Mansfield’s “The Singing Lesson”
Katherine Mansfield’s “The Singing Lesson” (originally published in 1920) centers on the marriage proposal of Basil to Miss Meadows, a thirty-year-old music teacher at a girls’ school. At the beginning of the narrative, Miss Meadows is in a very bad mood on her way to teach a singing lesson, and when in the classroom, she treats her pupils very coldly and asks them to sing a mournful lament, all because her fiancé Basil has broken off their engagement. Then she is summoned to the school office where she receives from Basil a telegram to promise marriage again. This transforms Miss Meadows into a warm, happy, and kind woman. And when back in the classroom she asks her pupils to sing instead a joyful paean.
This plot development has received the following three kinds of interpretation. Some critics take the narrative optimistically as an illustration of Mansfield’s effort to show “‘that marvellous triumph’ when beauty holds the balance over the ugliness in life” (O’Sullivan 1996: 137; Kobler 1990: 141). Some critics take the narrative as a satirical depiction of a shallow, stupid, and unkind spinster who blindly depends on a man, and the end of the narrative is seen as being not triumphant but “mournful,” since Miss Meadows “would be better off to suffer the initial hurt than to be bound to Basil forever” (Morrow 1993: 85). Some other critics treat the narrative itself as being flawed by the author’s morbid mentality or weak structural design. S. P. B. Mais (1993: 116) thinks that Mansfield “must have been ill” when writing “The Singing Lesson” and “Miss Brill,” which are marked by a “low devitalized note.” Mais exclaims, “Oh, these spinster schoolmistresses and their passionate aches! How we sigh for the full-blooded lusts of Somerset Maugham’s heroes” (ibid.). Silvia Berkman (1951: 175) finds the parallel between Miss Meadows’s grief at Basil’s breaking their engagement and the melancholy lament she asks her pupils to sing as being “manipulated too obviously.” The interaction between the two aspects functions undesirably to “sentimentalize the whole.” Moreover, “the turnabout after Basil’s telegram of recantation to a joyful paean is highly mechanical.” All this leads her to conclude that “‘The Singing Lesson’ is one of Miss Mansfield’s least successful stories” (ibid.).
As we will see below, the damning views on the female protagonist and the narrative as a whole are very much ascribable to the exclusive focus on the overt plot of the narrative. But in effect, behind the plot development, there exists an ethically oriented and artistically created covert progression. By way of perceiving the covert progression, we can come to not only a much better appreciation of the thematic significance and aesthetic value of the narrative, but also a much more sympathetic understanding of the female protagonist.
The beginning of the narrative reads,
With despair—cold, sharp despair—buried deep in her heart like a wicked knife, Miss Meadows, in cap and gown and carrying a little baton, trod the cold corridors that led to the music hall. (343)
Here we have the perspective of the authorial narrator, who implicitly leads us to observe Miss Meadows from a specific angle. Although despair is Miss Meadows’s own internal feeling, the implied author metaphorizes it into an external knife—a “cold, sharp” and “wicked” knife—piercing Miss Meadows’s heart, starting to invite us to see her as a victim of external forces. From Mansfield’s pen, the metaphorical adjunct “With … like a wicked knife” occupies the prominent position of the very beginning of the narrative, and its syntactic status as the marked theme of the sentence contributes to the foregrounding of the metaphor in the reading process. Then Miss Meadows encounters the Science Mistress:
The Science Mistress stopped Miss Meadows. “Good morning,” she cried, in her sweet, affected drawl. “Isn’t it cold? It might be win-ter.”
Miss Meadows, hugging the knife, stared in hatred at the Science Mistress. Everything about her was sweet, pale, like honey. You would not have been surprised to see a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair. “It is rather sharp,” said Miss Meadows, grimly.
The other smiled her sugary smile.
“You look fro-zen,” said she. Her blue eyes opened wide; there came a mocking light in them. (Had she noticed anything?)
