The Garden Party

THE GARDEN PARTY, KATHERINE MANSFIELD.

Katherine Mansfield was a New Zealand shot-story writer and poet who lived between 1888 and 1923, in this essay we are going to focus on her work The Garden Party, in this short story, she describes the setting of a party in a high class society house, Laura is in charge of preparing all the party and throughout the day, she will face some events which will lead into an introspection of herself.

First of all, we have a brief description on how the day of the party is, and it is described as a very pleasant atmosphere, once we have the setting, some characters are presented, Laura, Meg and Mrs. Sheridan. The mother seems to be organizing a party and she has let the responsibility of the organization on her children, she sends Laura to the garden in order to helps her sister with the placement of the marquee, and there, she meets the workmen, a group of middle/low class people who had been hired in order to do so.

Laura’s encounter with them is a bit troublesome for her as she does not know how to treat them properly, so she decides to act as her mother, and she starts giving orders to them. But Laura is surprised with the attitude of these group of people as they act as if they were friends and even though they seem to be very rough, one of them picks a flower and smells it, this certainly strikes her and makes her complain about the attitude of some of the men she knows because they do not seem to appreciate little things as these group does.

In this moment Laura seems to discover that there is world outside her high-class society and the life her mother is showing her, it is the first contact outside that bubble she makes, and it is like if she is acquiring some conscience of how life really works.

All of this is interrupted when Laura was being phoned and she had to answers, so she is back into the house and her privileges, now she has to deal with a huge load of flowers and the cook, in this part Laura is in some way separated from her previous thoughts and is forced to get back to the high-class mind, but all of this is interrupted when the cook announces that someone has died down the street. Laura gets horrified and asks her brother Jose if the party should be cancelled because of this event, and her brother tells her that it does not matter and it is not something which should concern her, which pretty annoys her and decides to tell that to her mother, whose response is almost the same.

Apparently Laura is the only one who has not faced death yet in her whole life, and when she hears about someone who has died recently and near her house she is wondering about what to do because it does not feel correct for her to continue with the party, but finally she is convinced to not worry much about it and the party is carried out. The party is described as a perfect event, everyone has had a great time, even Laura, but when the party is over, she starts questioning herself again and her mother decides to send Laura with a basket to see their neighbours. Once Laura is at the house where the man lived, her wife leads her to the room where the corpse is, and there, Laura discovers death, the man for her is deeply in peace.

Finally in this part Laura discovers that death is an unavoidable event which sooner or later will affect her too, and that the world did not stop for the death of someone as in the end, no matter if you are rich or poor, it is something which will come.

In conclusion Laura seems to be living in an illusion created by her mother in her manner, but in the day of the party, Laura seems to realize that the world is not limited to just what her mother is showing her and she even defies her when she wants to stop the party after their neighbour’s death, the insensitivity of her family really annoys Laura. Finally, Laura faces death and reaches her own conclusions about it.

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