Marriage a la Mode

“Marriage à la Mode” is a Modernist short story that depicts the social transformations and changes brought about by modernization in Britain in the early 1920s. It examines a woman’s transformation through her husband’s perspective and explores the couple’s unhappiness.

The story has three settings: a train from London to the country, Isabel and William’s new home in an unspecified country locale, and William’s memories of their old home in London. These settings embody the tension between old, traditional values (embodied by the old house) and new, modern ones (embodied by the new one); the train as a connecting space between the two reflects industrialization’s role in creating this change. The action unfolds in vignettes that take place over a weekend and a Monday morning, highlighting the most pertinent incidents during William’s isolating weekend at home. The story consists of three parts and is narrated from William’s point of view for the first two. The last part is told from Isabel’s point of view. Their separate narrations emphasize their estrangement from each other, reflecting the Modernist preoccupation with alienation.

In the first part of the story, Katherine Mansfield uses free indirect speech to wander in the main character’s mind.