“The Tiredness of Rosabel” from a Consumerist Perspective

Abstract

“The Tiredness of Rosabel”, Katherine Mansfield’s short story of 1908, can be read as the writer’s narrative-cum-commentary on consumer culture in the modern city. Set in London’s West End in the Edwardian era with an alienated milliner as a protagonist, the story focuses on the dehumanizing working conditions of the shop girl. Given that it is concerned with an unveiling of the disenchanting reality behind the glittering façade of the retailing business, Mansfield draws upon the precedent writers who portrayed the shop girl principally as the victim of advanced capitalism. Yet a closer reading reveals that the story is more than a critique of capitalist socio-economic arrangements, addressing the central issues that revolve around ‘shopping’ in general, the practices of which comprise much of the heroine’s preoccupation. The story attempts to define shopping as a contested social arena in which the politics of class, gender and identity all come to the forefront, and intersect with each other, informing and shaping the individual’s consciousness and behaviour in a consumer society.