SOURCE: Mortimer, Armine Kotin. “Fortifications of Desire: Reading the Second Story in Katherine Mansfield's ‘Bliss.’” Narrative 2, no. 1 (January 1994): 41-52.

In the following essay, Mortimer provides a reading of the “second story” found near the end of “Bliss.”

When the heroine of Mansfield's well-known, extraordinary short story discovers her husband's infidelity less than a page before the end, a second story untold in the first but necessary to its meaning erupts into the narrative, to devastating effect. The devious second story construction leads, and often misleads, the reader, who interprets clues and applies general cultural competence to “re-tell” the once-submerged second story.¹ Appealing to the reader's cooperation in its complex processes, the story subverts the reading subject, placing her in the position of the unknowing heroine.

“The truth is,” Katherine Mansfield wrote in her journal, “one can get only so much into a story; there is always a sacrifice...