What Laura Didn't learn in The Garden Party

1959 Words4 Pages

At the conclusion of The Garden Party, Laura is exposed to a side of life she has never encountered before, and comes to a sudden realization that "life and death may indeed coexist and that their common existence in one world may be beautiful" (Magalaner 101). Death is not necessarily associated with ugliness, she learns, but rather it is a natural process which she likens to sound, peaceful sleep. However, her ostensible epiphany is really only astonishment. Laura’s world revolves around the finer things in life, garden parties, and flowers, and she has been surrounded by beauty her whole life. Her social class is too ingrained in her for a momentary glimpse of the contrasting life of the lower class to really affect her (Sorkin 445).

Laura, the main character of The Garden Party, acts as the narrator and provides a link between the two contrasting forces of the story: the Sheridan’s world, filled with privilege and gaiety, and the Scott’s, one of hardship, death, and sorrow (Fullbrook 120). At the end of the story, Laura faces a dilemma as she has to cross the barrier between the two worlds, and face the death, mourning, and loss that her own class hides. The Garden Party represents Laura’s gradual progression in many ways: the search for her own identity, maturity, and passage into her ultimate journey down to Saunders Lane. Her advancement can be viewed in terms of her behavior before, during, and after the party. The opening paragraph of The Garden Party sets the tone for the rest of the story by "[suggesting] the unnaturalness of what is to occur in a ‘natural’ setting" (Magalaner 98). Mansfield’s imagery and diction reflect not only the Sheridan family’s wealth and elitism, but their attitude that they can "summon ...

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... will not be affected much by her experience as she escapes back into her world.

Works Cited

Davis, Robert Murray. "The Unity of 'The Garden Party.'" Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. II, No.1. Fall. Newberry College, 1964. 61-65.

Fullbrook, Kate. "Late Ficiton." Katherine Mansfield. The Harvester Press, 1986. 86- 128.

Hankin, C.A. "Haunted by Death." Katherine Mansfield and her Confessional Sotries. St. Martin's Press, 1983. 235-247.

Magalaner, Marvin. "The Legacy of Fiction." The Fiction of Katherine Mansfield. Southern Illinois University Press, 1971. 74-119.

Satterfield, Ben. 'Irony in 'The Garden Party.'" Ball State univesity Forum. Vol. XXIII, No. 1. Winter, 1982. 68-70

Sorkin, Adam J. "Katherine Mansfield's 'The Garden Party': Style and Social Occasion." Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. XXIV, No. 3. Autumn, 1978. 439-455.

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