Discuss the idea of innocence and experience in Mansfield’s work. Essay

Discuss the idea of innocence and experience in Mansfield’s work. The ideas of innocence and experience are frequent themes that come up in Mansfield’s stories. These ideas often come across in themes such as loss of sexual innocence – ‘The Little Governess’; loss of innocence through awareness of mortality and death – ‘The Garden Party’, ‘Her First Ball’. Themes of aging and gaining of experience as time passes are also suggested. The woman in ‘The Woman at the Store’, we can that she has already lost her innocence, whereas in the other stories we see the point where characters have lost their innocence. ‘The Little Governess’ is about a young, inexperienced and vulnerable woman who gets sexually exploited in a â€Å"world full of old men with twitching knees†. Connotations of the title already suggest that she is a naà ¯ve girl with no experience. She is described as the â€Å"little† governess – suggesting she is a naà ¯ve, innocent, vulnerable girl who is diminutive with no experience. Also, people that became governesses in those times were usually bright but inexperienced middle class women. The typical language she uses sets up her innocence and naivety. Use of German and French dialect expressions highlights the novelty of European travel for the governess and her innocence and naivety .She is described as â€Å"quite white, with big round eyes†, â€Å"long lashes†, â€Å"soft beauty†, these descriptions again emphasize how childish and innocent she is. Use of foreshadowing is used to develop themes and is quite obvious regarding loss of sexual innocence. There is foreshadowing at the start â€Å"I always tell my girls that it’s better to mistrust people at first rather than trust them†, this sets up the atmosphere and giv... ...body suggests she may be envious of him, as he no longer has to worry about anything â€Å"What did garden parties†¦matter to him? He was far from all those things†. It may also suggest her childish inability to accept the finality of death and wants to view it as sleep â€Å"sleeping so soundly†. At this point, Laura has a partial realisation of death’s seriousness. She sees the reality of death, but is unsure of what to do with her new knowledge. The ideas of innocence and experience are reoccurring themes throughout Mansfield’s stories. We come to realize that human emotion and experience is universal, regardless of class distinction. We cannot escape death due to our mortality, thus we must all accept it. Everyone grows to become more experienced over time even though Mansfield sees the loss of innocence and the gain of new experience as a negative process.