How I met with Katherine Mansfield.

There are lots of small details in the story that may look clear but has a deeper meaning if you look from a wider perspective. Psychologically speaking Aunt Berly is an example for projection while Kezia resembles containment and projection identification, also the mean school girls are “ holding”.

This book shows the difference and the clear cut between the children’s world and the grown-up’s world. For children the world of grown-up’s world is close yet so far away that it almost like a doll house. You can see whats going inside, you can see all of the rooms but you don’t feel like you belong there and you live in a house that is not yours, you can’t fit in as well. At the story there is a clear statement that the dolls inside of the house are just “stiff” which presents Kezia’s parents being emotionally dead and not understanding her state of mind, or basically not letting her in:) The dolls look stiff for her because she says they look like they dont belong there, I believe lamp represents something deeper as well but even this lamp looks beautiful to her, why? Because it looks like the lamp belongs to the house, which is the whole deal.

Another question that pops into my mind while reading is was that; Was the important thing the beauty of the doll house or is was just owning it? The doll house was only beautiful because it belongs to Keiza not to others, she was the only one at the neighborhood who has a doll house, no other child has one, and that was the only important thing about the doll house.

Coming back to the lamp:) They are shaped as a circle but in a weird way, it is almost like a not completed circle. If we think that circle represent being completed it is just like a children, it exist but it is not completed a circle yet. OR the lamp at the doll house is small and mini version of a lamp not a real one. It is though still a lamp realistic, but not functional. Just like a children.

Another point was made by the Kelveys, they do “containing”, when individuals think bad about others they believe it is going to be beneficial for them. When you say someone is dirty does it mean they are dirty or is it just mean you are more clean than them? Telling Kelveys that they are bad and dirty just makes other feel clean. Another small detail hidden which I LOVE was the way people describe the way Kelveys clothes, they were always wearing someone’s old clothes, why the clothes that they use to wear suddenly becomes dirty just because they are worn by Kelveys now. This is a similar concept that we hold, when something is belong to us it seems beautiful, but when you lost it or gave it to someone it automatically becomes bad and filled with negative feelings. They are the same clothes, it just seems dirty now because it is not theirs now.

I read it 2 years ago and this is all I remember so far. I hope you fall in love with the story as much as I do.