That ought to have put her in her place, he decided. A man wanted a wife, not a mother. Now, back to the day and its all-important tasks. Scott had disappeared again, wretched man, and his agenda was still looking achingly, numbingly, excruciatingly blank. He was an important, busy man; surely Bunty could understand that? It was crucial that she kept his affairs in order, his leather-bound agenda au courant, he was the lynchpin of this operation, there was no way it could continue without -
‘Jenkins? I’d like a word with you. Not too busy, are you, chap? This could take a while.’
It was the boss: surely a promotion was finally, finally in order. Perhaps that was why today’s page had been so clean and empty.
Statement of Intent
Within this pastiche, I have tried to present Mansfield’s style through the utilisation of themes, vocabulary and literary techniques.
The pastiche features a plunge opening characteristic of Mansfield, as in most of her short stories, she does not take the time to set the scene or present the characters, but instead shows what is happening and leaves the reader to distinguish who is who, and carries on in her style, evident from the dialogue and the literary techniques she uses. For example, Mansfield often uses the objective correlative in order to demonstrate aspects of her characters. This is done in this pastiche briefly, as the blank agenda which Jenkins expects someone else to tend to, is symbolic of his own life. It is clear that it is important as it is mentioned several times within the opening of the story. It adequately expresses Jenkins’ life because while it appears to be glossy and executive, the pages within it are blank, thus demonstrating that he is not as important as he may appear to be. The voice often shifts throughout the story; in this pastiche, the narration is done in two voices: that of Jenkins and that of the writer. The narrator sets the scene and helps the reader to understand what is going on, while, by using a stream of consciousness, important aspects to Jenkins’ personality are displayed: ‘What would his colleagues had thought of him if they had seen him dawdling – yes, stalling and lingering! – on his way to work?’
The choice of vocabulary in this pastiche is very important; Mansfield believed that every word should work together in order to create a particular effect and repeated specific words in order to help her readers understand their significance within the story. In this pastiche, the words used to describe Jenkins’ behaviour (‘strolling’, ‘brisk’, ‘ghastly’) have somewhat pompous undertones. This also helps the reader to understand the importance Jenkins places upon appearance and image. Further on in the pastiche, the agenda is described as being ‘achingly blank’: this highlights the weight Jenkins places upon his productivity and the pain he feels at not being adequately useful or important within his working world.
Mansfield’s syntax is also fairly unusual; she uses multiple interjections and rhetorical questions in order to indicate the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The pastiche features her parentheses and hyphens in order to understand the different voices coming into play within this opening: ‘Robert let it ring once or twice – his clients couldn’t think him too available – then swept it up’. Mansfield also tends to use many short paragraphs, each of which present a particular idea, which has been attempted within this pastiche.
Mansfield’s work often deals with social politics and the relationship of men with women at the time. She is also often fairly dismissive in her attitude toward men and expresses this within her work. The pastiche opens with the protagonist, and from the very first sentence we are able to establish that Robert Jenkins is a fairly generic working man. Mansfield usually depicted men as being rather shallow and foolish individuals; her masculine stereotype was often very self-regarding and egocentric. Above all, her male characters are self-absorbed to the point that they do not even notice their surroundings. This is expressed in the pastiche as Robert Jenkins believes that he is the driving force behind his working and home life. Subtle hints such as the blank agenda and the call from his wife help the reader to understand that he is fooling himself in regard to his importance. This is evident also when he is asked to speak to his boss and immediately believes himself to be in line for a promotion. The pastiche also helps demonstrate the social norms of the period often questioned in the works of Mansfield: Mary, the wife, stays at home and organises the dinner and her family’s lives while Robert goes out to work; neither questions the arrangement. The pastiche very briefly manages to demonstrate the way in which Robert attempts to remain on top; when his wife calls him to remind him of something he has not done, he becomes defensive and angry and makes an unnecessary comment about sauces in order to re-establish himself as the head of the house and thus dominant over her.
The pastiche thus combines many of Mansfield’s characteristic stylistic techniques and some of her recurring themes in order to explain her style.