Comparison Of Short Stories By Katherine Mansfield, Rowley Habib, Owen Marshall, And Guy De Maupassant
Similarities and differences can be found through the structures, themes or techniques of stories. In this essay, I will be investigating the differences and similarities of four different short stories.
These stories are; ‘The Doll’s House’ by Katherine Mansfield, ‘Motu’ by Rowley Habib, ‘Mr Van Gogh’ by Owen Marshall and ‘The Necklace’ by Guy de Maupassant. I will first start off with a brief outline of the general ideas in these four stories; In ‘The Doll’s House’, the Burnell sisters receive a beautiful dollhouse, gifted by a generous houseguest. Burning to boast about their new dollhouse to classmates, the girls go to school the next morning and share the news. While everyone else crowds around the Burnells, there are two little girls who don’t. These are the Kelveys, whom no one speaks to since they are poor and are looked down on for that reason.
In ‘Motu’, it is an ordinary morning at a school and Miss McKewen is taking the roll. A conversation starts up between the teacher and a Maori boy named Motu. Miss Mckewen tries to lecture Motu on the proper, civilised way of speaking when Motu used words such as; ‘crook guts’ and ‘my old man and old lady’. Motu doesn’t understand why his way of speaking may be wrong is obviously very confused.
In ‘Mr Van Gogh’ the story is told from a young boy’s point of view who lives in the same town as ‘Mr Van Gogh’. Mr Van Gogh makes artwork out of coloured glass and spends most of his days doing so. Many people in the town, especially Mr Souness, mock and ridicule him for being so passionate about his namesake, the artist himself. The town council decides to extend the one lane bridge that runs next to Mr Van Gogh’s house, meaning that he would have to move out of his house. Of course, he is most annoyed and upset about this.
In ‘The Necklace’, Mathilde Loisel lives in a flat with her husband who works as a clerk for the Ministry of Education. Their lives are not luxurious but the two are not poor. Mathilde however, longs to be rich and envies her friend Jeanne who has a large house and lots of jewellery. One day when her husband brings home an invitation to a ball. She fusses and says she would needs a fancy dress and jewellery to attend. Mathilde ends up burrowing a necklace from Jeanne and eventually loses it. The biggest similarity between all stories is that their themes are all centred around social classes. This is an example of similar themes being recycled and then used again in different ways. Mathilde from ‘The Necklace’ wishes to be higher up socially so she would have more money. Van Gogh is seen as a rather eccentric and strange man in the eyes of the townspeople. They quite frankly, see him as an outsider.
The Kelveys in ‘The Doll’s House’ are also looked down and even made fun of by the other children and certain adults in the story. The story shows how the higher classes is trying to detach themselves from the lower classes. They two are seen and treated as outsiders. The relationship between Motu and Miss McKewen showed the gap between their two cultures. Miss McKewen thought herself to be superior over Motu and his ‘uncivilised’ language. Motu and Mr Van Gogh are both about a single misfit. They don’t quite fit in, this fact would be true about the Kelveys as well apart from the fact that they are two people. Next let’s look at the setting, place and time of these stories. The Necklace took place over a timeline of 10 years while Motu would have only taken a small amount of time, probably 10 minutes. Motu, Mr Van Gogh and The Doll’s House all seem to take place in New Zealand while The Necklace is set in France. However, all four stories seem to happen in the 19th century.
There are a few hints at symbolism in these stories. The most noticeable symbol is the dollhouse in The Doll’s House. The dollhouse is a symbol of wealth and represents something expensive and detailed. The little lamp is mentioned multiple times throughout the text in detail, so we know that it is also important symbol in the story. To Kezia the lamp is by far the best and most perfect part of the house. When she tries to explain it’s perfection, no one really listens apart from the Kelveys. When the Kelveys finally get the chance to see the dollhouse for themselves, we see that Else feels proud and happy for having seen the little lamp. This is because Else is seeing the same thing that Kezia saw and was able to admire the lamp the same way that Kezia did. It put the two girls in a similar status, even if it was only for a brief moment.
In Mr Van Gogh colour is used as a symbol and is mentioned multiple times throughout the story. There is even a character named Rainbow Johnston if that is not a bigger indication. Specifically the colour yellow is used many times. Some examples of this are; “yellow was difficult, the colour of personal expression”, “Van Gogh’s yellow”, “he bought yellow glass from Austria” etc. The colour yellow was very symbolistic is Van Gogh’s paintings so it makes sense that the colour was mentioned heavily in the text. Another symbol in Mr Van Gogh would be Mr Van Gogh’s bungalow.