“Oh, not quite as bad as that,” said Miss Meadows, and she gave the Science Mistress, in exchange for her smile, a quick grimace and passed on. (344, italics added)
Here the omniscient narrator’s perspective interacts with Miss Meadows’s limited perspective. As is revealed later in the narrative, Miss Meadows is in despair because she has received Basil’s letter breaking off their engagement. Miss Meadows’s hostility (“in hatred,” “grimace”) to the Science Mistress is ill-grounded since, without access to the personal letter, the Science Mistress is undoubtedly in the dark about the happening. What appears to be an objective narratorial description “there came a mocking light in them” can only be Miss Meadows’s ungrounded suspicion, a point that gains support from the following free indirect thought “Had she noticed anything?” Through the free indirect thought, Mansfield signals to us that what Miss Meadows is afraid of is other people getting to know the breaking off of the engagement. The use of brackets surrounding Miss Meadows’s speculative thought functions paradoxically to draw attention to it, subtly highlighting her worry about other people’s opinion. This invites us to experience the social pressure Miss Meadows is in fear of. The authorial description “hugging the knife,” coupled with Miss Meadows’s own word “sharp,” carries on the device of presenting internal despair as an external knife. The knife image appears again when Miss Meadows is teaching the music lesson:
Miss Meadows, her hands thrust in her sleeves, the baton under her arm, strode down the centre aisle, mounted the steps, turned sharply, seized the brass music stand, planted it in front of her, and gave two sharp taps with her baton for silence…. She knew perfectly well what they were thinking. “Meady is in a wax.” Well, let them think it! Her eyelids quivered; she tossed her head, defying them. What could the thoughts of those creatures matter to someone who stood there bleeding to death, pierced to the heart, to the heart, by such a letter—
… “I feel more and more strongly that our marriage would be a mistake. Not that I do not love you. I love you as much as it is possible for me to love any woman, but, truth to tell, I have come to the conclusion that I am not a marrying man, and the idea of settling down fills me with nothing but—“and the word “disgust” was scratched out lightly and “regret” written over the top. (344–45, italics added)
The italicized words are Miss Meadows’s thoughts in free indirect discourse. Her unconcern for her pupils’ opinion of her contrasts sharply with her hypersensitivity to the Science Mistress’ opinion. She does not care about how her pupils think of her because they are not yet in a position to know anything about her engagement. This points to the fact that whether other people know of Basil’s retraction of the engagement is of paramount importance to Miss Meadows. From her own perspective, she is “pierced to the heart, to the heart” by Basil’s letter. This joins hands with the narrator’s earlier description of Miss Meadows’s despair as an external “wicked knife” thrust deep into her heart, to highlight the victimization of her by external forces. The effect of shifting from the narrator’s perspective to Miss Meadows’s can be captured by an equation:
despair = cold, sharp, and wicked knife = Basil’s letter
As quoted above, Basil’s letter, or rather the part of Basil’s letter that Miss Meadows remembers, centers on marriage. Similarly, Miss Meadows’s own thoughts about the letter also concentrate on marriage:
Good Heavens, what could be more tragic than that lament! Every note was a sigh, a sob, a groan of awful mournfulness. Miss Meadows lifted her arms in the wide gown and began conducting with both hands. “… I feel more and more strongly that our marriage would be a mistake …” she beat. […] The willow trees, outside the high, narrow windows, waved in the wind. They had lost half their leaves. The tiny ones that clung wriggled like fishes caught on a line. “… I am not a marrying man….” The voices were silent; the piano waited. […] Again the two light taps; she lifted her arms again. Fast! Ah, too Fast. “ … and the idea of settling down fills me with nothing but disgust—” Disgust was what he had written. That was as good as to say their engagement was definitely broken off. Broken off! Their engagement! (346–47, underlining added, original italics indicating words from the lament)
