"Understanding Each Other Perfectly": The Desire for Unmediated Communion in Katherine Mansfield's "Bliss"

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This article offers an alternative to the dominant reading of Katherine Mansfield's "Bliss" as a story about Bertha Young's repressed homosexuality, arguing that it can also be read as a story about her unfulfilled desire for communion with Pearl Fulton unmediated by language. In this reading, which pays close attention to the story's language, the pear tree that has been central to the story's interpretation for decades becomes a nonverbal icon as well as a symbol of Bertha's sexuality.