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

Discuss the idea of innocence and vex in Mansfields work.The ideas of innocence and experience are frequent themes that come upin Mansfields stories. These ideas often come across in themes suchas loss of sexual innocence The Little Governess loss ofinnocence through awareness of mortality and death The GardenParty, Her First Ball. Themes of aging and gaining of experienceas time passes are also suggested. The woman in The Woman at theStore, we can that she has already lost her innocence, whereas in theother stories we see the point where characters have lost theirinnocence. The Little Governess is about a young, inexperienced and openwoman who gets sexually exploited in a world full of old men withtwitching knees. Connotations of the title already suggest that sheis a nave girl with no experience. She is described as the littlegoverness suggesting she is a nave, innocent, vulnerable girl whois diminutive with no experience. Also, people that becamegovernesses in those times we re unremarkably bright but inexperiencedmiddle class women. The typical language she uses sets up herinnocence and naivety. Use of German and French dialect expressionshighlights the novelty of European travel for the governess and herinnocence and naivety .She is described as quite white, with biground eyes, long lashes, soft beauty, these descriptions againemphasize how young and innocent she is. Use of foreshadowing is used to develop themes and is quite obviousregarding loss of sexual innocence. There is foreshadowing at thestart I unendingly tell my girls that its better to mistrust people atfirst rather than trust them, this sets up the atmosphere and giv... ...body suggests she may be envious of him, as heno longer has to worry about anything What did garden partiesmatterto him? He was far from all those things. It may also suggest herchildish softness to accept the finality of death and wants to viewit as sleep sleeping so soundly. At this point, Laura has a partialreal isation of deaths 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 themesthroughout Mansfields stories. We come to realize that human emotion and experience is universal,regardless of class distinction. We cannot escape death due to ourmortality, thus we must all accept it. Everyone grows to become moreexperienced over time plane though Mansfield sees the loss of innocenceand the gain of new experience as a negative process.