Narrative Method

1. What narrative type did K. Mansfield resort to? Through whose eyes and mind does the reader receive the story? How reliable is the narrator? At what points does she speak the truth and at what points does she utter misjudgements?

2. What advantage did the author gain in having the story told by the old maid? Does it increase credibility of the story and reveal the personality of the narrator?

3. What did the author gain by leaving out the remarks of the interlocutor? Does the story sound as if it were told to the reader?

4. How many episodes did the author choose in order to describe the hardships and privations of those who serve?

5. Did K. Mansfield resort to the flashback technique? What is gained by arranging the events in a non-chronological order?

6. How does the maid evaluate her lady's and her grandfathers actions? How does she evaluate her own actions and thoughts? Does she constantly reproach herself?

7. How does the author make his readers understand that the maid has a wrong opinion of her lady, her grandfather, and that she constantly misinterprets their actions?

8. What is implied in the contrast between the maid and her mistress their mode of life, their moral features, the motives that urge them to act in a certain way?

9. What details did the author linger on? What do they suggest?

10. What does the title draw the readers attention to?

11. What is the message of the story?

12. What makes The Lady’s Maid a deep psychological story?

Means of Characterization

1. What features of Ellen's nature are accentuated?

2. What means of characterization are employed by the writer?

3. Is Ellen's language in accordance with her social status?

4. What markers of uneducated speech occur in the narrative?

5. What stylistic devices emphasize the maid's earnest attempts to praise her mistress, and to express her annoyance with herself?

6. Does her language reflect her emotional state? Comment on

(a) the emotionally coloured words and structures;

(b) the use of silence for purposes of emphasis (reflected graphically by means of dots),

(c) the emphatic accent in her speech (reflected by means of italics).

S uggestions for comparative analysis

1. Compare the narrative methods used in The Lady's Maid and Mistaken Identity. Are both the stories first-person narratives? What is in common between them? What distinguishes them?

2. Does the first-person narrative serve the same purpose in both the stories?

3. Do the authors share the narrator's views in both the stories?

4. What did M. Twain gain by selecting a first-person narrative? Does it increase the credibility of the story and reveal the personality of the narrator?

5. Would Mistaken Identity sound just as humorous if the story were told by an omniscient author?

6. Did M. Twain vary the narrative method? Does the final scene acquire a dramatic form? What effect did the author achieve?

7. Compare the means of characterization that are employed by the writers in the two stories. Are they identical?