Book review: A Cup Of Tea

朱立博

International School of Business & Finance, Sun Yat-sen University , China

_________________________________________________________________________________

The book A Cup Of Tea was written in 19th century by Katherine Mansfield, an advocate of cultural feminism and an impressionism writer. I read the novel three times and finally get to the point. The name of book actually has nothing to do with the content. Perhaps the writer named it at random. It is a novel which you can finish during just teatime. So do you mind taking a cup of tea’s time to have a look at my review for this book?  

Key words: Rosemary; Upper-class; Male chauvinism; Irony

___________________________________________________

The book A Cup of Tea tells a story about how male chauvinism warped women's character. The writer uses a kind of irony to show how poor a dependent woman will be.

 In this book, the heroine is a wealthy and swanky woman called Rosemary. Once, when Rosemary went shopping, a beggar girl came up to her and asked her for a drink. In order to show her noble character and generosity, she brought the girl back to her house. However, Rosemary's husband Philip disliked the little dirty thing. He praised the girl's beauty deliberately before his wife. As a consequence, Rosemary became angry and sent the girl away immediately. Then she dressed up well to go and please her husband. And that is all of the story.

On the face of it, the story satirized Rosemary's hypocrisy and dishonesty. On a deeper aspect, what the beggar girl is to Rosemary, Rosemary is to Philip. To Rosemary, the girl was just for amusement and just a toy to her. Her actions were just to show her superiority. On the contrary, it indicated her empty life. At the end of the story, Philip's praise for the girl stimulated Rosemary. She got to be aware that the girl may become a threat to her. She changed her mind immediately. Actually many women in the capitalist class don't earn money. As a result, they can only depend on men to get what they want. They care much about their charm and appearance because this is a way for rewards from men. Rosemary succeeded in getting the rich man's love. However, it is always the truth that she is a toy of her husband as well. Rosemary was a poor woman as well.

I really recommend this novel in that A Cup of Tea shows the reality of society of that time. Woman's values are to please male and depend on others. And this common value has deeply lodged itself in the public mind.

When we look at the story we realize that the main participant is 'Rosemary' and she appears in most of the scenes. When we pick out all the sentences describing her, we can find her dominancy at once.

The words describing her are beautifully chosen ones and the writer paid much attention to the details such as Rosemary's hat.

The writer uses metaphorical phrases while describing Rosemary's hat. In fact the writer does not generally use such things. The language of the text is direct in the mass. So we can deduce that the metaphorical phrases are used to reflect the prominence that is given to Rosemary.

When the beggar girl appeared Rosemary showed her great sympathy. I realize that she can mention about what she likes and dislikes and expresses her ideas directly and freely. The writer used lots of verbs to show her cognition and affection.

The other participant I would like to analyze on this text - apart from Rosemary - is her husband Philip. It is vital to handle it here to maintain the entirety of the text.

When we take Philip as a participant, there are no signs for his physical appearance and no utterance for his personality as well. Philip is not as highlighted as Rosemary but he makes himself realized as soon as he enters the story toward the end.

It is obvious that Philip could not endure the beggar girl's stay in his house. He was in a bad mood at first. Why? The beggar girl may have no conflict of interest with Philip. The truth is, Philip is completely a businessman. He is completely a philistine. He will never waste a cent on profitless things, just like taking the beggar girl in. Philip will never allow this kind of things to happen. However, when Rosemary agreed to send the girl away, Philip became gentle and soft again and even jumped Rosemary on his knee. We can conclude that Philip is a changeable man. He is lacking in compassion and is actually hypocritical to everybody, including his wife. Meanwhile, he is a clever man who knows women's thoughts very well. He said that the beggar girl was pretty and lovely, deliberately. He knew his words would arouse Rosemary's envy and in that way she would send the girl away. Philip only used several words then got his purpose.

When it comes to the writer's writing skills, different from her previous works, she paid a lot of attention to the exact choice of adverbs and used irony to shape the character.

Among the writers who adopt these strategies, that was only K. Mansfield who was interested in characters rather than plot. She focused on meaningful moments of her characters and analyzed their inner personalities.

 It seems that K. Mansfield's story A Cup of Tea is short and common. But if you read the novel carefully and search some background information about that time, you will really admire the writer's wisdom. K. Mansfield did not only write in a unique and fluent style, but also reflected the social reality and culture.

References

1) Manuscript C, folio 436v, 11th century

2) Early Quanzhen Textual Corpus; L Komjathy; 2007

2016-05-05

分享

喜欢(0)