The young girl; Katherine Mansfield

THE YOUNG GIRL
• INTRODUCTORY:
In the introduction there is a full physical description of the main character of the story, she is a young girl as
beautiful as she has fallen from the heaven. She seems not to be happy to be in the place she is (casino).then,
there is a description of her mother, Mrs. Raddick.
• STORY:
Mrs. Raddick's daughter, Mrs. Raddick and the narrator (she) are talking in front of the door of a casino, Mrs.
Raddick asks the narrator to take Hennie (son) to have some tea meanwhile she (Mrs.Raddick) is playing in
the casino. She is hurry to start playing, and they set to meet again in the same place in an hour so that her
daughter can go in the casino, because she has never been before. The daughter can go into the casino because
she is too young so, she (the daughter) finally goes with the narrator and Hennie. (She doesn´t really want to
go into the casino anyway) Mrs. Raddick can not let her alone besides she must go into the casino because of
her new friend Mrs. MacEwen(a lucky gambler).
Hennie, the narrator, the daughter and her little twelve years−old brother drive to a luxurious palace and
decide to stop there and sit down in a table, however the daughter doesn't like to be there, she is very
sophisticated and elegant, she doesn't even want to drink anything but finally she asks for a chocolate, then
she notices some flowers on the table but she doesn't like them either, so she orders to take them away. Next,
another waiter with a tray of pastries appears; Hennie has one of the pastries, so does she. Suddenly Hennie
breaks his pastry and blow away in two, the daughter complains about, but the narrator, immediately make a
question to her in order to deviate her attention of Hennie. The narrator asks her about how long she will be
abroad, she takes too much time to answer, but finally she says that it depends. Then she couldn't stand that
place any longer, it gets dark, so they go out and get back to the casino's door. When the get the casino, Mrs.
Raddick is not there, so The narrator go down the car to find her, the daughter is also getting down when the
narrator asks her to be in the car while Mrs.Raddick is found, so she gets angry and go back in the car,
however the narrator notices her mistake and tries to persuade her to go out of the car but it just doesn't work,
the daughter, very proudly, prefers to stay in the car. She says that she just like waiting however, we can
realized that it is just a lie.
• People:
Mrs. Raddicks Daughter: Beautiful girl, dressed in blue, blue eyes, she seems to be a high class girl, with
good manners however she is very hard to satisfy, and she doesn't like anything. I could identify that she tries
to hide the girl she really is, she is lying about her, she is just what the society and her mother want her to be,
even though she doesn't want to, she must. She is also tired about her mother, she doesn't like the way her
mother is living. She wants to be normal, eat candies, singetc. as any other girl at her age does, but somehow
she thinks she shouldn't do it.
Mrs. Raddick: Timid woman that loves her daughter but unfortunately it is more important the game than her
own children, for her, is more important the society and her friends than any other thing, she is broke because
of the game, and probably that makes that her daughter must go out of the country.
Narrator: She is very clever and nice, she is always trying to control the situation as good as possible, and I'd
say that probably she is the nanny of Mrs. Riddick daughter and Hennie, she takes care of them meanwhile
Mrs. Riddick Is playing in the casino.
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Hennie: Mrs. Riddick's son, he is 12 years old, he is also a high class little gentleman as his sister, he likes
bulldogs and wants to have one. He likes chocolate and eats pastries. He seems to love the narrator.
Mrs. Macewen: She is a Gambler who has just won 13 thousand; she is wearing a green dress, a black velvet
cloak, white hat with feathers, she is very old, her appearance is very strange.
• Plot:
This is a story that reveals the society as it pretends to be, a girl, daughter of a gambler, who tries to be
something that it is not her. Mrs. Raddick, her mother, doesn't care anything but spend and win some money
in the casino. The narrator who takes care of Mrs. Raddick children takes them to a palace to have some tea,
here is reveled how a spoiled girl tries to lie who she really is, her family is living difficult moments, even she
probably must leave her country because of that. This girl is always following adults' orders and she doesn't
have the opportunity to be herself, she is just a girl but she can not be a normal one. She starts trusting in the
narrator but finally she receive an order of the narrator, so she notices that her destiny is to follow rules, she
must behave as well as society commands, fact that makes her continue being spoiled and lie to people and
herself also.
• Fantasy:
There is no fantasy; the characters are real as well as the situations and circumstance. Character's toughs are
always clear and real working in the earth, talking to other real people, the story never tells something strange
or imaginary.
• Prophesy:
There is a piece of prophesy, it is when the narrator asks Mrs. Raddick's daughter: will you be abroad long?,
she goes away for a while and thinks about the future, about how the things will be when she has got to go out
of the country.
• Pattern and rhythm:
All the events follow an order, and one needs the other in order to continue, so it follows the grand chain
pattern, the characters also help to the development of the story, their actions and behavior facilitate the reader
to understand and notices characters' features, the places they are in, promote the beauty of the story making it
more enjoyable.
According to the rhythm; all the characters have the same role during the story, they don't have any variation
at all, and it helps to identify easily the behaviors and style of the characters, for example the young girl, it is
easy to identify how spoiled she is, and along the whole story it is noticeable to recognize it. The places are
few, and the details, that are given trough the story, facilitate the comprehension of the plot.
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