Doll's house (Short story)

Biography of Katherine Mansfield The author of short story Katherine Mansfield belongs to Newzealand. She was born in 1888 of rich parents. Throughout her life she went on receiving allowance from her father. After leaving the school she attended Queen’s College London, for four years and after two years stay at home she left New Zealand for ever and settled down in London where she married the famous man of letters, John Middleton Murray. Katherine remained ill for almost the rest of her life after, she came to live in London. During the last two years of her life, she worked with tremendous force and concentration; her best work is the creation of this period. This includes The Daughters of die late colonel and the stories dealing with Burnell family from which the present story The Doll's House is taken. She published in a German Pension in 1911 as her last hook. The Garden Party came in 1922, which started a chorus of praise on both sides of the Atlantic and was reprinted seven times in America. Her quiet, perfect craftsmanship is used in stories of character and scene rather than of action. The light touches serve to reveal personality or significance, and she is at her happiest in stories of children. She is particularly good wide fluttering sensitive types neurotic women ironically sketched and young girls lightly touched with sympathetic feeling, Whatever she wrote it was based on her personal experience,and thus all her writings are rooted in New Zealand, her native place. Katherine Mansfield’s technique is the most modern and she has contributed a lot towards the development of the short story. She is Remarkable for her freshness of approach and though her range is extremely limited, she succeeded in expressing the universality of experience. Apart from the beauty of her technique, the poetic quality of writing is also note-wordiy . She died in1923. Doll's house There are three Burnell sisters, Isabel, Lottie and Kezia, who belong to an aristocratic family. They get a doll’s house as a gift from one of their relatives. Mrs. Hay. who has come to stay with them. When she went back to town she sent a beautiful doll’s house for the Burnell girls. The Doll’s House is a wonderful gift and is complete in every respect. It is painted green and yellow, There is a beautiful lamp placed on the dining table, it has also a lamp in it. Two elderly dolls are in the drawing room and their two children are sleeping upstairs. The three sisters are impatient to tell all their friends about it. Next morning they hurriedly go to school. But Isable the eldest one, thinks that it is her right to be the first in releasing the information about the doll’s house. In the school, different children from neighbourhood come and mix up with each other as there is only one school in that locality. There are also two sisters, Lil and Else, They belong to a poor family. Their father is a jail bird and their mother is a washer-woman. Every body shuns them . They are treated as untouchables on account of their poor back ground. Every friend of the Burnell sister is invited turn by turn to have a look at the Doll’s House but the two Kelvey sisters are the.only exception. Not to speak of inviting them, the intimate friends of Burnell sisters, Emmie Cole, Lena Logan and Jessie May, who are of the same stock, laugh at the Kelvey sisters and humiliate them. They say that the Kelveys will become servants on growing up. Kezia the youngest of the Burnell sisters is different from her two sisters. She is considerate and has a soft corner for the poor. She asks her mother’s permission to invite the Kelvey sisters to her house to show them the doll’s house; but she is scolded for it she is in search of an opportunity to respond to the call of her conscience. One day the Burnells come earlier from the school, because there are guests in the house. The other two sisters go upstairs to change their dresses but Kezia sneaks, from another way and waits for the Kelveys. They pass by that way, She invites them to have a glimpse of the doll’s house. First the two sisters hesitate, but then go inside. Hardly have they finished their first look, when aunt Beryl appears there. She turns them out She also takes Kezia to task and shouts bitterly at her, "wicked, disobedient little girl".