Most of the space of the narrative is devoted to the singing lesson, the title event of the narrative. Amidst the narration of Miss Meadows’s teaching, setting, and words of the song, there now and then abruptly appear Miss Meadows’s thoughts about Basil’s letter, indicating that she is haunted by the letter. Through various subtle devices, Mansfield implicitly leads us to see that Miss Meadows does not really care whether Basil loves her or not—what she cares about is whether Basil will marry her. Almost all the words of the letter that figure in Miss Meadows’s mind only concern marriage or engagement. Surrounded by the narration of Miss Meadows’s teaching activity and marked off by inverted commas coupled with ellipses, Basil’s words “I feel more and more strongly that our marriage would be a mistake” and “I am not a marrying man” appear psychologically very prominent in our reading process. Indeed, through the use of ellipses within the inverted commas, Mansfield subtly signals to us that Miss Meadows is only concerned with marriage/engagement itself. The word “disgust” in Basil’s letter hurts Miss Meadows most, but in Mansfield’s thematic design, the hurting is only due to the word’s signifying the breaking off of the engagement (“That was as good as to say their engagement was definitely broken off”), instead of due to the word’s indicating the man’s not loving the woman, as is usually expected in such a situation. The short curt inner exclamation “Broken off!” emphatically repeats the last two words of the previous sentence “broken off.” This interacts with the following short curt exclamation “Their engagement!” to underline Miss Meadows’s preoccupation with engagement or marriage itself. The question arises: Why is Miss Meadows so much preoccupied with marriage? When we reach the following words, we may get some idea:
“But, my darling, if you love me,” thought Miss Meadows, “I don’t mind how much it is. Love me as little as you like.” But she knew he didn’t love her. Not to have cared enough to scratch out that word “disgust,” so that she couldn’t read it! Soon Autumn yields unto Winter Drear. She would have to leave the school, too. She could never face the Science Mistress or the girls after it got known. She would have to disappear somewhere. Passes away. The voices began to die, to fade, to whisper … to vanish…. (348)
In the earlier part of this passage, the mode of thought presentation shifts from direct discourse to indirect discourse, which quickly slips into free indirect discourse. The beginning of the direct thought “But, my darling, if you love me” is abruptly interrupted by “I don’t mind how much it is. Love me as little as you like,” with the interruption emphatically indicating Miss Meadows’s not caring about whether Basil loves her or not. What Miss Meadows cares about is other people’s opinion of her after they get to know the breaking off of the engagement. If it is got known, the consequences would be very grave, as conveyed by Miss Meadows’s free indirect thought: “She would have to leave the school, too. She could never face the Science Mistress or the girls…. She would have to disappear somewhere.” Interestingly, the words of the lament “Soon Autumn yields unto Winter Drear” are subtly integrated by Mansfield into Miss Meadows’s apprehension through the use of the adverb “too” in the immediately following free indirect thought “She would have to leave the school, too.” Moreover, from Mansfield’s ingenious pen, the words “Passes away” echo both the preceding “disappear” and the following “to die” and “to vanish,” to form a series of death images. In this passage, which is narrated from Miss Meadows’s perspective, Mansfield makes the italicized words from the lament and the voices of the pupils flow with and appear integrated into Miss Meadows’s consciousness, emphatically yet unobtrusively convey the severe consequences after the breaking off of the engagement is “got known” by other people.
Why, then, does other people’s opinion concerning the engagement or marriage matter so much to the female protagonist? To answer this question, we need to look into the Victorian social context. Victorian England was marked by “the universal obsession with marriage,” which “the entire weight of nineteenth-century ideology put forward as being the culminating point of a woman’s life” (Basch 1974: 16). Victorian society believed that a woman who failed to bag herself a husband was unattractive, unintelligent, and useless, often making herself an outcast (Auerbach 1982: 111; Napolitano). The Victorian spinster, “as commonly perceived,” was “grotesque, out of nature,” “unwanted even by the devil” (Auerbach 1982: 109).
In “The Singing Lesson,” although there is no reference to any historical period, the most severe consequences the discarded Miss Meadows faces indicate that Mansfield has in mind a phallocentric society like that of the Victorian age where marriage is of paramount importance to a woman and where a man’s desertion of a woman can deprive the woman of all her value. But of course, even in Victorian society, a woman unwanted by men would not have to “disappear” from society, even without room for survival. In “The Singing Lesson,” the implied author is using the fictive covert progression to satirize and indict, in a highly dramatized yet implicit manner, the phallocentric discrimination against a woman discarded by a man, threatening her job, and even her very existence.
