Friday, March 7, 2008

Blogging Journal for "The Doll's House"

Please put your Blogging Journal reponse here as a comment to this post by 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 11. Link to the story.

Posted by Brad at 3/07/2008 12:38:00 PM

11 comments:

Brad said...

1.Tell about how you feel toward this writing or its author and why.

Katherine Mansfield is a favourite of mine. I admire her for bringing to light the basic inequalities among us, our hateful and spiteful behaviour, while, at the same time, bringing us Kezia, a girl willing to stand up to the status quo. Mansfield is a writer of great power who, unfortunately, died far too young, at only 34 years old. It is also interesting to note that “For almost eighty years, Mansfield has been popular with Chinese readers, and she has had a significant influence on a number of Chinese short-story writers.” Given her tendency to expose the foibles and injustices built in to class-based societies, it is no wonder that the Chinese have long enjoyed her work. Certainly, I love her stories for the same reasons and am happy to expose some of you to her work, perhaps for the first time.

Quote above is from New Zealand Book Council web site:
(http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/mansfieldk.html)

March 8, 2008 at 2:44 PM
andrew said...

Q12. Write about something that surprised you, angered you, delighted you, or evoked any strong reaction as you were reading. Write about anything that stays on your mind after reading.

After reading Katherine Mansfield’s “The Doll’s House”, I am shocked by the bias against the humble people. Lil and Else Kelvey, two innocent teenagers are getting ripped off each basic right of being normal just because they are “the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird”. Everyone in the story, the teacher, their classmates and priggish Aunt Beryl humiliate the poor pair heartlessly, except Kezia, who is the only character showing the sympathy to them. This is pathetic and negative. Why those so-called upper class look down a single mother raising two children by her bare hands? Why they consider Lil and Else must be evils and educate other kids away from them? The consequence is both these arrogant people and their offspring are losing the value and principle of human being. Fortunately, we still have a tiny hope of Kezia, which makes a non-smile, non-speak girl to smile and speak for the first time in the imaginary world and hopefully arouses those dead-inside people in the real world.

(169 words)

March 10, 2008 at 1:54 AM
Claudia said...

Q # 8 Explore a social or ethical issue raised in the writing. Judge the behaviour of the characters or the views of the author. Are they right or wrong in your opinion?

Katherine Mansfield portraits on her story “The Doll’s House” a social issue about prejudgment. It is quite impressive to see how “Kezia” is the only character who seems to be unbiased against the” Kelveys’s” siblings. When this innocent girl invites Kelveys’s sisters, she does not think about any further consequences can cause to her aunt in the town. But, her immense desire to show her doll’s house leads her to disobey the rule. I stronger believe Mansfield wrote the story because she has gone through this experience, or may known a family who suffered in the same way. I think society has always being harsh with poor people because individuals are afraid to mingle with them. In addition, I disagree with the behaviour of the rest of the characters in the story because all what they do is to look scornfully the poor Kelveys’s children. They give a terrible rejection to the girls for having a “hardworking little washerwoman” as a mother, which I think is absurd. We need to change our perspective against poor individuals.
(176 words)

March 11, 2008 at 12:38 AM
selina li said...

Q1. Tell about how you feel toward this writing or its author and why.
While I am reading “ The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfied, my feeling is complicated. At the beginning, I am very angry with the people in the town who look down at the Kelvey family just because they are poor and the mother is a “ spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day”. In the only community school, the little Kelveys are “ always [outsiders]” and most children are “ not allowed” to speak to them. To make things worse, even the teacher has a “ special voice” for them. As the story goes, I have pity for the Kelvey family. They have no choices living a miserable live which they have to accept others’ biases. Lil always gives a “ silly smile”, but our Else never say a word whenever other children make them fool. However, the little lamp, which in the Doll’s house, and Kezia, the youngest Burnell children, eventually lets Else speaks out: “ I seen the little lamp,” comforts me with hope that the following generations will treat others equally with compassion and respect not base on what they do.
191 words

March 11, 2008 at 10:46 AM
Sunny said...

Q8. Explore a social or ethical issue raised in the writing. Judge the behavior of the characters or the views of the author. Are they right or wrong in your opinion?
In the story “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, a social issue is raised when people in the town treat others by their economic status. The parents living in the upper class think their children “were forced to mix together”, because “it was the only school for miles.” “The Kelveys were shunned by everybody” only because “they were the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird.” They belong to a poor family. The parents influence their children’s attitude so that everybody is invited to visit the doll’s house except the Kelveys. At last, the main character Kezia allows the Kelveys to look inside the doll’s house, but her aunt Beryl shouts with angry, and “shooed them out as if they were chickens.” Kezia can’t break the traditional rules. In my opinion, it is negative to separate people by economic reasons. Mansfield reveals us the social prejudice in that generation. Everybody should be treated equally, and I think this is the basic human right.
(163 words)

March 11, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Gwyneth said...

#5

As I read Katherine Mansfield’s “The Doll’s House” I felt an immense amount of empathy for the Kelvey family. Two girls, tossed aside by society for something they have no control over and hold no responsibility to. They are judged with harshness and embarrassingly not by the children of the community alone but their parents also. My personal experience while reading this short story took me back to the days when I lived in another city not too far from here. Everywhere you went people passed judgment like it was cold cash. The root of the issue was not gender, race, or beliefs, although this was used along with other insults, but rather they could not understand that people are different. Human nature resembles animals in a pack, everyone wants to belong. In order to achieve this they meld together, eliminate the differences so that no one can pick them apart. This is shameful. The story reminded me of this and my previous experience. I felt greatly for the children and for the society as a whole, how they are weighing each other down. It gave me certain disgust and yet filled me with sympathy for them all.

