Writing Skills of Manthfield

黃笑笑

【摘要】Manthfield is a experimental writer who has lots of skills of short novels writing. There are three dominant point which can benefit us a lot: languages, plot design, and rhetoric especially irony.

【關鍵詞】Manthfield; writing skills; languages; plot design; irony

Manthfield was a feminist, a great writer and the builder of New Zealand literature. After I saw the photographs of Manthfield, her beautiful appearance impressed me a lot. However, under the pretty appearance, there were an iron-like heart and a thoughtful mind. Most of her short stories are about the relationships between men and women, which are not difficult for me to understand. Her writing languages, plot design, and rhetoric all can benefit our writing a lot.

It is obvious for us to see that Manthfield used specific dialogues to push stories go forward. In A Cup of Tea, the little girl stammered:” Would you let me have the price of a cup of tea?” This sentence became a symbol of the whole story and it pushed forward the development of the whole story. When it firstly showed up, Rosemary picked her up to her home. When it secondly showed up, Rosemary told the servants to give her tea and also brandy. However, the poor girl just needed a cup of tea. She did not want to visit her home nor drank brandy. From the repetition of this sentence, we can see thirst of that girl and affectation of Rosemary. Actually, I guess Rosemary did not really want to give the poor girl real help, just wanting to let her husband Philip know that she was so kind to bring a needy back home and give her as much food and care as possible. So, we must pay attention that sometimes dialogues may be the key to show characters of a figure.

Besides, she was used to using psychological description. From my point of view, Late at Night and Psychology mostly are descriptions of the figures psychology. Sometimes this kind of depiction may be quite boring for readers to go through while other times it may provide readers a direct feeling and understanding and they do not need to guess what figures were doing by themselves. For example, in Psychology, the author just give us a simple scene that a man and a woman were just sitting at home and chatted for a while. Without these descriptions of their psychology, this short story would be quite boring and we would never know their undecided love. Therefore, a good description of psychology could make a short story colorful, which is the second point that we could learn from Manthfields writing language .

As for plot design, The Sister of the Baroness showed us a good example. At the very beginning, the sister of the baroness presented very nobly and gently. She responded every question shortly but politely such as “no”, “not at all”, and “yes”. It seemed that all the workers of the pension believed deeply that she was a noble. But actually, she just pretended to be a noble. She, as the daughter of a tailor, could touch the life of nobility and knew how to act like a noble. So we would not feel so ridiculous when we finally figured out the truth. And we also can see some potential clues before the ending. “Her brown hair, braided, was tied with a black bow—unusually pale, with a small mole on her left cheek.” Manthfield used the word ”unusually” so we may guess that either she was a liar or she was not healthy enough.

I still want to emphasis irony in The Sister of the Baroness.“ There is a likeness,” mused the Frau Doktor. “Quite. What a manner she has. Such reserve, such a tender way with the child.”Actually the woman and the child were unrelated. I dont know how she can see the similarity in their appearance. Its quite ironic. Beside this, Frau Doktor said:“And, fancy now, she has already had six proposals of marriage. Such beautiful offers that I assure you I wept—and every one of the noble birth.” However, all of these words were lies. I guess the daughter of the tailor may just make up a little bit. Most were exaggerated by Frau Doktor. From my perspective, Frau Doktor was like a clown in this short story. The sharp comparison about social identity between the beginning as the sister of the baroness and the ending as the daughter of a tailor is kind of irony. This kind of rhetoric can show us the pomposity of Frau Doktor clearly.

All in all, by learning Manthfields writing skills such as her writing languages, plot design, and rhetoric, I reckon that she must be appreciated all over the world about those elaborate short stories. And these skills are also what we can learn from her step by step.