In the overt plot, when we read Miss Meadows’s free indirect thought, “Good Heavens, what could be more tragic than that lament! Every note was a sigh, a sob, a groan of awful mournfulness,” we may feel that Miss Meadows is too sentimental since Basil’s love does not really mean much to her (“I don’t mind how much it is. Love me as little as you like”). But when we reach this point of the covert progression, we are guided by Mansfield to see that the breaking off of the engagement is socially destructive to Miss Meadows, and her despair becomes perfectly understandable. Further, we are guided by Mansfield to perceive that the knife that is thrust deep into Miss Meadows’s heart, in the final analysis, is phallocentric discrimination or subjugation, and the earlier equation can be extended as follows:
despair = cold, sharp, and wicked knife = Basil’s letter = phallocentric discrimination
It should have become clear that, behind the overt plot development centering on Miss Meadows’s personal relationship with Basil, we have a covert textual progression centering on the relationship between Miss Meadows as a (thirty-year-old) woman unwanted by men and a patriarchal society discriminating against such a woman, threatening to deprive her of her job, even her room for survival. In the overt plot, Miss Meadows is very much her own victim figuring as an object of authorial irony, since she is “drunk from the naivete of her love for Basil” and she “suffocates herself internally at the thought of terminating the relationship” (Morrow 1993: 85). In the covert progression, by contrast, Mansfield implicitly presents Miss Meadows as a victim of phallocentric discrimination, inviting our negative ethical judgment on the social injustice and our sympathy towards the victimized female protagonist.
As regards the protagonist’s relation with other characters, in the overt plot, her hostility towards the Science Mistress is only a matter of her own bad temper, and we see her unreasonably venting her frustration on her colleague. In the covert progression, however, Mansfield leads us gradually to understand Miss Meadows’ hostility since the Science Mistress will unwittingly form part of the social force functioning to drive Miss Meadows away, even driving her into death. Similarly, in the overt plot, we form a negative ethical judgment of “the wicked” Miss Meadows’ treatment of her innocent pupils, inflicting suffering on them (Morrow 1993: 84). By contrast, in the covert progression, Mansfield invites us to form a negative judgment of patriarchal discrimination which, as a “wicked knife,” reduces a kind woman to behaving in a wicked way (see below).
In the textual movement, Miss Meadows’ thought about the unbearable social pressure is interrupted by a little girl, who suddenly enters the classroom and asks Miss Meadows to go to the head mistress’ office, where Miss Meadows receives a telegram from Basil: “Pay no attention to letter must have been mad bought hat-stand [for a family of three] today Basil” (349). Saved by the telegram from the formidable prospect of having to leave the school and “disappear” from society, Miss Meadows is overjoyed.
On the wings of hope, of love, of joy, Miss Meadows sped back to the music hall, up the aisle, up the steps, over to the piano.
“Page thirty-two, Mary,” she said, “page thirty-two,” and, picking up the yellow chrysanthemum, she held it to her lips to hide her smile. Then she turned to the girls, rapped with her baton: “Page thirty-two, girls. Page thirty-two.”
“We come here To-day with Flowers o’erladen,
With Baskets of Fruit and Ribbons to boot,
To-oo Congratulate …”
“Stop! Stop!” cried Miss Meadows. “This is awful. This is dreadful.” And she beamed at her girls. “What’s the matter with you all? Think, girls, think of what you’re singing. Use your imaginations. With Flowers o’erladen. Baskets of Fruit and Ribbons to boot. And Congratulate.” Miss Meadows broke off. “Don’t look so doleful, girls. It ought to sound warm, joyful, eager Congratulate. Once more. Quickly. All together. Now then!”
And this time Miss Meadows’ voice sounded over all the other voices—full, deep, glowing with expression. (349–50)
This is the last part of the narrative. In the overt plot, we have Miss Meadows’ personal relationship with Basil whose love she does not really care, and the drastic change in her mood and behavior after receiving Basil’s telegram appears somewhat ridiculous and laughable. In the covert progression, however, the implied author invites us to discern that whether Miss Meadows can have the engagement/marriage determines whether she can go on teaching in the school, even whether she can survive in society, and the drastic change the telegram brings about becomes quite understandable.
