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Katherine Mansfield's A very sad look at the life of a poor housemaid, contracted to work for a 'literary gentleman'.
 * Life of Ma Parker**


 * Plot**
 * Ma Parker answers a question from the literary gentleman about the death of her grandson and walks inside.
 * Flashback to her with her grandson
 * She is there to clean his house and this happens every Tuesday
 * Flashback to her husband being diagnosed of flour in the lungs and how hard her life has been since her husband died- she had to look after all of her children and provide food and shelter.
 * The literary gentleman accuses Ma parker of stealing cocoa “ you didn’t throw away any cocoa last time you were here – did you?”
 * The literary gentleman leaves and after a little bit Ma Parker gets upset and leaves and walks to the street, wanting to cry but unable to because she can’t find a place to be alone.


 * Structure**
 * Characters**


 * Ma Parker:** a charwoman of literary gentleman who cleaned his house every week. She was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. She had had a low qualified education which was shown as she didn’t know who William Shakespeare was until she watched the play in the theatre. She had 13 children and 7 of them died. Her husband died and left the rest of the children for her to look after.
 * Mr Parker:** a baker. Was diagnosed of flour in his lungs. He soon then died, and left all the children for his wife.
 * Literary Gentleman:** whose flat Ma Parker was cleaning. He accused Ma Parker of taking the teaspoonful of cocoa as he assumed poor people like Ma Parker only cared about materials. This suggested that he had the strong concept of classes and different between classes.

Written in 1921, this story is set in London in a time where there is a clear distinction between upper and lower classes.
 * Setting**

The Literary gentleman’s house is large and spacious which represents his wealth; it includes a hall, kitchen, and many bedrooms. The gas stove in the kitchen shows that he is of a high class. He has everything he could want, and does not care too much about cleanliness as it is described as a “gigantic dustbin”

Ma Parker stops on a “cold street,” from here she can see the difference places that are available to her but she can’t go to any of them. She feels like she cannot express her emotions with other people around. This “cold” street is not a pleasant place to be, yet she stops to think here. Ma Parker lives in a basement - even in her ‘home’ she cannot find privacy to express herself.

The style of writing that Katherine Mansfield uses in ‘the life of ma parker’ is similar to her other short stories. She provides a short detailed account of different topics which project feelings of herself and others through costume, objects, colours, mood and weather. Mansfield tends to start her stories in the middle of a scene to make the reader deduce the start of the story. This technique drags you into the story and continues to keep you attentive to detail. This is another technique that she uses, her ability to describe objects in the story making them symbols of themes, in the life of Ma Parker for example some main objects being the shoes and the apron. The shoes are described as ‘agony’ which is a parallel to her life and it has been: “agony for years”. The apron symbolizes her hard work and her lack of reward for efforts to raise a large family dealing with illness’ and such like. Further on in the story we come across subtle details such as spelling errors i.e. ‘beedles’ and ‘pardings’. This is a subtle hint to the reader that Ma Parker never had a privileged upbringing, and not much of an education. The mood of the text is reminiscent, as the death of her grandson, Lennie, has sparked her looking back on her life and her grandsons life. The mood is negative as while she is looking back on her life, she is only remembering the bad moments and how harsh her life has been. “Yes,” she thought, as the broom knocked, ‘what with one thing and another I’ve had my share. I’ve had a hard life”. The atmosphere seems hopeless as we realise that Ma Parker see’s the death of her grandson as a symbol that she has nothing left to live for, so she has almost given up. Crying symbolise the negative mood and her loneliness. ‘Men walk like scissors’ suggests that the people surrounding ma parker are cold, ignorant and perhaps selfish.
 * Style**
 * Mood / Atmosphere**
 * Theme**