Living the Blissful Life in Katherine Mandsfield´s Bliss

Over the course of our lives, there are times where we are at a high point, where our lives are full of happiness and there is nothing for us to worry about. However, we often come to sit back and realize that our lives might not be exactly how we imagine it. There are problems and obstacles that we must choose to overcome. With the rate society is evolving at, we miss out on the little things like friends and family that makes our lives that much more special. Life can be filled with bliss no matter how bad things may seem and we can find true happiness from fixing these problems to make our lives blissful.
Bertha Young, the protagonist of Katherine Mansfield's Bliss, is a woman in her thirties, but as her last name "Young" implies, she is still in the stages of maturing. Her acts of maturing can be seen on the passage on page 91:
"… she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh atnothingat nothing, simply."
The way Bertha is living is because she has lived less than half of her life and to relate Bertha's life to real life, the author uses the symbol of a pear tree.
Bertha convinces herself that her life is blissful and perfect at the moment, but what makes her think this is "it must have been the spring" (pg. 96). In the spring time, pears begin to blossom on pear trees with white blooms and eventually, pears begin to dangle from the tree.
There are many places throughout the story where the reader is meant to compare Bertha to a pear tree. As Bertha dresses for the dinner party, she is described to be ...

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... has kept through the ten pages of this story is what makes Bertha's life full of happiness. Her persistence in being ignorant gave her "a feeling of blissabsolute bliss! as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun." (pg. 91).
Bertha has the ability to live a blissful life because she decided to live for herself and not "up to code" or what society portrays of a happy life. Bertha has everything in life, a husband, an adorable baby, no money troubles, a satisfying house and even a garden. In order for us to be like Bertha and live a blissful life, we first need to learn to forgive, forget and ignore. If we are constantly looking at the bigger picture like what final grade we receive in a course, our lives will never be blissful. We need to learn to step out of our little box sheltered life, to live a life that is truly blissful.