In the quoted passage, the word “congratulate” appears three times. The first appearance “To-oo Congratulate …” forms the last line of the cited sentence of the paean. In semantic meaning, this line is the purpose of the sentence, which occupies the end focus position. As for the second appearance, “Congratulate” is the sole concern of the two-word sentence (“And Congratulate”). In its third appearance, “Congratulate” is the only word of the paean that figures in Miss Meadows’ direct speech. Although the word “love” appears in the narrator’s description “On the wings of hope, of love, of joy,” readers already know that Miss Meadows does not really love Basil. It is marriage that Miss Meadows is concerned with and it is her regaining the chance of getting married that she wants the pupils to “congratulate” with their song.
Although Miss Meadows has regained Basil’s promise of marriage, the fact that a woman unwanted by men is under formidable social pressure remains unchanged, and if the capricious Basil discards her again, the spinster would be reduced to a similar desperate and tragic state. Having traced the whole movement of the covert progression as a social protest, I will investigate some aspects of it more carefully.
Now let us examine in more detail the following two facets of the covert progression.
In the covert progression, the implied author invites us to see how phallocentric discrimination reduces a kind woman to behaving in a cold and harsh manner:
What could the thoughts of those creatures matter to someone who stood there bleeding to death, pierced to the heart, to the heart, by such a letter […]
Miss Meadows stalked over to the piano. And Mary Beazley, who was waiting for this moment, bent forward; her curls fell over her cheeks while she breathed, “Good morning, Miss Meadows,” and she motioned towards rather than handed to her mistress a beautiful yellow chrysanthemum. This little ritual of the flower had been gone through for ages and ages, quite a term and a half. It was as much part of the lesson as opening the piano. But this morning, instead of taking it up, instead of tucking it into her belt while she leant over Mary and said, “Thank you, Mary. How very nice! Turn to page thirty-two,” what was Mary’s horror when Miss Meadows totally ignored the chrysanthemum, made no reply to her greeting, but said in a voice of ice, “Page fourteen, please, and mark the accents well.” (345, italics added)
Through elaborate stylistic choices, Mansfield emphatically creates the contrast between Miss Meadows’ usual kindness and her abnormal unkindness this morning. The exaggerating adjunct “for ages and ages” and the appositional “quite a term and a half” interact with the adversative “but” and the repeated “instead of” to show that Miss Meadows is habitually or characteristically very kind to her pupils. This point is reinforced both by the comparison “as much part of the lesson as opening the piano” and by the noun “horror” which points to the unexpectedness of Miss Meadows’ temporary unkindness. Preceding this, Mansfield presents Miss Meadows’ reaction to Basil’s letter: “someone who stood there bleeding to death, pierced to the heart, to the heart, by such a letter,” which invites the reader’s understanding of Miss Meadows’ uncharacteristic harshness. In the overt plot, we only see Miss Meadows as a victimizer of the innocent pupils:
Staggering moment! Mary blushed until the tears stood in her eyes, but Miss Meadows was gone back to the music-stand; her voice rang through the music-hall. […] “Quite good,” said Miss Meadows, but still in such a strange, stony tone that the younger girls began to feel positively frightened. […] “That ought to break out—a loud, strong forte—a lament. And then in the second line, Winter Drear, make that Drear sound as if a cold wind were blowing through it. Dre-ear!” said she so awfully that Mary Beazley, on the music stool, wriggled her spine. […] “Repeat! Repeat!” said Miss Meadows. “More expression, girls! Once more!” Fast! Ah, too Fast. The older girls were crimson; some of the younger ones began to cry. (345–48, italics original and underlining added)
Behind the relationship between Miss Meadows as the victimizer and the innocent girls as the victimized in the overt plot, in the covert progression, the implied author invites us to see patriarchal discrimination as the victimizer and Miss Meadows as a victim, who, facing the fearful prospect of losing her job and even her room in society, behaves in a “strangely” cold way to the girls. In fact, in the covert progression the girls are not as innocent as they appear. Miss Meadows “could never face the Science Mistress or the girls after it [the breaking off of the engagement] is got known….” That is to say, like the Science Mistress, the girls would unwittingly form part of the social force driving Miss Meadows away from the school, even from society.
