The boundless ocean of silence: an alternative to language in Katherine Mansfield's "Doll's house".

Abstract

The present article studies the strategic use of silence in Katherine Mansfield’s narrative as against the traditional perception that her stories are a passive reproduction of acquiescent women. It departs from the textual analysis of “The Doll’s House” and the theoretical principles of important poststructuralist and postmodernist critics, such as Barthes, Lacan, Kristeva, Althusser, Lechte or Hutcheon, who challenge the mimetic quality of language to reveal the powerful ideological intention that hides behind it. This study illustrates Mansfield’s two different stances as regards her peculiar use of silence as a strategy.