Laura’s Struggle for Growth in The Garden Party
Through her short story "The Garden Party," Katherine Mansfield portrays a young woman’s struggle through adolescence and her tumultuous entrance into adulthood. Mansfield paints a tale of grievance, bewilderment, enlightenment, and maturation furthered by the complications of class distinctions. Mansfield’s protagonist, Laura, encounters considerable hardship in growing up and must denounce all of the puerile convictions in her chimerical world in order to attain maturity in the real adult world.
As does any normal teenager, Laura Sheridan struggles to make sense of her adolescent life. As Don Klein remarks, "The story’s focus—and central dramatic impulse—is the young girl’s secret struggle to grow up" (124). Grappling with excessive inner turmoil, she attempts to erect a unique identity for herself, one set apart from those of her family members. In order to effect such radical transformation, she is first compelled to overcome several major impediments in her life, the most encumbering being her mother.
The overbearing presence of Laura’s mother and her mother’s ideals pose an impending hindrance in Laura’s progression to adulthood. As Laura battles with maturity, she begins shedding the skin of her childhood and hence begins transcending the mold created for her by her mother’s upbringing. Laura also begins to denounce the snug, evasive dream world that her mother has suffocated her in. Mrs. Sheridan intentionally raises her children in this dream world in order that she have complete control over their thoughts and actions without their knowledge. She furthers this dream world by letting them believe that they, and not she, are actually in control. For in...
... middle of paper ...
... the daily life struggles of an average teenager, but also, on a more personal level, she gives insight into her own adolescent hardships as well.
Works Cited
Davis, Robert Murray. "The Unity of ‘The Garden Party.’ "Short Story Criticism 23 (1993): 128-30.
Klein, Don W. "’The Garden Party’: A Portrait of the Artist." Short Story Criticism 23.(1993): 123-8.
Mansfield, Katherine. "The Garden Party." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996. 2510-20.
Taylor, Donald S. "Crashing the Garden Party: A Dream-A Wakening." Short Story Criticism 23 (1993): 121-2.
Walker, Warren S. "The Unresolved Conflict in ‘The Garden Party.’" Short Story Criticism 23 (1993): 119-21.
Weiss, Daniel A. "Crashing the Garden Party: The Garden Party of Proserpina." Short Story Criticism 23 (1993): 122-1.
Many factors affect the strength of a nation’s government, but one in particular created the foundation for a country hundreds of years afterwards. The Constitutional Convention occurred in Philadelphia during the hot, humid summer of 1787, at a Philadelphian state house. Delegates from twelve of thirteen states all convened to create the Constitution that would become the supreme law of the nation, and would let power fall in the hands of the people. The author of Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen, narrates the trials and contributions of delegates from the developing states that eventually built a bustling nation of liberty and freedom. Those four months spent in one room calmly debating how to improve the government is arguably the most important moment in American history.
Catherine Drinker Bowen is the author of many historical, non-fiction, in-depth looks at different events and the personalities and tribulations that forged them. She has written a total of more than 30 books on the United States and its beginnings. Mrs. Bowen has an education in American literature and is a major in literature. She has experience in the field by writing so many books and including so much first-person perspective in her books. She also researches her facts and notes extensively, so her books are very, if not completely accurate.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print
Renner, Stanley. “The Real Woman Inside the Fence in ‘The Chrysanthemums’.” Modern Fiction Studies. Vol. 31. No.2. (Summer 1985). 305-317. print; reprinted in Short Story Criticisms. Vol.37. eds. Anja Barnard and Anna Sheets Nesbitt (Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, 2000). 333-339. print.
Hodara, Susan. “A Garden of Prose.” Harvard Magazine Sept.-Oct. 2010: n. pag. Web. 25 Jan. 2011. .
Abrams, M.H. and Greenblatt, Stephen eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Seventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.
Evans, Robert C., Anne C. Little, and Barbara Wiedemann. Short Fiction: A Critical Companion. West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill, 1997. 265-270.
...by and The Garden Party the themes are apparent throughout the introduction. In Araby the setting begins in a state of darkness introducing the main theme of light and darkness. Similarly, the beautiful setting described at the beginning of The Garden Party establishes the upper-class ranking of the Sheridan family, demonstrating class distinction. Although the two main characters are from different classes, the family backgrounds of each provide information which helps to further develop their themes respectively. The struggles which both characters face demonstrate character development and contribute to the themes of the stories. Both short stories prove to be literally effective in that they disclose the main themes at the outset of each story. Although the themes may alter over the course of the stories, they are clearly defined in their respective introductions.
... not as they conceptualized. As adulthood is commonly linked with age, the shift from adolescence to maturity arises with experience. In Joyce’s “Araby”, the emotional journey for the narrator, begins with the infatuation with his best friend’s sister, and ends with his disillusionment for love. In Mansfield’s “The Garden-Party”, Laura acts as a tie between the brightness and wealth of the Sheridan’s contrasted with the darkness and sorrow of the Scotts. While struggling with inner confusion, she attempts to build a unique identity for herself. Her emotional journey culminates with the viewing of the deceased man, and her powerful realization of life, where her life is put into perspective of life on a universal level. Both main characters experience major changes in their personality, as well as their psychology, and these insights change both of them incredibly.
Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny Cromie. Vol 39. Detroit: Gale, 2000. Short Story
“Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven”(Yiddish Proverb). These words apply to Katherine Mansfield’s short story, “Garden Party” as she touches on some very controversial points about the social inequality of the Sheridan family with its surrounding neighbors. A great internal and external quarrel over social class rises in the Sheridan family as Laura Sheridan, the daughter, sympathises with the less-fortunate neighbors while her mother, Mrs. Sheridan is the opposite. Mansfield illustrates to her readers the conflict within Laura in various ways, namely, using foil characters between Mrs. Sheridan and Laura, using multiple symbols and appealing to emotion to emphasize her main message of social equality.
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.
Katherine Mansfield explores profoundly the world of death and its impact on a person in her short story, "The Garden Party."
It’s a question that keeps floating around in the public sphere: is print advertising and newspapers dead? The world is becoming more and more fast-paced and although, our want and need for the up-to-date news and breaking stories has not changed, the way in which we consume it has. This background report investigates and explains the downfall of the newspaper and the technological shift to online news. It will also discuss differing opinions of this relevant topic of the future of journalism from a range of reliable primary sources and investigative data.
However, Nieman Journalism Lab proves that 96% of newsreading is done in print editions (Journalism.about.com, 2014). According to The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) which was released in 2014, newspaper circulation has increas...