Sun and Moon (Mansfield)

"Sun and Moon" is a 1920 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in the Athenaeum on 1 October 1920, and later reprinted in Bliss and Other Stories.

Plot summary

The children, Sun and Moon, are hanging around the house while a party is being prepared. They play games, then are sent off to bed. The party wakes them up; their parents find them out of their beds and instead of scolding them, they let them go downstairs for a bite - but Sun starts sobbing because Moon has eaten the nut from the centerpiece (the moment of ruined perfection, a recurring theme in Mansfield's work), and they are sent off to bed again.

Characters

• Sun (a boy)
• Moon (a girl)
• Nurse
• Annie
• Mother
• Father
• the pianist
• Minnie, the new cook.
• Nellie, the housemaid.

Major themes

• The gap between children and adults

Literary significance

The text is written in the modernist mode, without a set structure, and with many shifts in the narrative.

External links

• Full text