Lady's Maid by Katherine Mansfield

“ Lady’s Maid “ is a short-story written by a Katherine Mansfield , a famous British writer , was first published in 1920 . It is the final story in the 1922 collection of her work, The Garden Party and Other Stories. The writer is well known for her psychological stories. In the “ Lady’s Maid “ the author touches the problem of maid’s miserable and lonely life, and shows her dependence and lack of education .
The story itself is written in the first person narration , it is told from the point of view of Ellen , the main heroine of the following short-story , who has worked as a lady’s maid for the same family for many years . Except Ellen , the protagonist of the story , we can observe some minor characters such as the lady’s dead mother, the lady, madam, the maid’s grandfather, her aunt and Harry. If we look at the title of the story it shows us from the first sight that the author shows us that the protagonist’s life is exactly the life of a maid. The story itself is written in a form of a dialogue with some madam , who came to visit the lady.
The questions in the dialogue is omitted in order to feel involvement in the story and the questions are easily rebuilt by readers.
The story has a complex narrative structure. Katherine Mansfield resorted to the flashback technique. The events are not arranged in chronological order and the story contains flashbacks to Ellen’s childhood and youth . She has spent her childhood in her grandfather’s hairdresser’s shop because her mother has died of consumption when Ellen turned 4 years old.
The events in the story are presented in psychological order.
The plot structure has such components as exposition, complications and climax. There is no resolution. In the exposition we can find some information about the setting and time. There is no description of it, but when we read lines “11 o’clock. A knock at the door…”, we can understand the time and that the actions are situated in the house.