At the beginning of the narrative, the implied author sets the resentful Miss Meadows in contrast with the joyful pupils, but after receiving Basil’s telegram, Miss Meadows is presented as behaving in a way quite similar to the pupils. Compare:
Girls of all ages, rosy from the air, and bubbling over with that gleeful excitement that comes from running to school on a fine autumn morning, hurried, skipped, fluttered by. (343–44)
On the wings of hope, of love, of joy, Miss Meadows sped back to the music hall, up the aisle, up the steps, over to the piano. (349)
Compared with adult women seeking marriage or already married, the young pupils are relatively free from patriarchal discrimination, and Miss Meadows, temporarily free from the social pressure against a woman unwanted by men, appears not very different from the girls. This functions to bring into relief how patriarchal social pressure can reduce a woman to morbid behavior, which echoes a similar thematic concern of the covert progression in Mansfield’s “Revelations” as analyzed in the preceding chapter.
The covert textual progression in “The Singing Lesson” is marked by the subtle interaction of two perspectives: the narrator’s omniscient perspective and Miss Meadows’s limited focalization. The interaction occurs both locally and across passages. For instance,
The Science Mistress stopped Miss Meadows.
“Good morning,” she cried, in her sweet, affected drawl. “Isn’t it cold? It might be win-ter.”
Miss Meadows, hugging the knife, stared in hatred at the Science Mistress. Everything about her was sweet, pale, like honey. You would not have been surprised to see a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair.
“It is rather sharp,” said Miss Meadows, grimly.
The other smiled her sugary smile.
“You look fro-zen,” said she. Her blue eyes opened wide; there came a mocking light in them. (Had she noticed anything?)
“Oh, not quite as bad as that,” said Miss Meadows, and she gave the Science Mistress, in exchange for her smile, a quick grimace and passed on … (344, italics and underlining added)
Locally, the italicized words mark an unobtrusive shift from the omniscient narrator’s perspective (“hugging the knife,” “stared in hatred at,” “grimly”) to Meadows’s, who is hypersensitive to other people’s view on the breaking off of her engagement (“a mocking light,” “Had she noticed anything?”).
On a wider scale, the underlined words from Miss Meadows’ viewpoint “Everything about her was sweet, pale, like honey. You would not have been surprised to see a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair” seem to interact covertly with the following underlined expression from the narrator’s perspective at a later stage of the textual movement:
“The headmaster’s wife keeps on asking me [Basil] to dinner. It’s a perfect nuisance. I never get an evening to myself in that place.”
“But can’t you refuse?”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t do for a man in my position to be unpopular.”
Music’s Gay Measure, wailed the voices. The willow trees, outside the high, narrow windows, waved in the wind. They had lost half their leaves. The tiny ones that clung wriggled like fishes caught on a line. “… I am not a marrying man….” (346–47, original italics indicating words of the song, underlining added)
In this passage, the opening dialogue, as part of Miss Meadows’ reminiscence, appears in Miss Meadows’ mind while she is teaching. Similarly, the last sentence “‘… I am not a marrying man …’” are Basil’s words emerging in Miss Meadows’ mind during the teaching process. They join hands to indicate that Miss Meadows is absorbed in the reminiscence of her relationship with Basil, and she is not in a state to notice the scene outside the window. The simile from the narrator’s point of view “fishes caught on a line” bears similarity to Miss Meadows’ earlier perception “a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair.” Both suggest two related points: one, the entity itself goes into the trap, and the other, it is “caught” there, unable to get free. This reminds us of some words in Mansfield’s journal put down in May 1908:
I feel that I do now realize, dimly, what women in the future will be capable of. They truly as yet have never had their chance. Talk of our enlightened days and our emancipated country—pure nonsense! We are firmly held with the self-fashioned chains of slavery. Yes, now I see that they are self-fashioned, and must be self-removed…. Here then is a little summary of what I need—power, wealth and freedom. It is the hopelessly insipid doctrine that love is the only thing in the world, taught, hammered into women, from generation to generation, which hampers us so cruelly. We must get rid of that bogey—and then, then comes the opportunity of happiness and freedom. (Murry 1954: 36–37, italics original and underlining added)
In “The Singing Lesson,” the “chains of slavery” take the shape of phallocentric discrimination against a woman unwanted by men, and the women characters subject themselves to the bondage. Miss Meadows and the Science Mistress, among other women in the school, are caught or on the hook, being victimized by it or unwittingly functioning as a tool to enforce it. From this angle, we may gain a better understanding of the authorial description of Miss Meadows “hugging the knife,” with the verb “hug” subtly hinting her embracing the “self-fashioned chain of slavery.”
