A Feminist Stylistic Analysis of Katherine Mansfield’s

Abstract

There has always been a belief that women in general are treated oppressively, viewed as inferior to men and subject to personal and institutional discrimination. Since literature reflects the way people think and shows the relationship between linguistic choices and socially construed meanings, this paper tackles Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” through a feminist stylistic approach to find out how female characters are represented. It also aims to explore whether the writer of the text under investigation reinforces or challenges the stereotypical image of women by viewing them as inferior or equal to men. Conducting a feminist stylistic analysis, by utilizing Sara Mills’ (1995) model of analysis involves the employment of a three-tiered level of analysis i.e. the level of the word, the level of the clause and the level of discourse. From the analysis of the short story under investigation, it has been concluded that the way women are represented is socially influenced by the prevailing held beliefs that women are passive, submissive, dependent on men, inferior to and unequal to men.

Keywords

• feminist stylistics
• feminism
• linguistic sexism
• transitivity
• fragmentation