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Submitted by marsl on August 29, 2005
Category: English
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Essay on Katherine Mansfield¡¦s Bliss
The pear tree as a symbol for Bertha¡¦s life
Katherine Mansfield¡¦s short story Bliss is filled with a lot of underlying mean-ings and themes. There are as well many symbols that Mansfield uses and among those the pear tree is an important one. In this essay I will prove that the pear tree is both a symbol for for Bertha and her life and the awakening of her sexuality.
First I will sketch on the symbolic meanings of a pear and a tree as they are described in symbolic books and I will then focus on the pear tree in relation to Ber-tha throughout the story.
In many books such as those of psychoanalysis and symbolism the pear is ¡V like the apple ¡V a symbol of fertility and due to its bosom-like shape an image for the feminine sexuality. Moreover a dream of a pear or an apple tree means good news that is important for the rest of the life . The tree for itself has as well symbols for its own. In many religions and myths there is the Tree of Life. Trees often spend safety, shadow and food. A healthful and flowering tree is a symbol of strong potency. A draughty tree symbolises misfortune, whereas a tree full of fruits and leaves means luck and also bliss .
At the very beginning of the story we get to know the thirty-year-old Bertha Young coming home and preparing herself and the house for a dinner party at the evening. At first sight we see her as a very blissful young woman who seems to have ¡§everything¡¨ ¡V ¡§she was married¡¨, ¡§she was young¡¨, had an ¡§adorable baby¡¨, an ¡§ab-solutely satisfactory house and garden¡¨ and ¡§modern friends¡¨ (p.123) ¡V but later we should find out that she is everything but satisfied with her life . As Bertha makes ref-erences to a pear tree in her garden a dozens of times throughout the story seeing it ¡§as a symbol of her own life¡¨ (p.123) I would say that she feels herself rooted to the life she has created...
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