Although “The Singing Lesson” was published in 1920, its covert progression as social protest has not yet received critical attention. Apart from the traditional concentration on the plot development, this critical neglect is ascribable, to a certain extent, to various devices of camouflage Mansfield has used to keep the social protest implicit.
First, the overt plot development vividly presents a spinster who behaves in a cold, harsh, naïve, and shallow manner. Readers’ attention tends to focus on the weaknesses of the female protagonist, which partly accounts for the overlooking of the social factors underlying the female protagonist’s behavior. Morrow (1993: 84), for instance, calls the female protagonist “wicked Miss Meadows” and criticizes her “dagger-like stare and cold remarks.” He ascribes Miss Meadows’ sudden change of mood after receiving Basil’s telegram to her being “drunk from the naivete of her love for Basil” (84–85).
Second, the overt plot development centers on the personal relationship between Miss Meadows and Basil, and in the whole text there is no explicit mentioning of phallocentric discrimination against a woman unwanted by men, which is only indirectly and unobtrusively suggested by Miss Meadows’s own inner thoughts.
Third, the plot development is marked by a highly dramatic change from despair to happiness. Some readers focus on this dramatic change, taking the narrative as a comedy, marked by “‘that marvellous triumph’ when beauty holds the balance over the ugliness in life” (see above), which also leads to the overlooking of the covert progression as an implicit social protest.
Fourth, the setting of the narrative is a girls’ school, where only female characters appear. The formidable patriarchal social pressure Miss Meadows would face, if the breaking off of the engagement is got known, would be embodied primarily by other women in the school. What Miss Meadows is in fear of (“She would have to leave the school, too. She could never face the Science Mistress or the girls after it got known. She would have to disappear somewhere”) appears having to do only with the conflict among females.
Why, then, did Mansfield use such devices of camouflage to keep the social protest implicit? One reason might be economical. As we know, Mansfield left her well-off parents in New Zealand and went to London to seek self-development. As a professional writer, she had to earn a living through publishing her stories. As mentioned in the preceding chapter, on January 1, 1915, Mansfield expressed in her journal her wish to make money and explained the necessity of making money. After she was diagnosed with tuberculosis a couple of years later, she was under more economic pressure to cover medical costs, and she had to try to publish stories that could appeal to a wide audience. At the beginning of the twentieth century, England was still very conservative despite the influence of the New Women movement of the 1890s. As just quoted, Mansfield wrote in her journal: “Talk of our enlightened days and our emancipated country—pure nonsense! We are firmly held with the self-fashioned chains of slavery.” In that sociohistorical context, to make money, it would be much safer to produce a story depicting the personal relationship between a woman and a man than to present a social satire against patriarchal discrimination and subjugation, since the personal drama would be much more appealing to readers in general. But as we have seen in “The Singing Lesson,” as well as in “Revelations” (see the preceding chapter), Mansfield does implicitly direct social satire against patriarchal discrimination and subjugation in a covert progression behind the overt plot development. While in “Revelations,” the female protagonist functions as a doll or plaything of the male protagonist, in “The Singing Lesson,” the female protagonist is a music teacher earning her own living, which also functions as a camouflage.
