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Daughters Of The Late Colonel

            From this anthology of short stories, many lessons can be learnt and each one is entertaining in its own way but the one that stands out is Katherine Mansfield's Daughters of the Late Colonel.
             The first lesson this story teaches is the importance of having a mind of your own. It is the sisters" lack of decisiveness and a mind of their own that leads to their sad unfulfilment in their lives. Years of dependence on their domineering father has sapped them of any decision-making powers. Their inability to make decisions for themselves are shown when they cannot come to a consensus regarding Kate - "on this one subject I've never been able to quite make up my mind" - and their dismay towards their first ever decision of burying father. Helpless without their father to make their decisions for them, both sisters end up being bound forever to the memory of their father and forgetting "what it was (they were) going to say". They will continue to live in the void created by the demise of their father, never being able to step out.
             The second lesson that can be learnt is the effects of parental influence. Throughout the whole story, the huge extent of control their father wields over them can be seen. All their lives, everything that Josephine and Constantia have done are out of fear of their father. And we can see that even after the colonel has died, his presence lingers on "in the top drawer with his hankerchiefs and neckties, or in the next with his shirts and pyjamas, or in the lowest of all with his suits." He is in the wardrobe "among his overcoats", he lives on in the hearts and minds of Josephine and Constantia and he lives on through Kate and Nurse Andrews. The fact that Josephine and Constantia hold on to this twisted belief that their father is never really gone show the extent their dysfunctional childhood with the colonel.
             Another lesson is how to deal with death. As this story spans "the week after", we can see how the sisters cope with their sudden loss.


Essays Related to Daughters Of The Late Colonel

1. Daughters

The Daughters of The Late Colonel and The Garden Party depict characters in society facing the real world consequences of death. Through Josephine and Constantia in Daughters, Mansfield emphasizes how illness and death pervades not only the dead but the living as well. Death cuts the daughters off from an adult, mature life; trapped in their service to the memory of their overbearing father that leaves them ill-equipped and unprepared to live life on their own. ... "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" - from The Garden Party (1922) This is the story of two middle-aged women - Constantia and Jo...

  • Word Count: 493
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Family Relationships Within

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3. Katherine Mansfield

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  • Word Count: 2209
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Grade Level: High School

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  • Word Count: 1582
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  • Word Count: 1025
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  • Word Count: 1742
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8. Elinor

This also shows how Elinor avoids and is aware of the dangers of gossip, where as we will see later on, she is a listener, never a passer-on. ... Robert Ferrars, who anything but silent later on in the novel, at their moment of first meeting, silence again is read correctly as a sign of weakness, for to Elinor Mr. ... Elinor reads Colonel Brandon's silence not as a weak "gloominess of temper," but as "the result of some oppression of spirits," which later encouraged by the silence of Elinor Colonel Brandon will reveal to her, showing strength of character and experience (47). ... For Co...

  • Word Count: 1715
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  • Word Count: 2734
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