A person of great Influence to me; Katherine Mansfield.

When I was in secondary school studying my A levels, I studied a compilation of short stories written by Katherine Mansfield (Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp). She wrote stories primarily about women and children, but in a light I had never seen before. The women were not portrayed as the stereotypical victims of a loveless and violent relationship but had their own idiosyncratic behavior; glimmers of
mania and eccentricity in their eyes. The children, universally shown as innocent angels, were depicted in a more realistic light as being the trouble making menaces they really are.
Katherine Mansfield was an impressionist. She painted her stories on vast canvases of adventure and children’s nightmares. As an aspiring writer/author myself, I was influenced by her style of writing and impressionistic style. I fell in love with the way she’d reveal complex personalities in simple innuendos, streams of consciousness and simple movements packed with emotion. I marveled at the way she’d
entrap her readers into their own childhood nightmares by using their imagination against them.
Her stories were like piercing bells in the fog of my adolescent mind. Perceptions of feminism, sexuality,psychology and love fell into realistic shape and broadened my understanding on many adjoining subjects. Living in a mostly patriarchal society like that of Pakistan, I was subject to a great many gender roles and my understanding of them usually consisted of another’s comprehension on the topic. But after reading Mansfield’s work I began to question those roles; the rise of feminism as an overly biased political tool, unjust stigmas on parent child relationships and the importance of personal independence.
Katherine Mansfield created personalities that were never constant; one’s mental stream changed from an adults to a child’s perspective and consequently to emotional in an instant. The ubiquitous truth of this struck me, as how people truly are. No one is perfect; there is a child, a rebel and the wise one inside us all. But consequently, it is not societal norms or traditional customs that control us. The power to influence and be influenced lies within us alone.