(Photo: detail from Paul Gaguin’s ‘Woman from Arles in the Public Garden: The Mistral’ (1888) housed at the Art Institute of Chicago) Analysis, ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’ by Katherine Mansfield (1922) This particular story begins by stating the obvious; the Colonel has died, leaving behind his daughters to sort out his estate: “The week after was one of the busiest weeks of their lives” (88). Mansfield immediately dives into the idea that the events following the Father’s death are more coddled and delicate than the fact of his actual death itself. Visitors and well-wishing mourners walk on eggshells around the daughters: “He folded his coat-tails and began to lower himself into father’s arm-chair, but just as he touched it he almost sprang up and slid into the next chair instead,” (95).The girls themselves have a hard time accepting their Father’s death, most especially Josephine, who, when watching the Colonel’s coffin being lowered into his grave, can only imagine his fury and upset at the expense of such a flourished and silly ceremony, “Father would never forgive them. That was what they felt more than ever when, two mornings later, they went into his room to go through his things” (98). Even in his death, the girls still feel uncomfortable entering his room without knocking, suggesting a strict, cold relationship amongst them all. In concluding the non-linear narrative, the girls, now both independent of their late-parents, hold a confused and unsure discussion of their futures in which they both forget what they were going to say.