1. Introduction 1.1 Research background Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), one of the most significant and outstanding figures in modern English literature, makes great contribution to the development of modern short stories. Her short but legendary life is her main source of inspiration. In order to seek better literature development, Mansfield gave up her leisure and affluent life in New Zealand and went to London alone. Once she set foot on London, she was destined to be a wandering soul without home. As an innovator in the transitional period, Mansfield paid much attention to the detailed description of daily life and common people, blending in her own life experience. Her most famous works include Bliss, The Garden Party, Miss Brill, The Wind Blows and so on. Most of her works concentrate on the topic of women and the depressed life in the capitalist society, reflecting her concern of female destiny and gender relationship. This thesis chooses three short stories of Katherine Mansfield: A Dill Pickle, Bliss and The Daughters of the Late Colonel to study the gender relationship of lovers, couples, and father and daughter. A Dill Pickle tells about an encounter in a restaurant of two lovers who broke up six years ago on a basis of Mansfield#8217;s own experience. Bliss describes a young married middle class woman, Bertha Young, whose heart was filled with feeling of bliss because she had a dinner with all her dear friends in the evening. However, at last she found out that her husband Harry had an affection with her close friend Miss Fulton and all her feeling of bliss collapsed. While The Daughters of the Late Colonel focuses on the helpless life of Constantia and Josephine after the death of their father. 1.2 Need of the study Katherine Mansfield wrote almost 100 short stories, the topics of which cover family relationship, social relationship, man and nature, man and society and individual inner experience and psychological development. Among many short stories related to family relationship, father-daughter relationship and marital relationship deserve discussion. The society of England at the beginning of 20th century was dominated by patriarchy culture, so that women held a rather low living position, who were expected or even forced to play the role of ”Angles in house”. Living in this era, Katherine Mansfield spilled a lot of ink over women#8217;s living status. Even though she didn#8217;t take herself as a feminist, the gender relationship between her lines possesses a vivid feature of feminism. Further more, gender is one of the most vital classification in human beings#8217; social life. In the last century, revolutionary changes have taken place in the area of people#8217;s view and belief of gender, especially the theory of social construction in the 1990s, holding the opinion that either sex or gender is constructed by social life and both of them, as explanations to human body and human relationship, belong to cultural type. 2. Literature review It was in the late 60s and early 70s, with the development of women#8217;s liberation movement, that the feminist literary criticism emerged. So that Mansfield#8217;s personal experience and her feminist consciousness, revealed in her unique feminine writing and acute insight of female life, was followed with interest and attention, like one of the brightest colors in the drawing of sluggish English feminine literature in the early 20th century. A large number of scholars and experts shown their concern about the female images in Mansfield#8217;s short stories and each of them put forward his particular opinion and theory. Among the documents that I refer to, some of them share the same research topic but from wholly different aspects. For the feminism in The Daughter of the Late Colonel, Tang (2009) mainly applies the art of writing such as symbolism and implication to embody females#8217; existing situation and she holds the view that the use of image gives the novel a mysterious coloring. While Yang (2013) brings forth new ideas in that from the perspective of theoretical construction of feminist translation, translation is compared with female based on the agreement that translators are servants of authors, and women are inferior to men. In order to expound Mansfield#8217;s feminist consciousness, plotless and timeless story, stream of consciousness and symbolism are mentioned by He (2011) and Li and Zhao (2005). A mass of use of apostrophes and dashes, as a distinction between female language and male language, adds technical beauty of fragmentary to the story (Li and Zhao, 2005). With regard to writing skills, Huang (2005) also refers to shifting the point of view within the confines of a sentence. Tang (2014) and Ren (2012) focus on the classification of females in Mansfield#8217;s short stories. According to Mansfield#8217;s writing period, Tang (2014) believes that in her early-to-mid period, females only take silence as a tool to protect themselves, while in her mid-to-late period, due to social revolution, feminist awakening consciousness strengthens and females are independent mentally but still rely on males in life. Different from that, Ren (2012) neatly divides these females into three categories: victims in the family, the invisible women, and doll and rebel. They have one thing in common: as victims, they are subject to oppression from men at some level (Ren, 2012). Some limitations of Mansfield are raised by Ren (2012) at the end of the essay including her narrow scope of writing confined by her poor health and her pessimism about life because of her own traumatic life experiences. Works Cited He, Danli. [何丹丽]，”Katherine Mansfield: A Special Feminist#8212;By A Close Reading of A Dill Pickle”. Overseas English，2011，08，（295） Huang, Chunying. [黄春英]，”Tragic Life: Comments on The Daughters of the Late Colonel”. 《王林师范学院学报》，2005，（48） Katherine, Mansfield. A Dill Pickle. Selected Edited by Vincent O#8217;sullivan. W. W. NORTON COMPANY. 2006 Katherine, Mansfield. Bliss. Selected Edited by Vincent O#8217;sullivan. W. W. NORTON COMPANY. 2006 Katherine, Mansfield. The Daughters of the Late Colonel. Selected Edited by Vincent O#8217;sullivan. W. W. NORTON COMPANY. 2006 Li, Juan. [李娟]，Zhao, Jianhong. [赵建红]，”曼斯菲尔德小说的女权主义特征分析”. 《重庆邮电学院学报》，2005，04，（120） Ren, Aihong. ”Women Characters in Katherine Mansfield#8217;s Short Stories”. CSCanada，2012，12，（101） Tang, Dongmei. [唐冬梅]，”论曼斯菲尔德短篇小说所折射的两性关系”. 《电影文学》，2009，（84） Tang, Qi. [汤祺]，”论凯瑟琳#183;曼斯菲尔德短篇小说中的两性关系”. 硕士论文. 湘潭大学，2014，05 Yang, Nianfen. [杨年芬]，”从女性主义翻译理论构建视角解读《已故上尉的女儿》”. Overseas English，2013，09，（216） Outline Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Research Background 1.2 Need of the Study Chapter Two Literature Review Chapter Three Research Topic and Research Methods 3.1 Research Topic 3.2 Research Methods Chapter Four The Gender Relationship in Katherine Mansfield#8217;s Short Stories 4.1 Gender Relationship in A Dill Pickle 4.1.1 Brief Introduction of the Story 4.1.2 Gender Collision Between Vera and Her Lover 4.1.3 Gender Relationship Between Lovers 4.2 Gender Relationship in Bliss 4.2.1 Brief Introduction of the Story 4.2.2 Gender Collision Between Bertha and Harry 4.2.3 Gender Relationship Between Married Couples 4.3 Gender Relationship in The Daughters of the Late Colonel 4.2.1 Brief Introduction of the Story 4.2.2 Gender Collision Between Constantia, Josephine and Father 4.2.3 Gender Relationship Between Father and Daughters Chapter Five Conclusion