How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped
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"How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped" is a 1912 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in Rhythm in September 1912 under the pen name of Lili Heron.[1] It was republished in Something Childish and Other Stories (1924).
Plot summary
[edit]Pearl Button is playing outside whilst her mother is ironing clothes. Two Māori women go up to her and ask her to come with them. After a long walk they arrive at a Māori settlement, where the little girl is given a fruit to eat. Then they drive towards the seaside. Pearl has never seen the sea; they play about. Suddenly, a crowd of policemen runs toward them to take Pearl away again.
Characters
[edit]- Pearl Button
- two Māori women
- more Māori people
- family[mom]*
- police*
Major themes
[edit]- Māori culture : the story is written from the child's perspective, who takes to Māori culture right away. However, she is scared by the white men coming to pick her up.
Literary significance
[edit]The text is written in the modernist mode, without a set structure, and with many shifts in the narrative.
Footnotes
[edit]- ^ Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories, Oxford World's Classics, explanatory notes
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