of realising their true selves. This was something that they were both interested in; the ability to consider yourself in terms of what people can stand for. Most of these realisations however were thwarted by power structures that existed for both genders in the early 20th century.  

This post is only a short examination of what Woolf and Mansfield’s work can offer when making thematic connections. Both contributed hugely to modernism and its concerns; a serious, and pressing need to make new literature. This shift away from traditional narratives and forms is something that is still being negotiated. Whilst their own relationship was troubled, it was also one that has an extraordinary dynamism to what could be created, thought upon, and realised in a period of significant change.