In, "Miss Brill," "The Daughters of the Late Colonel," and "Bliss," In each story Katherine Mansfield tells the story of different women. Katherine Mansfield's treatment of her female characters is all the same: the ladies are all depersonalized and invertebrate in one way or another. In Mansfield's, "The Daughters of the Late Colonel," two daughters, Josephine and Constantia, are living behind the ghost of their father. In "Miss Brill," Katherine Mansfield tells the story of a woman who gets her entertainment from her visits to the park on Sunday. "It is when she tries to leave her role as a spectator and join the 'players' in her little world that she is rebuffed by that world and her fantasy falls apart" (Peltier 1). In "Bliss," Mansfield describes the day in the life of Bertha Young and her state of "bliss.".
In, "The Daughters of the Late Colonel," Josephine and Constantia are only known because of their father's name and his military status (Smith 1). The title of the story itself, even distinguishes the girls to the reader (Goonetilleke 1). Their names are not mentioned in the title, defining them as only the daughter's of the late colonel, this is the first way Katherine Mansfield depersonalizes the girls. .
As the story develops it is strongly detectable that the sisters have always been under the wing of their father and are now finding out that they cannot take control of their lives on their own (Smith 1). Josephine and Constantia are finding themselves wondering what their father would think of what they are doing and the decisions that .
they make without realizing it. They are not strong enough to see how weak they have become and how their inability to think own their own is further destroying them. The daughters worry about each move they make, if they decide to take it at all, and how the outcome will affect their father, without acknowledging the fact that he has passed on.