Terra Nullis: Post-colonialism and Liminal Spaces in Mansfield's Short Stories

As a Modernist writer existing on the fringes of European Modernist literature, Katherine Mansfield inhabits a complex, post-colonial liminal space. With a number of her short stories set in New Zealand, I intend to examine how Mansfield uses liminal spaces to explore colonialism, arguing that Mansfield, herself, inhabited a liminal space. Defined as 'being on the boundary or threshold, esp. by being transitional or intermediate, between two states, situations, etc' (1) liminality is key when thinking about post-colonial writing. For the Gothic genre, liminal spaces are characterised by windows and doorways. This imagery moves into Modernist stories, seen in Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and other stories. Mansfield's innovative short stories characterise the liminal space as a place of travel and movement. Often characters make journeys on trains, boats, across countries and bodies of water with this time on transportation offering the characters time to reflect on their situations. Wilson contends that 'liminal spaces appear in colonial texts as those terra nullis locations ready to be written upon, interpreted, stolen, and named.' (2)

New Zealand, a colony of the British Empire, can be considered a liminal space. O'Sullivan argues that 'the almost innate belief in most New Zealanders [is] that theirs is a classless community, that the social hierarchies of an older world, if not quite shucked off, one certainly less constraining, has perhaps lead to odd distortions'. (3) This works in tandem with Bennett's observation that 'the transplantation of English culture into a New Zealand context leads to the question of what that culture 'really' looks like.' (4) So, it could be argued, Mansfield was living and working in a liminal, complex space. New Zealand was, as its name suggests, new (to the British Empire). And so, 'the complexity of a New Zealand cultural identity' (5) is something Mansfield addresses in her short stories. Using one of her famous short stories, 'The Garden Party' for analysis, I intend to examine how Mansfield explores New Zealand's cultural complexity from the viewpoint of class hierarchies.

After hearing about the death of a workman who lives close to the Sheridan's property, Laura Sheridan enters a state of contemplation. Is it still okay for the Sheridan's garden party to go ahead when a man from the neighbouring cottages has died? Would it be rude to the grieving wife? This accident and situation allow Mansfield to unpack ideas surrounding class in New Zealand. The dead workman is described as a 'drunken workman' (6) by Jose with Laura questioning this claim. The Sheridan's house and class position are then juxtaposed with the cottages, as Mansfield creates an image that highlights class disparity:

'The very smoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty-stricken. Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlike the great silvery plumes that uncurled from the Sheridans' chimneys' (p.343)

Mansfield subtly highlights how class is societal concern that still prevails in New Zealand, despite the belief that New Zealand might describe itself as classless. The 'broad road' that separates the Sheridan's from the 'little mean dwellings' (p.343) acts as a threshold between two very different class situations. The road towards the Sheridans' house Laura travels to arrive at the cottages is 'gleamed white' (p.347) in contrast to the lane the cottages are placed on which is 'smoky and dark' (p.347). This road acts as a liminal space that Laura inhabits before she comes face-to-face with death and the privilges of her own class.  O'Sullivan notes that 'Laura's early amazment at a workman's delighting in the scent of lavender is merely a novice's version of her mother's fully fledge snobbery.' (7) Laura moves in an unstable place between recognising her position and understanding the luck of being born into a certain family at a certain time. The story of 'The Garden Party' allows Mansfield to deconstruct the notion that New Zealeand is a classless community. She uses liminal spaces so her characters can reflect on their position in the colonial community.

Mansfield found herself in the 'broad road', not able to idenitify as an indigenous New Zealanders nor what can be considered a "British citizen". Referred to as the 'little colonial' at school in Britain, Mansfield faced a 'liminal positioning between empire and colony.' (8) Bennett describes Mansfield position in relation to New Zealand - 'as an indentity and indentification - is a place that defines Mansfield above all, as displace, as placeless.' (9) Writing from this 'placeless' position, a space between two identities, Mansfield was able to examine life and identity from a unique position. Seen as the 'other,' Mansfield was able to explore liminal spaces and how they impact characters in her short stories in relation to post-colonialism and how being between two spaces affects indentities.

Josie Cray

(1)'liminal' adj. OED
(2) Wisker, Gina. (2007) "Crossing Liminal Spaces: Teaching the Postcolonial Gothic" Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, 7. 3 pp.401-26 (p.412)
(3) Mansfield, Katherine, New Zealand Stories, ed. by Vincent O’Sullivan (Auckland: OUP Australia and New Zealand, 1998) p.8
(4)Andrew Bennett, Katherine Mansfield (United Kingdom: Northcote House in association with the British Council, 2002) p.42
(5) Bennett, Katherine Mansfield, p.42
(6) Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories, ed. by Angela Smith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). p.344
(7) Mansfield, New Zealand Stories, ed. by Vincent O’Sullivan, p.9
(8) McLeod, John, ed., Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies (Routledge Companions) (London: Taylor & Francis, 2007) p.3
(9) Bennett, Katherine Mansfield, p.43