What are the literary criticisms related to the story of The Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield?

Central to understanding the story is realising how
Mansfield is using the Kelvey sisters and the way they are treated to point out how
cruelly class distinctions lead others to treat those who occupy the lowest rungs of
society. Let us remember that Mansfield was writing at a time when class distinctions in
New Zealand were still maintained very strictly, if not even more than in Britain. Thus
it is that we see a microcosm of society with different social classes. But Mansfield
seems to suggest that there is always a class that is not
accepted:

But
the line had to be drawn somewhere. It was drawn at the Kelveys.... Even the teacher had
a special voice for them, and a special smile for th eother children when Lil Kelvey
came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking
flowers.

Note how even the
teacher, the person who should be treating all of her students equally, is shown to
discriminate against the Kelveys. This raises one of the more sinister and rather
disturbing theme that this story raises: the way that higher classes, including the
children belonging to those classes, enjoy and take pleasure in the cruelty and abuse
that they can inflict on people like the Kelveys. The end of the story, for example,
suggests that Aunt Beryl finds something cathartic in abusing the Kelveys having been
pursued herself about money owing:

readability="13">

The afternoon had been awful. A letter had come
from Willie Brent, a terrifying, threatening letter, saying if she did not meet him that
evening in Pulman's Bush, he'd come to the front door and ask the reason why! But now
that she had frightened those little rats of Kelveys and given Kezia a good scolding,
her heart felt lighter. That ghastly pressure was gone. She went back to the house
humming.

Note how this scene
finds its parallel in the story when the Burnells and friends make fun of the Kelveys
cruelly, and become 'wild with joy' as a result. Thus any criticism of this story needs
to explore how snobbery and cruelty are legitimised by class distinctions, however cruel
and barbaric that leads people to become in their behaviour.