Sexuality and Desire Theme Analysis

Katherine Mansfield’s short story “Bliss” chronicles a day in the life of thirty-year-old Bertha Young. Bertha’s feeling of “bliss” in the story comes from her attraction to Pearl Fulton, a woman she has recently become friends with. Although Bertha is married, she comes across as sexually naïve and has never “desired” her husband. Not coincidentally, she feels sexually attracted to him “for the first time in her life” on the night of the dinner party when Pearl is present and when Bertha is in the throes of “bliss.” Due to the conventions of the early twentieth century, in which homosexuality was neither legal nor socially acceptable and was rarely discussed in polite society, Bertha’s sexual desire towards Pearl is depicted ambiguously and in terms of forbidden desire. This reflects the repressive nature of propriety in this period and Mansfield’s criticism of a society in which people are forced to conceal feelings of love and desire for the sake of social convention.

Bertha’s attraction to Pearl is not explicitly referenced in sexual terms. However, Bertha’s homosexuality is implied by the fact that she does not feel sexual attraction towards her husband, Harry, and the fact that her attraction to Pearl induces such a physical response. Bertha feels a “little air of proprietorship” toward Pearl “that she always assumed with her women finds,” suggesting that she is possessive of Pearl in the way one might be over a lover. Bertha’s excitement about the dinner party is also explicitly linked to Pearl’s attendance: she feels that she has “fallen in love with” Pearl, “as she always did” with “beautiful women,” and the “fire of bliss” that Bertha feels all day leading up to the party is increased by physical contact with Pearl. When Pearl takes Bertha’s arm, Bertha wonders, “what there was in the touch of that cool arm that could fan—fan—start blazing—blazing—the fire of bliss that Bertha did not know what to do with?” This physical sensation is contrasted with Bertha’s coldness towards Harry, which is evidently something they have already accepted as part of their marriage. Bertha even becomes panicked by the idea of being left alone with her husband and the thought the of “the dark room” and “the warm bed.” This suggests that Bertha avoids having a sexual relationship with Harry—a sharp contrast from the glut of warm feelings and excitement she feels in Pearl’s presence, underscoring Bertha’s carefully concealed homosexuality. Indeed, she notably feels the first pangs of desire towards her husband only while she is immersed in the “bliss” brought on by Pearl’s presence, suggesting this sudden desire for Harry is really just displaced longing for Pearl.

The story, in turn, is implicitly critical of a society that represses these relationships and desires. Mansfield herself had relationships with women throughout her life and wrote about her female lovers. It is likely that Bertha reflects Mansfield’s own struggles as a homosexual woman in Edwardian society, who would have been forced to hide her relationships with women. Mansfield’s belief that homosexuality is natural and beautiful is reflected by Bertha’s feelings of “bliss” and by Pearl’s association with natural, beautiful things like the moon. The moon is associated with femininity in mythology, and silvery moonlight  infuses the night outside the dinner party—making Eddie Warren’s socks appear whiter and seeming to transform his taxi driver into something otherworldly, just as Pearl’s presence transforms the world for Bertha by intensifying her emotional response to ordinary things and suffusing everything with a sense of “bliss.” 

Pearl is also associated with the “silver” pear tree in Bertha’s garden, which the two women gaze at in the moonlight and which Bertha views as a “symbol of her own life” with its “wide open blossoms.” This suggests that Bertha is open to new possibilities—that is, homosexuality—in a way that “idiotic civilisation” is not. The fact that she and Pearl seem to share a moment of mutual understanding, “caught in the circle of unearthly light” of the moon shining on the pear tree, suggests the potential reciprocation of Bertha’s feelings and supports the idea that the two women belong to a different world, separate from that of the heterosexual domesticity that so limits their sexual desires.

Of course, given that homosexuality was not openly acknowledged in society in the Edwardian period and homosexual relationships often existed on the fringes of mainstream culture, Bertha has no frame of reference in which to think about her desire for Pearl, other than as something which must be concealed or expressed in an ambiguous way. The image of the pear tree is thus further symbolic of forbidden desire as it relates to the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, in which Adam and Eve were forbidden from eating fruit from the Tree of Life (but sinfully did so anyway). Although Bertha’s life is very free in some ways because of her upper-middle class status and material wealth, the pear tree symbolizes the limitations in her life; the tree itself remains out of reach beyond the window, reflecting the social difficulty that Bertha would face being openly gay in this period and society.

Even if Bertha did openly recognize her desire for Pearl as sexual, this is not something that would be accepted in Edwardian society. The fact that Bertha’s desires remain mysterious and unexplained, even to herself, suggest the total repression and denial of homosexual desire by British society. Bertha’s frustration with her situation is suggested by the story’s ending. While Bertha is desperate for some progression in her relationship with Pearl, the story’s ending is anti-climactic, and Bertha’s desire remains unfulfilled. The still, untouched quality of the pear tree outside and Bertha’s unanswered question of “what is going to happen now?” underscore Bertha’s lingering lack of fulfillment. Rather than reaching a climax, Bertha’s bliss remains unreciprocated and unexpressed, and the story suggests that this will continue as long as society represses certain sexual desires and emotional states.