The Singing Lesson

by Katherine Mansfield

The Singing Lesson: Flashbacks 1 key example

Flashbacks
Explanation and Analysis—Basil's Cruelty:

At various points throughout the story, Miss Meadows remembers lines from Basil's letter alongside other telling details about him. It is through these flashbacks that she subtly reveals the truth about the nature of her engagement. After instructing her students to sing "A Lament,"

Miss Meadows lifted her arms in the wide gown and began conducting with both hands. "... I feel more and more strongly that our marriage would be a mistake …" she beat. And the voices cried: "Fleetly! Ah, Fleetly." What could have possessed him to write such a letter! … His last letter had been all about a fumed-oak bookcase he had bought for "our" books, and a "natty little hall-stand" he had seen, "a very neat affair with a carved owl on a bracket, holding three hatbrushes in its claws."