Katherine Mansfield’s “The Arabian Shawl” unfolds as a tense, half-remembered conversation between two people. The shawl itself becomes the focus: it was once wrapped around a woman’s head and throat on a cold, dark night, and now it carries the “strange, sweet charm” of that earlier meeting. One voice recalls a passionate pledge—“I love you so—I will be your wife”—and seems to want the old intimacy to fold around them again. But the other voice refuses the memory, calling it “childish foolishness” and insisting that tonight is the first time they have met. The speaker is caught between longing and denial, trembling even while saying there is no harm in remembering. The mood is intimate and eerie, full of unspoken feeling, as if the shawl both protects and smothers the truth. That final line, “Let me take off my Arabian shawl,” feels like a deliberate shutting out of the past.
The Arabian Shawl — Summary
“It is cold outside, you will need a coat-- What! this old Arabian shawl! Bind it about your head and throat, These steps ... it is dark ... my hand ... you might fall.”
What has happened? What strange, sweet charm Lingers about the Arabian shawl ... Do not tremble so! There can be no harm In just remembering--that is all.
“I love you so--I will be your wife,” Here, in the dark of the Terrace wall, Say it again. Let that other life Fold us like the Arabian shawl.
“Do you remember?” ... “I quite forget, Some childish foolishness, that is all, To-night is the first time we have met ... Let me take off my Arabian shawl!”