Subtle NewView in Katherine Mansfield’s Subtle Story, “The Stranger”
Katherine Mansfield’s short story, The Stranger, has the least obvious, most subtle OldView of all the short stories I discuss here in my other blog posts on writing essays of lit analysis.
However, the story’s NewView presented in the very last sentence is probably the strongest NewView of all the short stories, though, perhaps, not the clearest–which could make your essay on this story your most entertaining effort in writing essays on lit analysis.
SUMMARY ANALYSIS
1-OldView strong value statement, early on
But what a fool — what a fool he had been not to bring any glasses [binoculars]! . . . ‘A welcome awaits you. All is forgiven.’ . . . They knew . . . that Mrs. Hammond was on that boat, and that he was so tremendously excited . . .
Reading through this story the first time, I failed to pick out the OldView. I did see a strong value statement in Mr. Hammond’s playful “what a fool” phrase, but it didn’t seem to fit as a serious statement—that is, until the final sentence, the NewView Reversal at the end.
The second important OldView for Mr. Hammond, “A welcome awaits you. All is forgiven,” was just in fun, too, like his “what a fool” evaluation, and didn’t attain any significance until the NewView Reversal at the end, either.
The third OldView statement by Mr. Hammond, that “he was so tremendously excited . . . ” captures the positive, upbeat mood Mr. Hammond had in anticipating seeing his wife again, at the first, and it is the first of several little revelations of his heartfelt, positive, and protective attitude toward her.
2-OldView supports/undercuts, in middle
Descriptions.
Supporting Mr. Hammond’s protective, positive attitude toward his smallish wife, Janey, as part of the OldView at the beginning:
. . . perhaps the deck steward would bring her up a cup. If he’d been there he’d have got it for her—somehow. And for a moment he was on deck, standing over her, watching her little hand fold round the cup in the way she had.
Also supportive of the OldView:
There she was, leaning on the rail, talking to some woman and at the same time watching him, ready for him. It struck him . . . how small she looked on that huge ship. His heart was wrung with such a spasm that he could have cried out. How little she looked to have come all that long way and back by herself! Just like her, though. Just like Janey.
Supportive in his OldView admiration for her:
. . . she was by far the most popular woman on board. And she took it all—just as usual. Absolutely composed. Just her little self—just Janey all over . . . .
Conflicts & Resolutions.
The conflicts in the middle and ending of this short story undercut the positive anticipation that Mr. Hammond had at the beginning in looking forward to seeing and being alone with his wife.
He was constantly trying to avoid others so he could have time alone with her. But they were always being interrupted by well-meaning people, both on the ship and at the hotel, even by Janey herself, introducing him to others on the ship and leaving him alone in her stateroom to say good-bye to the ship’s doctor.
Mr. Hammond’s insecure feelings, both past and present, about his relationship with his wife (“never was quite his”) surfaced when she returned from saying good-bye to the doctor and came up again in their hotel room (“never knew for dead certain that she was as glad as he was”).
The final resolution to this ongoing conflict of his negative insecurity versus his positive, protective, and admiring attitude toward his wife is resolved by nothing less than the NewView Reversal at the very end.
3-NewView Reversal, at end
Reverse.
When Janey reveals to her husband about being alone for a considerable length of time with a sick young man who died in her arms on ship, he is stunned, practically speechless. His insecurities about her feelings for him—which in the middle section were undercutting the positive feelings of the OldView strong value statements at the beginning—reach a negative high as she finishes her tale.
For Mr. Hammond, the playful, positive OldView of “what a fool” at the beginning now becomes a NV Reversal, a seriously negative sense of “what a fool” he has truly been about his wife and his wife’s real feelings for him.
And Mr. Hammond’s fun-filled imagining of “All is forgiven” in the positive, playful OldView at the beginning, now, at the end, obviously also NewView Reverses and turns to, ‘All is NOT forgiven’ in his mind and heart.
Finally, to make the NewView Reversal complete, instead of being “so tremendously excited” as at first in anticipating being blissfully alone with his wife, he now anticipates the reverse in all future intimate moments with her:
They would never be alone together again.
Why? Because the memory of her spending so much time and energy with that sick young man on the ship will always be between them, at least for Mr. Hammond.