However, Mansfield does give readers subtle clues to the implicit social protest in the covert progression. As analyzed above, the stylistic choices at the very beginning of the text deviantly present Miss Meadows’s despair as a wicked external knife piercing her heart. This is followed by the subtle indication of Miss Meadows’s fear of social pressure in her first interpersonal encounter, that with the Science Mistress. Through adopting Miss Meadows’s focalization and the ingenious use of free indirect thought in brackets, Mansfield unobtrusively yet emphatically shows Miss Meadows’s worry about other people’s opinion concerning the breaking off of the engagement. In the reading process, when we get to know Miss Meadows’s ungrounded worry as such and the reason underlying her hostility towards the Science Mistress, we will be in a position to start perceiving the covert progression. Miss Meadows’s fear of other people’s discrimination against her as a woman unwanted by men appears again in a most intense form at the turning point: “She would have to leave the school, too. She could never face the Science Mistress or the girls after it got known. She would have to disappear somewhere. Passes away. The voices began to die, to fade, to whisper … to vanish…. Suddenly the door opened. A little girl in blue walked fussily up the aisle” (348, italics original). The words crucial to the perceiving of the covert progression are positioned right before the sudden reversal of the textual progression, and are therefore structurally significant. Moreover, in describing Miss Meadows’s being haunted by Basil’s letter, Mansfield uses many ellipses to highlight the point that Miss Meadows is obsessed with the engagement or marriage, while strangely not caring much about Basil’s love for her. This obsession with engagement/marriage is closely linked with the fear of social discrimination against a woman unwanted by men.
In existing criticism, the overlooking of the covert progression in Mansfield’s “The Singing Lesson” may have to do with traditional interpretive frames. In a letter to Mansfield’s husband J. Middleton Murry on October 25, 1923, D. H. Lawrence wrote, “I got Dove’s Nest here. Thank you very much. Poor Katherine, she is delicate and touching.—But not Great!” (Lawrence 1979: 520) Lawrence’s words remind us of Mais’s exclamation, “Oh, these spinster schoolmistresses and their passionate aches! How we sigh for the full-blooded lusts of Somerset Maugham’s heroes.” In Some Studies in the Modern Novel, Dorothy M. Hoare comments that Mansfield, like Chekhov, tries
to arrest within the limits of the short-story, an emotion, an evanescent moment that lights up the play of character, an atmosphere, rather than to narrate an event or record a crisis. From both [Mansfield and Chekhov] one obtains a sense of adjustment, of harmony. This harmony results partly from the fact that Katherine Mansfield does not shrink from the ugly aspects of life but accepts them as part of it. The story in Bliss, Je ne parle pas francais, shows a deliberate attempt to grapple with not only the ugly but the abnormal, and though it is not a complete success, it shows a power of dealing with other people’s emotions from the inside and of making an unfamiliar character live. (1938: 148–49)
Hoare’s view is quite representative of existing criticism on Mansfield’s fiction, which concentrates on her sensitive and perceptive characterization and atmosphere-building. It is a critical consensus that Mansfield is not concerned with social problems, and that her work is marked by “harmony.” This view holds for many of Mansfield’s short stories, but as we have seen in “The Singing Lesson” and “Revelations,” in some of Mansfield’s fiction, behind an overt plot concerned with individual characterization and personal relationships, there is a covert progression functioning as an ethical protest against social injustice. In a letter of 1918 to her husband Murry, Mansfield writes,
I’ve two “kick offs” in the writing game. One is joy—real joy…. The other “kick off” is my old original one, and, had I not known love, it would have been my all. Not hate or destruction (both are beneath contempt as real motives) but an extremely deep sense of hopelessness, of everything doomed to disaster, almost willfully, stupidly, like the almond tree and ‘pas de nougat pour le noel.’ There! as I took out a cigarette paper I got it exactly— a cry against corruption—that is absolutely the nail on the head. Not a protest—a cry. And I mean corruption in the widest sense of the word, of course. I am at present fully launched, right out in the deep sea, with this second state. (Murry 1929: 106, italics original)
In “The Singing Lesson,” the covert progression presents an implicit “cry against” phallocentric discrimination as one kind of corruption. If we overlook the covert progression, we would be hard put to appreciate adequately the ethical significance of the narrative and, moreover, may miss a substantial part of its aesthetic value. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, this text by Mansfield has been regarded as an emotionally too sentimental and artistically deficient narrative, but when the covert progression gradually comes into view, the sentimentality would become quite understandable and the narrative would become increasingly artistic with various textual details newly taking on aesthetic value, and, moreover, the female protagonist would invite much more understanding and sympathy.