At the Bay

Description

At the Bay is a story by one of the most prominent modernist novelists, Katherine Mansfield. Though born and raised in New Zealand, Mansfield moved to London at the age of 19 and she soon became a friend of Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, sharing their modernist views about art and literature and experimenting with various alternative writing methods as well.

At the Bay encompasses the events of a single day – the succession of events so meticulously recorded starts at sunrise and ends at sunset. The characters followed are the members of the Burnell family. The first Burnell to get up is Stanley. He goes to the beach to swim a little, hoping to spend some time alone, but he finds his brother in law, Jonathan already there. The two men return home, where breakfast is being prepared, then Stanley goes to work. The story continues with similarly ordinary events – children play, some members of the family go to the beach, others stay in the house; people play cards or visit old ladies in the town and there is some courtship, too. People speak about how they hate their jobs, buy clothes and play with their children during a day that seemingly has no special significance.

The events recounted are ordinary, but the thoughts and feelings that the characters relate to the events with are not – emotions in the story are in fact very powerful and they tell an entirely different story. The characters suffer from worries and they seek answers to the most important questions of existence wile seemingly nothing important is happening in their life. These preoccupations seem to transcend everything around, even the normal perception and linearity of time, each and every moment carrying the essence of existence. The language used by Mansfield is symbolic and metaphorical, very poetic and inspiring, making the story a wonderful experiment.
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