196 words

March 11, 2008 at 3:37 PM
Shawn said...

Q. 5

I felt upset after reading this story. There is no reason for any children to be grouped or parted based on what their family possesses, unless you are teaching them to be stuck up at such a young age. Children are like a blank piece of paper; whatever you write on them becomes imprinted. Not letting certain children in the courtyard to look at the “Doll House” Or When Aunt Beryl came into the courtyard and shooed Lil and Our Else away is unacceptable behavior in my opinion. The experience I had while reading the story; I’m glad that Kezia wanted to welcome everyone and asked the Kelveys to come and see the doll house regardless of what she was told. She was able to break out of the social handcuffs. Maybe the Kelveys didn’t have many material possessions; fortunately, Kezia was kind-hearted enough to share her joy with them.

150 Words

March 11, 2008 at 5:25 PM
Lola said...

7 Write about the most effective things you notice in the writing.

After the first reading of “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, I get strong impression about those lively dialogues coming from the different characters that really match the qualities of the speakers, simple and practical. We can often hear these kinds of conversations around that ages’ group. We easily recognize and believe the story because it practically jumped right out of our daily life. Mansfield doesn’t like to give too many explanations, she just tells the procedure of the story with lots of conversation between people, and many detailed descriptions like the doll’s of house and the dressing of Kelveys as well. “I’m the eldest… I’m to tell first,” Isabel’s announcement displays a proud bossy girl vividly. Kezia’s complaint, “But why not？” also shows her vague refutation to the stereotype. The last words from the “tiny wishbone” of child, our Else, “I seen the little lamp” is my favorite one , the lovely personality and naive instinct of Else seem so alive！ I feel comforted by the fact that her childishness starts to show first by Kezia’s invite. The effective dialogues and the familiarization with our life are the basic successful techniques in this short story. (200 words)

March 11, 2008 at 5:57 PM
zara said...

5. Describe your feelings as you read the writing and what sort of experience you had.
While reading "The Doll's House," I was taken back to many years ago. I feel a little guilty when I look back because of my behavior but I know I always tried to be nice to everyone. I remembered two or three girls had the same situation as the main character in the story. I have to mention that I think their parents behaviors made them more awkward than the main character's behavior, which Mrs. Mansfield also mentions "why Mrs. Kelvey made them so conspicuous was hard to understand."The way they wear their cloths, the way they behave, and they way they live makes them more embarrassed. I remember once a family had stolen three neighbors children cloth from their backyard, which was their new one, and put on their children next month to wear to school. It wasn't hard for anybody to realize without a doubt those clothes were stolen and who took them. I remember children didn't tell anything but the adult's behaviors with this family like "Aunt Beryl's "voice "cold and furious "told them whatever they want to say. The children character were so much similar to kelvey's daughters especially the younger one like our Else"tiny wishbone of a child, with cropped hair and enormous solemn eyes -- a little white owl "looking the adults behavior unknowingly. I still remember those innocent faces clearly.(227 words)

March 11, 2008 at 6:47 PM
CATALINA19 said...

7. Write about the most effective thing you notice in the writing.



Katherine Mansfield, in her story “The Doll’s house”, captivated my attention for her great and detailed description. She basically created full and rich images in my mind even though she still gives me room to imagine a lot more. All these descriptions appeal to all senses and sensory images appear through the whole story. The setting has been rich detailed, and is not only that what Katherine Mansfield plentifully explained. Katherine Mansfield generates strong sensations of what the characters would have been feeling in certain situations. For instance, “ Burning with shame, shrinking together, Lil huddling along like her mother, our Else dazed, somehow they crossed the big courtyard and squeezed through the white gate” Can you imagine how these two girls have felt and looked? “Lil for instance, who was a stout, plain child, with big freckles, came to school with a dress made of a green art-serge table-cloth of the Burnell’s, with red plush sleeves from the Logans’ curtains…” I can clearly see a photo in front of my eyes. Mansfield great power of description reveals rich physical pictures that carry social and cultural issues with them.

March 12, 2008 at 1:39 AM
Victoria said...

#5

“The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield awakes a huge amount of memories about my childhood in school and my two classmates in particular. I remembered two little children in my class – two siblings- just like Lil and “our Else”, who were always rejected from the rest of the class. There were seven children in their family and only one mother to raise and to take care of them. They had filthy clothes. The description of girl’s clothes from the story echoes how my classmates looked like. Lil wears “a dress made from a green art-serge table-cloth of the Burnells’...with red plush sleeves from the Logans’ curtains.” My classmates a boy named Eugene and a girl Irena were wearing clothes which they got from their older siblings. Eugene (how sad) has being wearing the same pants and the jacket for whole six years in school. By sixth grade the sleeves and of the jacket and trouser-legs were terribly short to him. I remember how everybody was rude to them. I can’t recall myself being directly rude to any of them. However I remember me saying nothing to protect them. I used to invite Irena to my house to have ice-cream together and I remember how happy she was, but the next day in school both of us didn’t pay attention to each other. I was busy with my girlfriends. She was busy to make herself invisible. Just like Kelveys they were nothing but a shadows in a class full of selfish spoiled children like, to my regret, we all were.

March 12, 2008 at 6:52 AM

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