Prelude, Katherine Mansfield Flashcards
Prelude quotes
‘we shall simply have to leave them’ at the beginning when Linda leaves the children
‘fat swelling plant with its cruel leaves’
Stanley buys a pineapple and oysters
Kezia initially laughs at the duck with the other children then sobs ‘Head back!’ the mood shifts as we see things through Kezia’s eyes
when they learn the aloe is flowering Linda says - ‘Do you feel it too?’
Prelude
originally the beginning of a novel
follows Lottie and Kezia, their mother Linda Burnell leaves them behind with Mrs Samuel Josephs, they are then brought later to their mother, Aunt Beryl, her daughter Isabel and Stanley
all pretending, the children pretend, Beryl pretends and Linda fakes feelings for Stanley
flip in and out of narratives
Prelude, performativity quotes
‘she put two geranium leaf plates, a pine needle fork and a twig knife’
‘There were all her feelings for him, sharp and defined […] And there was this other, this hatred’
‘She saw the real Beryl, - a shadow … a shadow’
‘I’m always acting a part. I’m never my real self for a moment’
Prelude, stream of conciousness
as Kezia falls asleep, she hears ‘some tiny owls’, Linda catches a ‘tiny bird’ in her dream which becomes ‘a baby with a big naked head and a gaping bird-mouth, opening and shutting’
‘In the quiet and under her tracing finger, the poppy seemed to come alive’
