Male dominance and female complicity in "Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding".
Katherine Mansfield's "Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding" is a short tale dealing with the relationships between husband and wife in late 19th Century German society. This is achieved by viewing the attitudes of people in various stages of their relationship: A newly married couple at their wedding, Frau Brechenmacher's own marriage and that of a three-times widowed old woman. I believe that these characters and relationships are used to deal with the subjugation of women in the late 19th Century German society, but more specifically, woman's complicity in the oppression of others by the dominant male.
The story's subject is the wedding in which Herr and Frau Brechenmacher attend, including their preparation beforehand and a post-mortem afterwards, which, if read by itself, would not intimate anything sinister or unhappy about the idea. However, the theme of suppression and domestic violence is developed very soon within the tale. Frau Brechenmacher's husband, from the first, is presented as a dominating, patriarchal man who controls her absolutely. The Frau calls him "The Father", which at once distances him from being within the family but instead held above it and above the wife. The daughter Rosa, complains about her early curfew, but the moment the Herr is used as a threat, all protests cease - which tends to indicate that the violence is not limited to the Frau alone.
Furthermore, there is no doubt that the husband is a large man. All of the descriptions surrounding him are both loud and huge, for example, he stamps in, and puffs himself out. This image is reminiscent of a male bird blowing out his chest in a mating call, perhaps a comment on the overblown, inflated ego of Herr Brechenmacher. In response Frau Brechenmacher feels small around her husband and is described as "the little Frau" as he patronises her.
