skip to main content

The Psychological Character of Rosemary Fell in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Story Entitled "A Cup of Tea"

*Ratna Asmarani  -  Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University, Indonesia

Citation Format:
Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the psychological character of the upper class woman in Katherine Mansfield’s short story entitled A Cup of Tea. The analysis is based on the concept of narcissism, Maslow’s concept of esteem needs, and consumerism. The method of literary analysis is a contextual one focusing on the intrinsic and extrinsic elements. The result shows that the female character has a low self-esteem with narcissistic grandiosity. Such psychological character always needs attention, appreciation, and praises from other people that are obtained by following upper class exclusive and consumptive way of life. It can be concluded that a narcissistic upper class female often hides vulnerable self-esteem by camouflaging it with glamorous appearance full of self-confidence.

Keywords: narcissism, esteem needs, consumerism, upper class

Fulltext View|Download

Article Metrics:

  1. References
  2. Mansfield, Katherine, 1977. “A Cup of Tea” in Nancy Dean and Myra Stark (eds.), In the Looking Glass. Twenty-One Modern Short Stories by Women. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1977, pp. 61-69
  3. Maslow, A.H., A Theory of Human Motivation. Etext Conversion, Nalanda Digital Library, Regional Engineering College, Calicut, India. 1943
  4. Brown, J. D., & Marshall, M. A. (2001). “Self-esteem and emotion: Some thoughts about feelings” in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 575-584. April 12, 2000
  5. Maslow, A.H., Motivation and Personality, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1954
  6. Wälder, R., The psychoses: their mechanisms and accessibility to influence. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 6, 1925, pp. 259–281
  7. Levy, Kenneth N., Ellison, William D., Reynoso, Joseph S., “A Historical Review of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality” in W. Keith Campbell (ed.). The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings, and Treatment. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011
  8. Pincus, Aaron L., and Roche, Michael J., “Narcissistic Grandiosity and Narcissistic Vulnerability” in W. Keith Campbell (ed.). The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings, and Treatment. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011
  9. Gabriel, Yiannis and Lang, Tim, The Unmanageable Consumer, London: Sage, 1995
  10. Miles, Steven, Consumerism. As a Way of Life, London: Sage Publication Ltd., 1998
  11. Lodziak, Conrad, The Myth of Consumerism, London: Pluto Press, 2002

Last update:

No citation recorded.

Last update:

No citation recorded.